Empowered by AI, value-added services can deliver superior data analysis and personalization alongside intelligent, continually evolving automation. Connected systems can be augmented with flexible, scalable subscription and licensing models to ensure ongoing revenue generation. Lastly, data-driven insights can both streamline operations and identify new revenue streams.
These use cases are not without challenges. Managing and deploying services across an entire ecosystem can result in significant overhead. Data availability, meanwhile, is essential for ensuring the success of AI initiatives — the sheer volume and diversity of information can easily overwhelm a business.
There’s also the matter of payment infrastructure. A successful subscription-based service model requires the capacity to securely manage payments across a variety of formats and devices. It also demands constant uptime, with even minor interruptions potentially leading to churn.
Traditional infrastructure cannot overcome these challenges. IoT business operations require flexibility and standardization. In this article, we’ll explore the reason why — and how the right technology partner can help unlock the full monetization potential of IoT.
Rigidity is the Enemy of Service Enablement
Pre-configured vertical stacks often struggle to provide the differentiation, sophistication, and scalability required by IoT for several reasons.
When each solution is pre-configured for a specific vendor or use case, businesses often find themselves hampered by fragmentation. Instead of integrating multiple interconnected systems into a unified platform, each solution must be managed independently.
This lack of interoperability severely impedes an organization’s ability to scale through technical debt and management overhead. It also creates data silos that impede both analytics and AI training.
Adapting preconfigured technology to support new business requirements or services is also both costly and time-consuming. Vendor lock-in exacerbates the problem, limiting an organization’s ability to select and integrate the best solution for each use case.
IoT service enablement and monetization requires an open, interoperable, and consolidated platform that makes data readily available for AI, supports device- and vendor-agnostic revenue generation, and provides integrated payment and service management.
This is precisely what Clea, SECO’s unified, cloud-native software suite, provides.
Clea’s Core Technologies
A modular solution designed to address the revenue challenges of modern IoT deployments, Clea is divided into three core offerings that are linked by REST APIs: Clea Edgehog, Clea Astarte, and Clea Portal.
Clea Edgehog: Seamless, Container-Based Management
Edgehog is an open-source device and fleet management platform that enables secure control and maintenance for connected systems.
In the context of service enablement, Edgehog enriches product experiences by allowing an organization to flexibly deploy and manage third-party applications. Its container-based, hardware-agnostic approach makes it ideally suited for large ecosystems, supporting greater agility while reducing both the cost and operational burden of device management.
Clea Astarte: Data Flexibility and Scalability
Astarte is Clea’s connectivity and data processing building block, facilitating real-time IoT data processing with flexible, granular data modeling. Astarte is open-source, akin to Edgehog.
By allowing organizations to dynamically define how data is structured and exchanged, Astarte supports more effective AI model training. Because Astarte also makes data more readily accessible and available to systems and services, it also enables deeper personalization.
Lastly, through Astarte Operator and Kubernetes, the solution streamlines service deployment and customer onboarding through automated vertical and horizontal scaling.
Clea Portal: Rapid Service Deployment and Monetization
Clea Portal is an intuitive, extensible web-based interface for device management, software integration, and service monetization.
Portal user interfaces are developed via a drag-and-drop development tool, simplifying both service delivery and UI customization while also ensuring a unified experience for end-users. Its visual, low-code approach enables rapid service deployment without requiring extensive development resources. Finally, its integrated billing framework supports advanced monetization and readily links with payment platforms such as Stripe.
Open REST APIs: Middleware-Free Data Integration
Built on widely adopted standards such as JSON and HTTPS, Clea’s REST APIs allow developers to integrate IoT systems without relying on proprietary protocols or specialized middleware. Architected to break down data silos and enable cross-platform data exchange, the APIs are easy to integrate with both SECO and non-SECO hardware.
Manufacturers remain fully in control of their ecosystem, with complete freedom to deploy new services or modify components as needed, enabling rapid, sustainable service enablement and monetization.
To ensure ease of use, Astarte and Edgehog APIs are documented using the OpenAPI Specification. This interactive, human- and machine-readable documentation provides developers with an interface for exploring endpoints, parameters, and API calls.
Exploring Four Potential Applications for Clea
Now that we’ve talked about the different ways Clea supports service enablement and monetization, let’s examine what that looks like in practice. We’ll start with some of the most common use cases seen amongst our clients.
Predictive-Maintenance-as-a-Service
Especially where mission-critical systems are concerned, businesses cannot afford unplanned downtime. They can no longer rely solely on emergency repairs and scheduled maintenance. Instead, they need something more proactive.
Therein lies the problem. Predictive maintenance tends to be extremely complex. Many industrial organizations don’t have the in-house expertise to manage.
Manufacturers of components such as industrial pumps can seize this opportunity, deploying monitoring sensors alongside a comprehensive predictive maintenance subscription service. For a monthly fee, customers gain access to AI-powered failure prediction, performance optimization, and maintenance scheduling. Those who don’t subscribe can still gain access to analytics and alerts.
Member-Exclusive Purchase Options
Modern consumers increasingly demand better service, deeper personalization, and greater convenience. The intersection of AI and IoT represents one of the most compelling ways for businesses to provide this. A smart vending machine, for instance, might operate a subscription service that gives access to exclusive product selections, mobile app ordering, personalized recommendations, and loyalty rewards.
Monetized Fleet Management
Software-defined vehicles are increasingly common in both the public and private sectors. Consequently, they’re increasingly playing a role in logistics, with businesses relying on connected sensors and GPS trackers to coordinate and schedule deliveries. This is an incredibly valuable potential line of business for automotive manufacturers, who could provide advanced fleet optimization functionality through Clea’s monetization framework.
Subscription-Based Appliances
Post-purchase monetization is a common challenge for appliance manufacturers — particularly those operating connected systems. To address this challenge, products such as coffee machines might be inoperable without an active subscription, with any number of optional value-added features.
The manufacturer in this scenario would use Clea to orchestrate the core service logic, manage access, and collect payments via SECO payment solutions.
Final Thoughts
The Internet of Things represents an enormous revenue opportunity for manufacturers. Embracing it, however, requires the right partner — a partner like SECO. Clea and its underlying technologies deliver a clear path to service enablement through simplified data availability, flexible service management and deployment, and sophisticated monetization.
Discover how SECO can help your organization start paving the way to new revenue streams today