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The Internet of Things – Chance and challenge in industrial bus...

The Internet of Things – Chance and challenge in industrial business relationships

The term ‘Internet-of-Things (IoT)’ was first introduced by Ashton (2009) to describe how IoT can be created by “adding radiofrequency identification and other sensors to everyday objects”. Today, the term IoT is used for a network of entities that are connected through any form of sensor, enabling these entities to be located, identified, and even operated upon without any human interference. The focus of the IoT also opens new business and market opportunities (Miorandi, Sicari, De Pellegrini, & Chlamtac, 2012). Manufacturers are focusing on the IoT data transfer to improve machine efficiency and save maintenance costs. Finally, distributed data technology and innovative hardware such as social networks, cloud computing and smart devices form an extensive network that supports IoT activities and data sharing in Business-to-Business (B-to-B) marketing (Atzori, Iera, & Morabito, 2010; Da Xu, He, & Li, 2014).