Digital Marketplaces Unleashed
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Start/Stop rings
Is switched on
Sets alarm time
When rings
Heater
Prepares water
Is water prepared
When water is prepared
Coffee Machine
Prepares Coffee
Rest Coffee Cups
Is coffee jug out
When coffee is prepared
When coffee jug is out
Air Conditioning
Turns on/off
Is turned on
Sets/Gets temperature
Environment temperature
When temperature changes
Window Blinds
Opens/Closes
Is open
–
Bed
Makes it self
When process is completed
Door
Opens/Closes
Is open
Lock
When opens
When closes
Hi‐Fi
Plays/Stops music
Music list
–
TV
Starts/Stops
Switch on/off
Channel list
–
Light
Turns on/off
Is turned on
–
Plug
Switches on/off
Is switched on
When switches on
When switches off
The functionality of these smart objects are visually mapped respectively with the air conditioning as depicted in Fig. 71.5. For the development of this application, the end‐user has to develop six different events. The first four events could just use the events which is supported by the smart objects as shown in Table 71.1 and the visual code has to be developed for these events as depicted in Fig. 71.6 respectively. Using only the provided smart object events, the respective visual code for the fifth event is depicted in Fig. 71.7 (top, left). However, this visual code could not be an easy task to develop for everyone because of the basic programming skills it needs. In this context, as it is aforementioned in Sect. 71.4.2 we have designed appropriate visual code expressions making programming the events more user‐friendly. The respective visual code for the development of the fifth event using such visual expressions is depicted in Fig. 71.7 (top, right). Moreover, we have developed the last defined event from Fig. 71.2 using asynchronous functionality “onDoorClose” which is supported by the main door, by adding an extra visual statement of wait 5 min and then executing the rest defined visual statements of the event as shown in Fig. 71.7 (bottom, left). So by using the visual expressions we have defined, the end‐user programming of this event could be developed as shown in Fig. 71.7 (bottom, right) alternatively.
Fig. 71.6EUP of the first correspondent four events of the morning automations depicted in Fig. 71.2 using our visual programming tools
Fig. 71.7EUP of two last events depicted in Fig. 71.2: using events of SOs (left); using visual expressions of our VPL (right)
71.6 Marketing Personal Applications
The development of smart object applications will be created by end‐users, could be helped in its growth by the potential of publishing such applications to digital marketplaces as custom software products. In this context, end‐users could share their applications, re‐use other end‐users’ applications and be inspired by them.
Digital marketplaces have been recently used for the mobile applications (e. g. iPhone App Store, Google Play) giving the consumers access to a vast number of mobile applications and also enabling individuals to reach a mass audience for their applications. These digital marketplaces have created a long tail of mobile applications, helping in the growth and maturity of the respective markets. In fact, we are developing all visual tools and respective runtimes to execute on existing mobile operating systems, so that the resulting end‐user applications can be directly published on existing application stores. Effectively, the latter opens a new digital marketplace, that of the personal smart automations in the context of the IoT.
71.7 Discussion and Conclusion
The plethora of applications which can be applied in the context of IoT shows that a wide audience would like to use visual programming platforms in order to develop automations for their necessities. Furthermore, the audience requirements for such a platform will differ. The majority of people would like to develop pure automations. However, there are end‐users who would like to develop more complicated applications. This has as a result that the visual programming tools for smart objects have to provide different programming levels based on the requirements (e. g. pure adjustments of smart objects imply the corresponding convenience and directness) and the experience of end‐users. There are approaches which provide more than one skill level based on the experience of the end‐user such as TouchDevelop [6] and Tynker [7]. Furthermore, TouchDevelop provides templates with different kind of programs, so the end‐users choose the most appropriate for their development process to avoid starting programming from scratch. Both of the aforementioned approaches and generally total visual end‐user approaches are focusing on learning programming and most of them are specialized for children. However, end‐user programming for smart objects is aimed at a huge range of people with different background knowledge, wide range of ages and level of experience in the context of the smart objects, programming etc. This results that the visual end‐user programming platform for smart objects has to provide differ EUP paradigms to be able to match with different background knowledge and in parallel cover the total requirements of the potential end‐users. In addition, taking into account that the IoT era is in its infancy, there are new necessities which will arise in the future. That means that the VPLs designed for IoT have to be flexible with appropriate mechanisms for adding new features for the smart objects either from the developers of the VPL or from end‐users. There are related approaches which support new expressions and features to the VPLs such as Scratch and Blockly [8].
This chapter presents our vision of personal applications in the IoT through Visual Programming by presenting scenarios which end‐users may develop using end‐user programming features. Furthermore, we describe our approach and then we present a case study using our tools. Finally, we discuss the potential of a new digital marketplace of the personal automations in the context of the IoT.
References
1.
M. Resnick, Maloney, A. J. Monroy-Hernández, N. Rusk, E. Eastmond, M. A. Brennan K., E. Rosenbaum, J. Silver, S. B. und Y. Kafai, Scratch: Programming for all, Commun, 2009.
2.
“Microsoft VPL,” August 2016. [Online]. Available: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb483088.aspx.
3.
“HomeKit developed by Apple,” August 2016. [Online]. Available: http://www.apple.com/ios/homekit/.
4.
M. H. E. Jung, W. Kastner und A. Jara, “Short paper: A scripting-free control logic editor for the Internet of Things,” Internet of Things (WF-IoT), IEEE World Forum, Seoul, pp. 193–194, 2014.
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“IoTSyS – Internet of Things integration middleware,” August 2016. [Online]. Available: http://www.iue.tuwien.ac.at/cse/index.php/projects/120-iotsys-internet-of-things-integration-middleware.html.
6.
N. Tillmann, M. Moskal, J. Halleux, M. Fahndrich und S. Burckhardt, “TouchDevelop: app development on mobile devices,” in In Proceedings of the ACM SIGSOFT 20th International Symposium on the Foundations of Software Engineering (FSE ′12), New York, NY, USA, ACM, 2012.
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“Tynker,” August 2016. [Online]. Available: https://www.tynker.com/.
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Blockly, August 2016. [Online]. Available: https://developers.google.com/blockly/.
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Part XVI
Global Challenges – Local Solutions
© Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany 2018
Claudia Linnhoff-Popien, Ralf Schneider and Michael Zaddach (eds.)Digital Marketplaces Unleashedhttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-49275-8_72
72. Preface: Global Meets Local
Daniel Hartert1
(1)Bayer AG, Leverkusen, Germany
Daniel Hartert
Email: daniel.hartert@bayer.com
When people explain what “Digital” really means, they typically mention large global brands like Facebook, Amazon, Google or Twitter as the example. Certainly, these assets combine a lot of market power, customers, and innovation, and their sheer size is already a competitive advantage. Following these leading firms in their respective categories, many other companies have joined their ecosystems and benefit from the associated value. However, like in the traditional non‐digital world, next to global brands the world provides a lot of space for local brands, niche players and startups.
New digital business models are making use of platforms that provide value to diverse participants, and this applies globally as well as locally. Global trends, such as the partial convergence of the automotive, car rental, transport and tourism industries into what we now call simply “mobility”, are affecting local markets and national systems. The way how we get from A to B is changing, based on a combination of factors that are all contributing: generation Y being less keen to own a car, traditional traffic systems being overloaded or over‐polluted, car sharing business models being well accepted, train and flight operators attempting to offer better end‐to‐end solutions, and new taxi services being based on convenient booking platforms.
Digital is often being characterized to be associated with a principle business model where value is driven by a combination of product + service + experience. “Product” in this equation is often the hook for traditional industries to get into digital business, i. e. enriching existing product categories with additional services for better experience and therefore loyalty by the customer.
In the western world, but also increasingly in developing countries, a significant percentage of physical consumer goods is owned and marketed by global brands. For television, audio/video products, computers, smartphones and cars, there is almost no local product available anymore. Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) often still carry local brands, but are increasingly owned by global conglomerates. As a consequence, the digital strategies linked to such product categories are mostly defined on a global corporate level, with little influence or variation by individual countries. Brand owners strive to protect the power of their brands globally, and therefore even prescribe the associated digital marketing plans on local levels. As a consequence, product related digital business models, product‐embedded digital extensions such as connectivity to social platforms, as well as related Apps are mostly designed and deployed on a global level.
However, when digital business models are based on “service + experience”, omitting a product to be involved, then there exists a very significant degree of local business development, creativity and variation: local social platforms, transportation, tourism, banking and insurance, real estate, labor and temporary work, energy providers, common interest platforms, e‐Government solutions – the list is long and associated platforms are growing fast.
Two fundamental challenges of our world – Food and Health – are facing industry‐wise their own set of challenges. Due to regulated environments, they also carry different characteristics when it comes to globalization and localization as outlined above. For the remainder of this article, I will focus on Digital Farming in the context of global Food Supply.
One of the most pressing challenges of the 21st century is the need to secure future food and water supply for a rapidly growing global population – estimated to reach 9.7 billion by 2050. It is a challenge that must also address associated issues such as global warming and environmental protection.
The need for fast growing food supply is not only driven by demographics, but even more by the fact that the world population is becoming wealthier and therefore increases its meat consumption. As a result, overall calories intake is estimated to grow by more than 50 % in the period from 1999 to 2030. Taking into account that available farmland continues to slightly shrink over the next decades (from a peak of appr. 1.5 billion hectares in the early 2000’s), it becomes very clear that the food supply challenge requires innovative solutions that will not only change associated industries, but very likely also the profession of farming.
Between 1970 and the year 2000, farming was able to consistently increase its yield for major crops by an annual percentage of about 3 %. That’s an impressive number, but unfortunately Moore’s law does not apply to farming processes. The current growth rate is a mere 1 % – which is by far not sufficient to feed the world by 2050.
But growth and yield are not only dependent on available farmland. Water resources, new kinds of pests as well as more resistant pests, and new weather situations incurring with the ongoing climate changes all influence our crops as well. While traditional methods of breeding improve the quality and resilience of crops and farm animals, the deployment and utilization of modern technologies to generate a higher degree of precision and efficiency in agricultural management practices is detrimental. With such new technologies, farmers will experience a fundamental shift of their focus areas and a related necessary upskilling, while at the same time new ecosystems will change the landscape of traditional value chains.
The bad news is there is no silver bullet. But the good news is that within the digital farming framework, there are many new ways to address the challenge and to deliver tangible improvements. At the core of any such new approaches is data. Better local weather prognosis, hourly available spread of pests and diseases, sensors delivering soil and plant data, GPS systems enabling to analyze crops within a resolution of a square foot, predictive analytics connecting different data sources to deliver better prognosis and recommendations – the combination of new technologies can deliver a very powerful set of tools helping the farmer to further increase quality and yield at reasonable levels of effort.
Based on available satellite imaging, fields can be scanned and analyzed for spots of drought or certain diseases. Intelligent algorithms interpret the raw images, determine amongst other factors the bio mass growth, and calculate specific dosage of substances to be sprayed by the farmer in the field. The related data can be provided in standard formats to be read on the go by the tractor, allowing to only spray where necessary.
Applying such digital technologies will not only lead to a more convenience for the farmer’s job, but has the potential to fundamentally change the agro business model. Instead of selling large volumes of product which is being sprayed across entire fields today, agrochemical companies might switch to outcome based business models, by which they offer the farmer a weed‐free or disease free‐field.
Applying the digital farming business models on a local level comes with a set of diverse challenges. While it makes economically sense for large fields as you find them in the US or in Brazil, the many very small farms in countries like India are less suitable to benefit. However, because of the small size of their fields, satellite images have no advantage over local ground inspection anyway. The creativity in these countries has already led in the early phases of Digital to local solutions that provide a better fit. For example, running heavy supply chain solutions with thousands of local dealers in remote areas is not possible. But having local service agents who visit local dealers on a daily level by motorbike works well. They quickly scan barcode slips of sold products with a smartphone App, transmitting the related data to the corporate sales offices.
The latter example is also pointing at another potential local roadblock: underdeveloped digital infrastructure i
n remote areas. Being economically driven, Telecom providers are focusing on areas with maximum subscription potential when building out new broadband and mobile infrastructure. Big cities have highest priorities, and often investment priorities are leading to replacing the latest xG technology in the cities before even bringing the last generation to remote areas. A balanced deployment of broadband infrastructure across high and low population areas is the basis for equal opportunities in the digital economy. Governments must ensure that the local coverage is further increasing, also to prevent further rural exodus and urbanization.
When infrastructure conditions are met, Digital Farming will certainly contribute to achieve a higher yield of crop on the same size of land. At the same time, it has the potential for less usage of chemicals. The combination of continued R&D for superior crop protection solutions and more resistant seeds, with digital solutions, should help to compensate the decreasing availability of arable land and adverse effects on climate changes. In that context, Digital is of significant importance to overcome the global food challenge.
Based on the example of Digital Farming, the characteristics of global brands and their digital implementation into local environments, and the four articles in this Section “Global Challenges”, we can conclude that any of the major global challenges will require a variety of answers and solutions on a local level. Even with “Digital” and a borderless Internet, the way you approach local markets will remain a key success factor for any business.
© Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany 2018
Claudia Linnhoff-Popien, Ralf Schneider and Michael Zaddach (eds.)Digital Marketplaces Unleashedhttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-49275-8_73