Sigfox Poland is a provider of Sigfox technology and the exclusive Sigfox partner in Poland. Providing all components of IoT solutions, from devices and connectivity through to software and professional services, Sigfox Poland is focused on helping their customers to achieve real return on investment on their IoT projects.
We caught up with Michał Kowalski, partner and co-founder of Sigfox Poland to find out more about how they are using Daizy to accelerate their IoT projects.
“Using the Daizy platform, we’re achieving a 90% reduction in the time spent installing and configuring IoT devices.”
Michał Kowalski, partner and co-founder of Sigfox Poland
We started by asking Michał about the challenges of adopting IoT in Poland today. “While they recognise the potential value of IoT, many customers are worried about the cost and complexity of deployment and integration with existing business systems. However, by delivering end-to-end IoT solutions, we are already shortening deployment times and accelerating time to value. In fact, since adopting the Daizy platform, we’re achieving a 90% reduction in the time spent installing and configuring IoT devices.”
This reduction in installation and deployment times reduces overall project costs and drastically increases the likelihood of a successful business outcome for Sigfox Poland’s customers.
The flexibility to achieve real business outcomes
The current approach to investment in IoT projects across many industries could be described as overly cautious. This approach is the result of past experiences where many existing IoT solutions have struggled to address often complex requirements with a solution that is cost effective.
When engaging with customers, Michal and his team found that many had already tried and failed to achieve desired business outcomes with proof of concepts projects. “We found that 80% of the customers we engaged with had run proof of concepts that had not achieved their intended objectives, often due to unexpected costs or a lack of suitable technology.” explained Michał. “So, we determined very quickly that to deliver successful proof of concepts we would need an extremely agile and flexible end-to-end solution that could adapt to the needs of each project, without lots of bespoke development or lengthy integration work. The solution also needed to allow a 100% focus on delivering the customer’s Return on Investment.”
Michał started the search for a suitable platform but found that many came up short “We were looking at different platforms and approaches but Daizy was the only platform that had everything we needed in a single solution.”
“Daizy was the only platform that had everything we needed in a single solution.”
“For example, some platforms had great data visualization but were struggling with device provisioning, while others were good at device management but were unable to provide different connectivity options. We compared a number of different platforms in detail and at the end of the process going with Daizy was a no-brainer.”
Achieving true end-to-end IoT capability
As a Sigfox operator, Sigfox Poland already has access to 1000s of device types and a powerful global network for connectivity covering 75 countries. However, Michał recognised that to provide complete solutions for a broad range of customer needs, they needed the flexibility to incorporate other connectivity standards including NB-IoT, LTE-M and LoRa. “Daizy supports all IoT connectivity options in a single platform, so now we have a single view for enabling and managing our customer’s IoT connectivity needs and running seamless integrations.”
Daizy facilitated having devices and connectivity from different providers in a single platform, so, Sigfox Poland could further simplify IoT projects by offering a single API for accessing all project data.
IoT use case expansion
Working in partnership with Daizy afforded Sigfox Poland the opportunity to approach new and existing customers with new use-cases, I asked Michał to tell us more about some of the key verticals they will be targeting.
Facilities Management
“With a broad range of use cases for facilities management, ranging from improving the tenant experience, through to compliance requirements and reducing energy consumption, our customers are looking at a broad range of devices from different manufacturers. With Daizy, we don’t need to worry about device or connectivity compatibility, and any new devices are onboarded by the Daizy team within a week.
The Daizy mobile app makes it really easy to provision IoT devices across many dispersed environments and floors of buildings, and, because this is done in the field, it also gives us and our customers greater control over teams working in the field.
Integration with Facilities and Building Management Systems has been straightforward, and Daizy’s logic building tools are great for designing automations when extracting device data, which has saved us days of development time.”
Transportation and Logistics
“Some customers are seeking an end-to-end tracking solution, from tracker through to logistics and asset tracking platforms, while others need a solution to integrate with their existing ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) and TMS (Transport Management System) systems. So, we needed a flexible IoT device management platform that would allow us to inject data from IoT devices directly into the customers preferred platform. We’ve already used Daizy to help us develop an innovative plastic pallet tracking solution to drive more efficient pallet distribution and recovery.”
Utilities
“With the grow in smart metering, customers are reaching out to us to help them streamline the management of water, gas and electricity meters. Daizy has allowed us to offer smart metering regardless of utility being managed.”
Proving business cases during Proof of Concepts
As highlighted in this recent report from McKinsey, many end-customers are struggling to deliver successful proof of concepts (PoCs), and, as a result, the business case for IoT can fail at the first hurdle.
“Daizy has given us the flexibility we need to deliver successful business cases and to demonstrate value very quickly – the holy grail of IoT projects.”
Sigfox Poland’s approach has been to focus on ensuring agility and flexibility: “To achieve successful outcomes for our PoC’s, we need to overcome some of the key challenges facing IoT deployments today, such as complexity, installation costs and the verticalization / siloes of data.” Explained Michał. “Using Daizy has given us the flexibility we need to deliver a successful business case and to demonstrate value very quickly – the holy grail of IoT projects.”
Securing a competitive advantage through an open IoT ecosystem
With a market full of ‘verticalized’ IoT solutions that limit access to data and hamper the ability to expand into additional applications, Michał sees a competitive advantage in Daizy’s open approach to the IoT ecosystem. “Some of the vendors here in Poland are providing solutions for specific verticals, but we don’t see anyone providing a solution that can span across many use cases on a single platform. By combining a large portfolio of Sigfox devices with the capability of Daizy we can achieve this goal without building complex integrations or custom applications.”
Building a strategic partnership with Daizy
We’ve had some great feedback from the team at Sigfox Poland who have been really impressed with the expertise of the Daizy team, both in terms of their broad understanding of the IoT market, but also the technical ability of the team.
“We are expecting to make significant growth in terms of the number of customer and devices deployed – Daizy has helped us to build out a significant pipeline of opportunities.“
“We’ve had lots of questions and the support provided by Daizy has been a massive help in accelerating our IoT projects. We speak to many partners who have either business or commercial knowledge, but Daizy have brought these two together. We are expecting to make significant growth in terms of the number of customer and devices deployed – Daizy has helped us to build out a significant pipeline of opportunities.”
At Daizy we’re excited to be working with a leading player in the Polish market and we look forward to helping IoT enter a phase of hypergrowth in Poland.
Ready to accelerate your IoT deployments? Get in touch today.
