(Note: this is the third part of a three-part series. The second part can be found here: https://www.tuya.com/news-details/K9pifag9fwqc7 and the first part can be found here: https://www.tuya.com/news-details/K9obl4mocuhib)

IoT technology comes with a plethora of opportunities and challenges. First and foremost, every company needs to decide if it wants to develop its IoT projects in-house or use third parties: the build vs. buy decision.

In this three-part build vs. buy in IoT series, we’ve covered cost, time to market, scale, and security, with the conclusion for all of them being that there’s no “one-size-fits-all” in IoT and your decision to build or buy depends on your goals as a company, your resources, and your particular areas of in-house expertise.

In this final part of the series, we will examine the decision to build or buy in IoT from the perspective of support and data management, starting with support.

Build vs. Buy in IoT: Support

Support in IoT comes down to having a strong team around every single aspect of every IoT product you provide. When you think about the three main elements of any IoT ecosystem—app, connectivity, and cloud—you need to consider everything that goes into making all three of those elements work, and then everything that could go wrong with every aspect of those various moving parts.

When you choose in-house support for your IoT ecosystem, you are choosing to rely on your own internal resources to troubleshoot everything from connectivity issues to system upgrades to app updates and improvements. Support

Now, if you’ve developed everything in-house, this may be the best option since your team will know its way around its own products better than any third party will. However, consider what happens when you start to scale your IoT ecosystem: you will also need to be able to scale your support for that system. Will you be able to? Will you have the resources to hire more people or get more people involved with support? If not, you really need to consider using a third-party IoT platform that comes with a strong support team.

Watch this video to see how Tuya’s support and help center provides comprehensive support for all customers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85j4JAJqhBI

Build vs. Buy in IoT: Data Management

Especially considering the rise in demand for as-a-service IoT-based products, proper data management has become essential for finding success in the IoT market. Your smart devices will generate thousands, if not tens of thousands or even millions, of data points per day that contain key information on how, where, and why your customers are using your products.

Without a solid data management system, there is no way your company will be able to make the most of this data and use it to create better products and services for your customers and ultimately grow your IoT business.

One plus of conducting your IoT data management in-house is the security of managing your data all in one place and without having to give up access to any third parties that could potentially let in hackers or other types of cyber criminals. Data Management

On the other hand, a third-party IoT platform could have far more powerful and robust data management features than anything your in-house team could ever have time to develop. While it may seem okay at first just to have the basic data management capabilities, consider how fast the as-a-service markets are growing and the fact that so many IoT devices, such as security cameras and lighting systems, provide many ways to monetize their data and turn it into recurring monthly revenue.

The other aspect of data management is knowing everything you need to know about how your customers are using your products: Where are they located? How long do they use them for? Which products and features do they use most frequently? A great data management system will provide you with an easily usable dashboard to analyze all of this information. Do you have the internal capabilities to build such a dashboard?

Taking everything into consideration, the issue of build vs. buy in IoT, when it comes to both data management and support, comes down, once again, to what you feel most comfortable doing and what best suits your company’s particular needs and goals. Remember that getting buy in from the leaders of your company will be a key aspect of convincing them on any part of this decision, so be prepared to show how, for example, using a third part for data management can significantly increase your ROI.