Why managers should choose Connhex

Choosing Connhex as a foundational element of your company's data strategy involves both technical and economical aspects. This page tries to shine a light on both, highlighting key strategic factors CTOs and managers should focus on.

We'll be comparing Connhex with alternatives - namely building in-house or contracting the development of your own IoT platform: with some variations, all the following points are applicable to both cases.

Why you should choose Connhex instead of building your own IoT platform​

Team​

Building an IoT platform in house means creating a dedicated software development team, if one does not exist yet. Similarly, outsourcing the creation of an IoT solution from scratch involves selecting and coordinating one or more contracting partners.

By choosing Connhex, you are removing all the risk involved in creating the right team to build the foundation of your connected products.

Eliminate product risk​

Choosing an existing solution instead of building one allows you to avoid laying out its specifications. While creating an IoT infrastructure completely tailored to your needs might sound ideal, your requirements will usually evolve over time. Connhex already supports a wide range of use cases: it will support both your current and future necessities.

Moreover, Connhex has already been extensively tested and validated: with many companies relying on it, you are minimizing the risk of incurring in unpredictable challenges¹.

Time to market is drastically reduced​

Connhex allows you to drastically reduce time to market. How much? As always, it depends - but it's at least measured in double-digit months. Reducing time to market is essential:

• as long as you don't have a solution ready, you're passing on opportunities - potential customers won't be buying from you,
• you're allowing your competitors to increase their market share. Once they have a dominant position, convincing someone to make the switch to your solution might not be so easy.

While estimating the effort required to build your own solution from scratch, remember to also take into account any additional regulatory process. Not being technical, this phase is often overlooked: see for example our GDPR compliance analysis to get a feel for what it takes to process data in the EU.

No fixed costs​

Developing your own IoT platform requires a high upfront cost. NRE² activities are a substantial component, but you should also take into account selecting and managing the entire development team.

With Connhex, there are no fixed costs, and you can budget a precise amount - ever found yourself with effort estimates doubled over time? Don't worry, we've all been there.

Why you should choose Connhex over existing IoT platforms​

If you're looking for a detailed comparison with existing IoT platforms, here's one. In this section, we'll just highlight a couple of differences between choosing a generic off-the-shelf IoT platform and creating one based on Connhex.

Maximum flexibility​

By choosing Connhex, you'll retain maximum flexibility to build the perfect IoT platform for your needs. We've already taken care of standardizing common features, so that you can focus just on building what makes your solution unique - all without giving up any of the robustness and safety that come with a complete product.

A single partner, if needed​

Connhex is backed by Compiuta: we're a one-stop-shop that can support you in extending Connhex and developing additional apps to cover all of your needs. Or you can do so in-house, since every API is public available.

Data is under your control, with no vendor lock-in​

Connhex runs on your servers, not ours - we just handle the monitoring and update your instance. This means no vendor lock-in is possible, since the entire system is under your complete control from day one.

You also won't be relying on a third party to ensure business continuity and won't find yourself needing to deal with a painful migration from one service to another - as you would if the SaaS IoT platform of your choice suddenly shuts down.

When alternatives make sense​

Connhex is an opinionated software: we think this is the only way to build great things. This comes with a trade-off: Connhex might not be the best solution for your needs if you're just starting out, developing a PoC or only need to connect a few devices. In this case, you should probably just look for an existing off-the-shelf IoT platform.

If you plan to offer a general-purpose IoT platform, and your internal cloud software development team has enough free time to tackle such a project, building in-house might be a wise solution. Be aware that, whether you choose to build on top of Connhex or from scratch, there's still the need to implement at least some business logic layer, plus all user facing apps - so make sure you're estimating the total required effort properly.

Why you should choose Connhex as a technical manager​

As a manager, you should choose Connhex if you:

• need to get to market fast and don't have time to go through the testing, validation and compliance phases
• don't want to deal with assembling an internal dedicated team or selecting and managing suppliers
• work in a dynamic environment, with always-evolving requirements
• have a finite budget and want to avoid high upfront costs
• can't compromise on quality and performance of your connected solution

So where should you go from here? If you're onboard, great! Go here to explore Connhex configurations. Still unsure? You can always reach out for any additional information: we'll be glad to hear from you!