Supply Chain Digital Show speaks to 1NCE COO, Ivo Rook

On the latest Supply Chain Digital Show on LinkedIn we spoke with Ivo Rook, COO and president of 1NCE, the first IoT network carrier to offer connectivity services with a worldwide low-cost flat rate. The following is an edited version of that interview. The show is available to watch on catch-up here.

How does 1NCE help supply chains? 

When you think about it, supply chain is all about coordination, and what we do is coordinate data all around the world. It's a relatively simple story, but one that is difficult to execute, and so we work really hard to do one thing: providing uninterrupted IoT networking to help our customers - your audience - to change the world. 

We do this by allowing our customers to collect data from sensors, deployed everywhere in the world in a very simple way. Then we provide them with the tools to help them translate their data into actionable intelligence. It sounds easy but connectivity is hard, and we are trying to make it simple and predictable.

You are a low-cost IoT network. How important is that?

We are about 50% lower cost than most of our competitors but this doesn't mean we don't make a margin. We don't actually look at ourselves as being low cost. We see it as offering fair value. It shouldn;t cost more than $10 for 10 years to connect a sensor. 

We are a custom-built dedicated IoT network that allows us to have direct access to data from carriers all across the world, built on our own software. We then provide it back to customers at a flat rate. 

This allows many people in the supply chain to do storage monitoring, whereabouts monitoring, location monitoring - all these things, seamlessly across the world.

How do you help with IoT deployment in supply chain?

The biggest challenge in cellular and satellite  communication protocols is that it's not a global business, it's domestic. This gives operators a problem, in that what works on one network doesn’t work on another. 

IoT should be like electricity. When you plug in a kettle you don’t think for a second that there might be no power. it has to be like that in telco. And it is with us. Our telco network is always on. 

It’s also truly global. All of the software features we develop on top of the network work in exactly the same way, all across the world. This means our customers can build applications that behave consistently, anywhere. 

What do the next 5 years hold for IoT and supply chains?

Our ambitious target is to be completely invisible, so that companies do not realise their applications run on the service we provide. The telecoms industry over-complicates things. 

They need to start thinking about what they provide as being a precious commodity that is made available in a simple way.