6 Ways The Internet of Things (IOT) Impacts Business

The Internet of Things (IoT) is changing the world. It has already changed consumer lifestyles and buying habits.  While slower to happen, it is also changing the enterprise. Industries are using IoT technologies to improve operations, processes, products, services, and, of course, customer experiences.  But how?

The power of IoT is its ability to turn physical objects into new sources of digital data streams that are connectable to the internet or private digital networks.  As such, it opens up new doors of opportunities for leveraging new data into business operations or creating new lines of business. If your company is thinking about IoT, here are some strong reasons why to consider it.

Efficiency and Cost-Savings

Integrating IoT into an organization can add greater flexibility, create efficiency, and improve agility. In the manufacturing industry, for example, companies add sensors to machinery to generate automatic reports of failing parts, overworked engines, and predictive analysis of the useful lifecycle of machinery. These insights help address failures before they occur, enabling engineers to find fixes in advance to prevent operational downtime, reduce costs, and promote worker safety.

Discover New Lines of Business

Many c-suite executives report that the Internet of Things is helping create new business opportunities. A good example of this is that companies can not only manufacture and sell a product, but can also sell a subscription service to monitor the ongoing health and wellness of that product through an Internet of Things connected sensor embedded in the product. These sensors can also be used to compile data about the performance of thousands of sensors at a time to recognize trends in performance, upkeep, and maintenance needs. This allows for future iterations to be built taking those trends into account.

More Data, Richer Insights

As just mentioned, IoT not only enables the collection of more data but also more varieties of data. These data streams can aid in operational efficiency and make it easier to make data-driven business decisions. Having the Internet of Things integrated into an organization can reveal new kinds of data previously not available for measurement. Imagine putting IoT sensors into productions systems, warehouses, vehicles, and assembly lines. Suddenly stakeholders now have access to all kinds of new data to analyze and incorporate into their business intelligence. As large quantities of data move through through all levels of the organization, business leaders are able to watch and measure performance in real time. This has never been possible before the Internet of Things and is creating a new standard for data analytics and monitoring.

Understanding Your Customers

The Internet of Things is not only changing things internally, but has also paved the way for new opportunities to understand your customers. Using Internet of Things connected sensors cameras, your organization can gain a greater insight into your customer’s behavior. A good example of how cameras and sensors can be used to gain greater insight is for retailers: using cameras and sensors to automatically relay data about customer positioning in a store will allow for business intelligence to figure out where customers are spending time and how it might make sense to position objects or fixtures to make their experience better. This may also help businesses or organizations plan when and how to have promotions: having some idea of how your customers interact with your business and having data automatically integrated into their touch points allows for a much better understanding of their behavior and needs.

Creating Better Customer Experiences

Being able to observe your customers and automatically stream data about their behaviors is helpful for business decisions, but more importantly, it can help your business leaders make decisions to craft the best-possible customer experience. Companies are able to use data to monitor actions in real time and determine the needs of the customer on a very big picture level. They can respond to demands, requests, and problems near-immediately. This allows for a seamless and automatic use of resources to solve organizational problems sometimes even before customers are aware of said issues. The flow of data from various connected touch points allows for a multidimensional view of the customer that has never existed before. Business leaders can use this multidimensional view of the customer to create a new and better experience for them and then also continue monitoring the success of said effort.

Discover IOT-Driven Opportunities

The Internet of Things has changed life. What is most exciting and compelling about recent developments, however, is how it is changing business to consumer relationships and now that relationship is becoming more symbiotic as a result. Never before have businesses been able to capture and act on such a vast amount of real-time data to address customer needs, solve problems, and create a better experience for them. Additionally, the Internet of Things has made backend business strategy more efficient and informed than ever before.