27 September 2022

According to a recent McKinsey research report, the economic impact of IoT will reach up to $11 Trillion by the year 2025, with B2B use cases accounting for 65% of the total IoT value.

The promised business value of IoT highlights a fundamental societal trend: the convergence of the digital and physical worlds. Organisations that bring together experiences and insights from the cyber-physical world will be at the forefront of innovation and economic prosperity. In order to prepare for an IoT-driven future, organisations need to adopt digital transformation initiatives that focus on operational excellence, business value and end-user experience. At the same time, they need to pay close attention to the underlying cybersecurity challenges and privacy implications.

An exhaustive digital transformation strategy will be required to maximise the value potential of IoT solutions, so let’s discuss how IoT can transform your business and how you can prepare for an IoT-driven future.

1. Optimise Operations Through Real-Time Data Insights

One of the greatest potential for business transformation comes with optimising operations and asset management. Recent advances in communications – specifically the large-scale adoption of 5G connectivity – has empowered organisations to deploy IoT devices at scale, track physical assets and manage assets with real-time data-driven insights. Using advanced AI and Big Data technologies, the process of collecting data, analysing information and acting upon insights can be automated with minimal human intervention required. As a result, organisations can make proactive decisions to optimise operations and eliminate waste processes that impact business productivity.

2. New Digital-First Business Models

Traditional business models have focused on transferring product ownership as well as shifting the risk of downtime to end-users. IoT connectivity is disrupting this space with the ability to monitor product health, anticipate failures and guide predictive maintenance cycles. This has allowed organisations to transition from the ownership-transfer model to the products-as-a-service model, where the vendor remains responsible for product performance and uptime, while customers only pay for the usage defined by a Service Level Agreement (SLA).

Another example of business model transformation with IoT is the product sharing model, where multiple users share a limited set of products without retaining ownership or responsibility for product maintenance. This model is gaining steam in the mobility industry – players such as WhizzCar and GetGo in Singapore are prime examples.

By adopting these business models, organisations transition from a traditional products or services brand into a highly scalable technology business.

3. Improve Workforce Productivity

IoT technologies offer two avenues for improving workforce productivity . First, organisations can employ smart devices to facilitate an array of business use cases that require information access and task automation for a mobile workforce. For instance, a production-line operator at a manufacturing plant can use smart glasses and augmented reality overlays for real-time support on complex tasks. Quality Assurance inspectors can automatically log defects and update their findings in real-time instead of checking each component individually.

The second avenue of IoT-driven productivity relates to human health, cognitive performance and safety standards. Employees can use smart devices that capture multiple metrics on their health and the surrounding environment such as air quality, temperature and noise levels. With this information, employers can make the accommodations necessary to maintain a safe and healthy work environment for its workforce, thereby maximising productivity over the long term.

4. Improve Customer Experience with Real-Time Feedback

Progressive organisations develop compelling customer experiences by carefully understanding user interaction with the products and services they offer. IoT technologies and connectivity have enabled organisations to collect insightful information on user behaviour and continuously improve product features. By proactively taking the right measures and guiding product improvement to user satisfaction, businesses can transform their customer relationships and boost brand loyalty.

In essence, IoT connectivity offers two capabilities that help business organisations to reimagine and redefine customer experiences: an immediate and holistic view of their entire user-base with granular details on user interactions and external metrics; and hyper-personalization of products and services at the individual user level.

5. Automate Compliance, Governance and Controls

The traditional approach of manual audits, monitoring and control have no place in the age of digital transformation. Business organisations are rapidly scaling operations and are often overwhelmed by the myriad of compliance obligations. Meeting these objectives manually becomes virtually impossible and a performance bottleneck for organisations looking to scale operations in a cyber world that is subject to a variety of international compliance requirements.

IoT offers an increased oversight on operational processes, quality control, safety and security, and other business functions subject to stringent regulations. Business organisations can align processes with the applicable standards and compliance requirements by using IoT technologies for real-time monitoring and control. These capabilities can be applied to reporting and documentation to maintain a single source of truth, analyse metrics performance on safety and security to generate real-time alerts, as well as trigger automated actions where necessary.

The Asia Pacific region is readily adopting connectivity technologies, with over 3.3 billion IoT connections projected by the year 2025. How do you get started with your digital transformation journey driven by IoT technologies and connectivity?

In order to penetrate the market with high growth potential, an effective IoT strategy would balance the risk and opportunities associated with next-generation connected devices. It’s important to understand the cybersecurity and privacy implications of collecting vast user information, exposing connected devices to public networks and storing large volumes of sensitive user data in the cloud. With this strategic approach, your organisation can adopt the IoT-enabled transformations mentioned above, across a variety of use cases and business applications.