Almost every day, people unintentionally carve out another piece of their digital footprint. Be it through the heartbeat monitor on our smart watches or the location tracker on our smartphones – we generate an unimaginable amount of data daily. Sometimes, this data benefits us as consumers, while other times it provides valuable insight to the product owner. Be that as it may, we are living in a data-driven world and for the most part, we're all the better for it – modern technologies keep us connected and in the loop. However, these technologies don’t cater solely to the individual. Rather, the Internet of Things (IoT) is designed to benefit the business world as well. Companies all over the globe employ IoT technologies to boost their performance. While the method to this IoT madness may seem vague now, the rest of the article will show you why IoT technologies are the new must for any business.
Improved insight – what do the customers want?
IoT technologies give businesses insight into their customers that was long considered impossible. Through data obtained from consumers, companies can better understand the way people use their products and services. IoT technologies offer businesses unique insight into the wants and needs of their customer base. Once they understand what their customers crave, businesses can better design and market their products and services. While it may be unexpected, one industry leading the charge in data-driven management is the retail industry. By embracing IoT technologies for gathering consumer data, companies like Amazon are now in full bloom. As a result, many household names suffered tremendous losses, as their businesses failed to evolve. The prevailing consumer philosophy today is 'instant satisfaction’ and that is exactly what IoT technologies offer.
Cost and downtime reduction – how to avoid a catastrophe
One crucial benefit that the majority of IoT companies offer is cost and downtime reduction. IoT technologies, like the digital twin, provide businesses with digital models of their physical assets based on real-time data. While this explanation may come across as vague, here is a practical example. Breakdowns in production are thought of as inevitable. Once they occur, these disturbances can take days or even weeks to trace and resolve, resulting in increased costs and downtime. However, instead of waiting for a break to happen, digital twins can see them coming sometimes even weeks in advance. This technology is a digital mirror image of the system and thus knows when to alert the engineers to a potential threat. Instead of days spent searching for the issue, all the engineers would have to do is schedule regular maintenance checks on the system and through this you can know how can a business maximise profit.
Efficiency and productivity – how to make it go faster
IoT technologies connect different parts of the system thus creating one clear image of the entire business. With such a sharp picture, companies can see which sectors are failing and require optimization in efficiency and productivity. By implementing IoT technologies, businesses are expected to boost their revenue by 154 million dollars. One company that is at the forefront of this is Ford. The production giant has developed suits with integrated body-tracking technology for its workers. Similar to technologies used to monitor athletes, these suits recorded workers' movements across 21 workstations. The gathered data pinpointed the most stressful work areas that were harming production efficiency. Based on this, Ford implemented necessary changes to these stations and increased employee productivity. While the problems identified by IoT technologies may seem small, every new boost in efficiency will boost revenue as well.
Waste reduction – what the business doesn’t need
A crucial component to maximizing productivity is waste reduction, an issue more difficult to deal with than meets the eye. While a business may appear to be running at maximum efficiency, it could be leaking assets without even knowing it. Because IoT technologies have an unobstructed view of the entire business, they can help reduce unnecessary waste. This point is best made through a real-world example – the case of a European manufacturing company. In short, the business was losing a tremendous amount of capital because boxes were getting lost in the supply chain. By implementing IoT technologies, the company was able to trace each box with a device that updated its location twice per day. While it no longer had as many boxes go astray, it also located an entire stash of missing supplies and thus drastically cut its losses. In this case, another benefit of this IoT technology was that it offered novel insight into box misplacement – the company was thus able to adjust its supply chain and resolve the problem as a whole.
Even though IoT technologies may seem like just the newest trend on the shelf, by the looks of it, they’re here to stay. Instead of running from them, businesses should take the leap and look into what IoT companies have to offer. Because the technologies are so diverse, there is something for just about any company and business model out there.
