Summary: Know How Businesses Are Leveraging Their Business Power with the Help of the Internet of Things (IoT). They Are Paying Attention to It to Enhance Their Business Process and Ensuring Gain Long Term Success for Their Business in This Fiercely Competitive Market. 

In this IT era, the latest technology is making its way to our day to day life. It has influenced our life to a great extent and has also affected the way we work. Now we use different gadgets and modern equipment that ease our work and helps us to complete it more smoothly and accurately than ever before. The latest technology like Machine Learning, Big Data Analytics, and Artificial Intelligence has slowly established its command across different industries. Apart from all these technologies one technology that gained significant importance is the internet of things (IoT), it has affected the different areas of various sectors to a great extent. 

The use of IoT enabled devices has enhanced the way people live their lives. According to Gartner's prediction, more than 25 billion IoT devices will be present in the market by 2021. The use of IoT will introduce new innovation for businesses, customers, and society. 

The potential growth in usage of IoT has resulted in improvement in various sectors like healthcare, education, entertainment, and many more. Now it has become possible to track assert in real-time, monitoring the ups and downs in the human body, home automation, environmental monitoring, etc have become easy and all thanks go to the internet of things (IoT). 

Internet of Things: Know Why Businesses Need It for Their Business?

As per the report by Cisco, more than 500 billion devices will be connected with the Internet by 2030. Each device that will be connected by the internet will include sensors that collect data by interacting with the environment and will communicate over a network very accurately. 

And all this will become possible through the Internet of Things (IoT) as it's the network of all these connected devices. These smart devices which are developed using this latest technology will generate data that IoT applications use to accomplish various tasks like deliver insight, analyze, aggregate which helps to respond much accurately as per user's actions. 

The internet of things is one such latest technology that is continuously improving with each passing second. As this technology connects multiple things with each other, it becomes possible for businesses to get real-time access to all the information on the network and thus it has been proved to be beneficial for them to improve their business processes. It provided multiple benefits to the businesses who adopt it, go through the list of benefits that IoT offers for your business. There are various advantages to explore when it comes to implementing the internet of things for your business. 

1. Offers a Large Amount of Data

Almost all businesses these days have realized the power of the internet of things and have started opting for the same for their business. As more and more businesses are stepping ahead to opt for this technology it is predicted that the total market value of IoT will grow rapidly and will reach $3 trillion by 2026. 

IoT enabled devices are able to collect huge data from the network with the help of added sensors. This information can be beneficial for businesses as they can easily know what their customers really want from them, how can they fulfill their demands in the best possible way, and much more. 

2. Better Customer Service 

Every business these days boil down to satisfy their customers and offer the best to them on their demand. The combo of IoT based devices with an app like spoitify can provide quick access to customers' behaviors. It helps businesses to analyze all the data which includes customers' preference, the time they spent on making a particular purchase, the language they prefer, and much more. 

All this information can help businesses to enhance their customer support and come up with an advanced solution that satisfies all their needs. Using this information you can diversify your business according to new market trends and grab all the opportunities that come your way. 

3. Ability to Monitor and Track Things

IoT enabled devices will allow all businesses to track and monitor each and every activity of their employees. They can easily know what their employees are working, how many tasks they have completed, what progress that has made, and much more. They can even share information with their employees in real-time about the current project on which they are working and can also get information from them whenever they want.  

4. Save Money and Resource

There is no doubt that machine to machine communication is growing dramatically in recent years. It is estimated that the total number of M2M connections will grow speedily from 5 billion to 27 billion from 2014 to 2024.

Machines have taken the place of the human in most of the business sector which save a huge amount of money and resources of businesses which they used to spend on human labor. Nowadays work like answering customers' queries, managing accounts, keeping other business records, and much more work in the business environment is performed by the latest application and software that has been developed using the latest technology like the internet of things or any other. 

5. Automation 

IoT helps businesses to find the best way to make their business process faster and better. They can let them know which areas to be automated so that they can reduce the task of the employees and can save a huge amount of time and resources of their business. If as a business entrepreneur if you feel that your business needs to be automated then IoT will analyze each and every area of your business and will let you know which can be automated and don't need human interaction. 

6. Helps to offer Personalized Experiences

As stated above, businesses can get all the information related to their ideal customers with the help of IoT enabled devices. They can know their purchase preferences, likes, dislikes, and much more and can try to provide a personalized experience. 

As per New Epsilon research, 80% of consumers like to make a purchase from a particular brand if and only if they offer personalized experiences to them. For example, businesses can develop accurate bills keeping in mind the analyzed IoT data and can provide various discounts and offers to the customers as more than 74% of customers expect that they will get automatic crediting for coupons and loyalty points. 

Wonders of the Internet of Things Have a Long Way to Go!

There are certain areas that are still untapped by businesses as they are unable to implement IoT technology in every aspect of their business environment. And even some of the businesses have yet not opted for this modern technology, due to which they are missing various opportunities that are in their success. There are various ways in which IoT works wonders for every business sector. As technology is evolving continually due to research and efforts of brilliant minds, there are certain changes that IoT will have much to offer to the businesses in the nearby future. 

When businesses implement the internet of things in their business they will experience enhancement in their employee's productivity, speed, and efficiency which will directly affect the business profit. Hence work on your business niche and find out whether you can implement IoT in your business environment or not. It’s the demand of time to stand out from others and you can do it using IoT, implement this technology in a basic way for your business if possible.

Internet of Things (IoT) has completely transformed the business world and drive it to the next level. The connected smart devices have turned the strategies into increased profitability. 

While seeing the present scenario, the demand for IoT solutions is increasing day by day.  To maintain the remarkable presence and to serve the enterprises with effective results, the IoT Solution provider company is enhancing and upgrading the strategies and solutions day by day. 

The work strategies of businesses have completely transformed and IoT has become a key to success. According to Forbes, “More than seven in 10 executives credit IoT with delivering increased revenue. Currently, 45% report IoT has helped boost profits by 1% to 5%, and another 41% say the impact has boosted them by 5% to 15% annually. Over the coming year, nearly all, 94%, anticipate a profit boost of at least 5% to 15% as a result of IoT.” 

So, in this article, we are going to tell you the advantages of the integration of IoT. 

Benefits of the Internet of Things 

Increased Productivity 

The integration of the Internet of Things has increased the productivity of the employees. As through the integration of smart devices, the speed process of many tasks used to increase and results are error-free. 

Saves Time 

IoT smart solutions save the time of the employees, as it excludes the repetition task of humans like the data entry in management or inventory management system. Resources can utilize that time and energy in other potential work processes. 

Easy Tracking System 

For the shipping industry, tracking has always been a hectic and troublesome process. But IoT has sorted out this challenge, as now with smart wearable devices the ship can be tracked by the management and customers also. 

Tracking System can be held by these following methods: 

1) RFID -  Stands for Radio Frequency Identification, through its team track the ship based on frequencies, there are many challenges but with time and upgraded technologies, it has turned into an easy method. 

2) GPS: The term GPS stands for Global Positioning Satellite system, GPS solutions have been integrated into the smartphones also. It helps to track real-time information. GPS can be integrated into wearable devices and smartphones. 

Increase Remote Working Process 

Working from home employees is less expensive for the enterprises as it saves the cost of infrastructure and with various IoT solutions, the working process from home has become easier. Time to time employees can update their working and have proper communication. 

Improve Customer Experience 

Internet of Things technology improves the customer experience as through it, enterprises can offer a new experience to their customers, by offering a multi-dimensional and 3D view. 

Along with this, it is helpful to provide the best facilities to the customer by monitoring, regulating and maintaining real-time issues. Often passengers face a lot of challenges like broken escalators, dirty washrooms, these issues can be analyzed through smart sensors and immediately the action can be taken by the authorities. 

As per the Forbes Insight Survey, “56%, are investing in IoT to build on the customer experience they’re delivering, and 42% have been able to expand their capabilities in terms of personalized customer experience as a result of IoT.”

Conclusion 

The demand for integration of IoT smart technologies is increasing day by day as it is turning out to be the profitable strategy for the enterprises.  Along with this, it has become an essential technology of the business and considered a smart investment. This takes the business to new level.

For more than a century, advances in technology, machinery and automation have oftentimes replaced humans as a means to accomplish tasks. In this podcast, Rob Tiffany tackles the unsavory topic of workforce reduction as certain tasks have evolved from manual to mobile to IoT.

Listen to the Podcast 

In part two of a three part series, Leonard Lee and Dean Freeman of neXt Curve discuss how IoT enables new business models with Rob Tiffany, CTO of Hitachi Lumada.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zaLyfoA3QY&t=261s

As the Internet of Things slides into Gartner’s Trough of Disillusionment, organizations all over the world are asking why they should continue their IoT journey.

Rob is here to remind you.

What if a modern office could live on its own? What if it became an ecosystem that could function clearly, without any extra controls, providing all that is needed to support work activities? Sounds too perfect, doesn’t it? However, here we are going to consider the office of the future and focus attention on crucial issues that the IoT office is able to solve.

A Few Words about Smart Office Forecast

According to MarketsandMarkets research, smart offices will be a driver of tangible growth. The current smart office market is valued at USD 22.21 bln, with this expected to reach USD 46.11 bln by 2023. This means there will be a strong demand for IoT programmers in this area.

The Internet of Things is gradually immersing all spheres of life. Smart cities, Smart homes, Smart vehicles – it is reaching almost every system in which we need to control components remotely and/or implement their interaction. The Smart office is no exception. While we can currently see a bold border between these various just-emerging technologies, in the future the border is likely to disappear and several related smart areas will merge in a whole global IoT concept combining all existing similar systems – smart cars, smart homes, smart buildings, smart offices, smart infrastructure, smart cities... In other words, when speaking about the direction of IoT in one area, we touch on other areas because all of these mutually link to each other. The result is a common impact. A Smart lock is adopted by Smart buildings in Smart cities. A Smart car merges with a Smart home at the technological level.

Having said and recognized this, what however will the Smart office look like?

The smart corporate reality already exists, and advanced tech-savvy owners have endorsed the idea of intelligent digital workplaces responsive to the needs of the staff. Currently though the technology is still driven by human capabilities and market demand – it may take up to 20 years for the Smart office to have evolved and deployed enough to be a common illustration of the ideal future work space.

The Internet of Me, or IoT in HR

A human in the context of the system – a player in the context of the team. The Smart office concept can be considered in terms of it being an item in a community involved in a closed system that is designed to provide what is needed for efficient work. We can start treating the IoT system through ‘The Internet of Me’ approach.

Popular HR editor Steve Boese has discussed his vision of HR innovations. In his opinion, the Internet of Me takes the IoT concept a step further by integrating increasingly personalized products and services into corporate culture. Thus, in the same manner that a group of people begins from a single person, such a personalized approach will find the best way to create an efficient management system. If we keep track of following issues that Smart office technology resolves, we’ll see that each issue is a problem for every employee, and we therefore see that the main mission of the IoT office is to help the employee to do their work smoothly, to easily incorporate separate employees into a solid team, and to take control of and facilitate working and personal needs in the office.

What challenges will Smart office solve?

Speaking generally, IoT allows us to automate all office activities, including parts of the workflow to deliver more efficient work results and the work environment to form the conditions and the highly-equipped workspace where an employee has all they need at hand. Any network system consisting of some items integrated as with each other or directly with processing equipment can be considered as a future IoT system. So, we need to manage this network of objects to:

• reduce the time we spend for fulfilling any tasks;
• evenly spread actions and tasks to avoid over- and underloading;
• reasonably spend energy resources to reduce financial ones;
• automate all the things to simplify system management.

IoT office solutions can serve employees as well as employers. In the Smart office context, implementation of IoT technologies can not only speed-up workflows but cover the most topical business issues. Let’s consider them.

1. An intelligent environment to make convenient conditions for work

The Smart environment provides the capabilities of a smart building. For example, the organization of an office can include automation of electric lighting and work equipment, an intelligent security system (biometric and remotely-controlled locks), smart counters to collect statistics on electricity consumption, office microclimate specifications and differences, checking of the water supply, ensuring sufficient household and office supplies, and smart support for staff requests.

When an employee enters the room, sensors identify the visitor via motion sensors or other access controllers and send signals to the lighting system and all equipment inside the room to be switched on. Lighting, computers, conditioners, air-humidifiers all start working at levels pre-set for the employee’s comfort.

On one hand, the Internet of Me works because all the conditions are changed to be favorable for the employee. From the business perspective, the intelligent environment is beneficial for employers because its usage considerably reduces office maintenance and ongoing costs.

Challenges:

• monitoring humidity, temperature, air quality, illuminance;
• maintaining comfortable office environment;
• sensor monitoring and automatic device control;
• lighting failure analysis and replacement notification;
• roller blinds control;
• blocking standby power (reduction of power consumption).

To provide such operations, the room is equipped with sensors that detect the environmental status and devices such as air-cleaners, air-conditioners, humidifiers, lighting wall switchers, and smart plugs, which execute programmed commands according to various scenarios:

• turn on the office lighting based on information regarding the beginning of working hours and motion detector readings; 
• gathering the temperature and humidity information in the office;
• when the temperature is high, air-conditioners are automatically turned on;
• when humidity is low, humidifiers are automatically turned on;
• when equipment is turned off, smart plugs are also turned off to block standby power;
• when the lighting in the office fails, the IoT system sends the administrator information about failure and turns on lighting from an extra generator if this is provided (in the case of a power cut).

2. Smart reception service to automate meeting visitors

The smart reception desk helps to unite in-house office life with some activities from outside. If we recently had a receptionist who met visitors, in case of automated reception service, it could work in the following way – a customer uses the wallpad to call the necessary employee, and the IP camera sends the employee a notification and a recorded image of the person waiting for him.

Challenges:

• easy calling service and searching for an employee;
• notification of customer visit to employee’s smartphone;
• customer identification through the camera image.

3. Smart meeting rooms

This works well in big companies of 200 persons and over. In this case, visiting a colleague can be difficult – finding a mutually convenient time and place, for example. However, the inner smart meeting system organizes all arrangements and discussions to avoid over-loading them when things are busy or under-loading when things are calm.

The smart meeting system can have several connected devices and software to provide all opportunities. Firstly, it is a web or mobile service to enable preparations for the upcoming meetings, and secondly, it is a service for remote control of devices. For example, you can customize your presentation remotely through a projector in advance, and coming to the smart meeting room, you can control the whole demonstration through your smartphone.

We should also mention that using AR and VR technologies at the junction of the IoT office can massively expand the opportunities for remote meetings – especially when thinking about very long distances.

Challenges:

• automated convenient booking system for meeting rooms;
• email request to attend a meeting;
• push notifications of meeting attendance; 
• distribution an email of meeting minute;
• auto mode function (presentation start, complete);
• broadcasting to employees’ smartphones and possibility to join the meeting online.

4. Smart security zone

Security inside the office can also be smart. It’s not just the outside wall that needs to be secure for many offices. The system is outfitted with door sensors, IP cameras, motion sensors, smart alarm integrators and others, providing fully-automated control of every action in the office during the day, when staff are working inside, and at night, when all people have left the office. We can treat security in general, but overall it means more ways of control, enabling control over employees’ actions to avoid information leakage and intervention against insiders. A separate direction is the use of smart locks, smart cameras, smart tracking software, etc.

Challenges:

• intrusion detection and notification;
• real-time camera images;
• video recording;
• smart locks status and remote control.

5. Smart space management service

Speaking about smart office opportunities, we shouldn’t forget about the personal necessities for employees. One example concerns the automation of restrooms and kitchens. The employee can use connected devices when – for example – going to get a coffee and relax in the lounge zone: the system will tell him before he goes there how many people are there and whether the zone has free spaces for him.

Challenges:

• occupancy checking using Smartphone;
• real-time update of occupancy information.

To sum up the smart office opportunity, we see that there are many corporate scenarios where IoT can make a difference to the enabling of business activities, rather than spending resources on redundant actions. This is the main idea of IoT development as a whole: the technology helps to make a system efficient, reducing all expenditure and increasing its potential.

Photo Credit: Tayloright

Many industry experts and consumers are pointing the Internet of Things (IoT) as an upcoming Industrial Revolution or an upcoming Internet.

Why this? Simple, because IoT will consist of the future form of interaction of businesses, governments and consumers with the physical world.

The most recent studies indicate that in 2020 more than 34 billion devices will be connected to the internet, in many sectors (Industrial, Agriculture, Transportation, Wearable Devices, Smart Cities, Smart Houses, etc).

Of these 34 billion, the IoT will be responsible for 23 billion devices, the others 11 billion will be represented by the regular devices, such as, smartphones, tablets, smartwatches, etc.

The business sector will be responsible for the biggest use part of this devices, since the IoT can reduce the Operational Costs, Increase the Production, expand the business for new market niches.

Government will take the second biggest part of the devices connected, in smart cities, fasting up the public process, increasing the quality life of the citizens.

At last but not less important, the home user, will have a lot of IoT Devices, Smart Houses, Wearable Devices.

So the future we can really specify in some words: "The future is Data".