W&F December 2017

www.wealthandfinance-news.com 16 Wealth & Finance International - December 2017 The Right Technology Overcomes Obstacles IoT projects can require the modification, re-design or purchase of new networks, cloud services and equipment. They also require new applications and platforms to support different types of devices. As a result, simply connecting smart devices into a usable network can seem like an insurmountable challenge. But with the right portfolio of technology, these obstacles can be easily overcome. When building an IoT organisation, it is critical that the system supports both legacy and new smart devices. Furthermore, it should provide support for multiple connectivity options (i.e., wired, wireless, etc.). IoT solutions should also have centralised and remote device management to allow for day-to-day provisioning, device setup and maintenance. To support application connectivity, the system should offer consistent application programming interfaces across a wide range of devices, while at the same time affording easy scalability and connectivity to the data centre. Enterprises need to know what is happening in real time in order to improve their workflows and operations on an ongoing basis. Capturing data on people, processes and things is the first part of this process. Part two is having the analytic horsepower to make sense of it all. Only then can they shift from static views of isolated activities to a dynamic understanding of the entire enterprise and its customers. By instilling a culture of iterative enhancements, enterprises can continuously simplify and streamline their operations while making significant enhancements to their customer engagement models. As the number of connected devices continues to rise, so too does the amount of data enterprises must analyse. Not only are the velocity and volume of data ballooning, but data is also diverse and often sitting in disjointed silos. Subsequently, it is a challenge to aggregate and process with standard database management systems. Advanced Big Data solutions are needed to gain actionable intelligence on assets, people and transactions. This data then needs to be combined with business intelligence, enterprise resource planning and other applications to enrich the data collected and, ultimately, yield insights as well as predict outcomes and actions. By leveraging the IoT and utilising advanced analytics to extract insight from the raw data that is generated from these various devices, enterprises can gain visibility into their business operations as well as the services they deliver to their customers. This results in enterprises possessing the power to make better, data-driven decisions that can impact their business today and tomorrow. However, the true potential of this information cannot be fully realized until they equip their workforce with the devices to act upon it. Mobile Devices Benefit Front-Line Workers Enterprise mobility can be a game changer not just for office-based knowledge workers on the go, but for frontline workers on the factory floor, in retail settings, in the medical field and more. By giving their employees access to relevant data and content at the point of need, they can be more productive, offer better customer service and hone their skills. For example, a retail worker can cross-sell products by accessing information on a customer’s buying history and preferences on the sales floor, while a factory worker can receive training on a new piece of equipment by scanning a code and watching a tutorial. The introduction of mobile devices in the workforce, however, is not without challenges. As smartphones and tablets become workplace staples, hackers are using every avenue available to break into them. And as more diverse company-owned and employee-owned devices are leveraged, it is getting harder to provision services and manage use across varying platforms and operating systems. Through unrivalled expertise in sensors and device connectivity, Zebra helps enterprises connect assets and devices to software and to their mobile workers, enabling them to know much more than they ever have about what’s going on in your enterprise. Easy access to an unprecedented amount of data allows enterprises to plan effective short- and long- term strategies. Zebra helps to deliver real-time insights into the critical data being captured by sensors and their connected devices. The Intelligent Enterprise Index On Nov. 1, 2017, Zebra revealed the results of its inaugural “Intelligent Enterprise Index.” This global survey analyses where companies are on the journey to becoming an Intelligent Enterprise; how they are connecting the physical and digital worlds to improve visibility, efficiencies and growth. Forty-eight percent are on the path to becoming intelligent enterprises, scoring between 50-75 points on the overall index. Only five percent exceeded 75 points on the index. The Intelligent Enterprise Index measures to what extent companies today are meeting the criteria that define today’s Intelligent Enterprise. Some of the criteria include IoT vision and adoption plan as well as business engagement in developing a return on investment for IoT. The criteria were identified by leading executives, industry experts and policymakers across different industries at the 2016 Strategic Innovation Symposium: The Intelligent Enterprise, which was hosted by Zebra in collaboration with the Technology and Entrepreneurship Center at Harvard (TECH) last year. The framework of an “Intelligent Enterprise” is based on technology solutions that integrate cloud computing, mobility, and IoT to automatically sense information from enterprise assets. Operational data from these assets, including status, location, utilisation, or preferences, is then analysed to provide actionable insights, which can then be mobilised to the right person at the right time so they can be acted upon to drive better, more-timely decisions by users anywhere, at any time. Here are some of the key survey findings: IoT vision is strong and investment set to increase. Forty-two percent of companies spend more than $1 million toward IoT annually, with an average of $3.1 million per year, and 75 percent expect that number to increase in the next one to two years. In fact, 42 percent of companies expect their IoT investment to increase by 11-20 percent. Notably, 57 percent of companies have an IoT vision and are currently executing their IoT plans. Although only 36 percent currently have company-wide deployment, it is expected that 62 percent will have it deployed company-wide in the future. Customer experience is driving IoT. Seventy percent of companies claim the largest driver of IoT investment is improving the customer experience. In the future, increasing revenue (53 percent) and expanding into new markets (51 percent) are expected to be the largest drivers. Companies keep employees informed, but there is room for more. Approximately 70 percent of companies share information from their IoT solutions with their employees more than once a day, of which more than two-thirds share in real or near-real time. However, only 32 percent provide actionable information to all employees, and information is provided either via email (69 percent) or as raw data (62 percent). An “Intelligent Enterprise” is one that leverages ties between the physical and digital worlds to enhance visibility and mobilise actionable insights that create better customer experiences, drive operational efficiencies or enable new business models. This is a journey for enterprise organisations so the team wanted to see where most companies are in the process. Clearly, many are still forming their IoT strategies, but Zebra are seeing segments that have identified targeted use cases and are aggressively deploying solutions. Zebra gives 95 percent of the Fortune 500 real- time visibility into their operations. Our software, services, analytics, and hardware are used to connect their assets, systems and people, giving their entire operation a digital voice. This gives businesses the ability to sense what’s happening in their operations, analyse that data and act on it, making decisions in real time. Ultimately, with the help of Zebra, an enterprise’s large, growing fleet of mobile devices will enable management and workers at all levels to act on visibility-driven insights in real time, anytime and everywhere. Olivier Leonetti