Putting the IoT to Work in Your Business

Since 1982, the technology known as the Internet of Things has given the devices around us greater capabilities through artificial intelligence and Internet connectivity. While this technology spent a long time existing under the radar, so to speak, many business functions are now relying on its benefits. Let’s take a few moments to look at how the IoT can be of use in your business.

Generally speaking, the IoT benefits a process in any of eight different ways:

1.  Customer Service/Experience

A business needs customers in order to survive, so in order to keep clients and customers coming back, their experience needs to be good enough to convince them to do so. The IoT offers a lot of opportunities to assist you in this goal, from the credit card readers that plug into a mobile device to the solutions that allow a shipment to be tracked and automatically notify the customer of their purchase’s process. Basically, the IoT can be used to help your processes and more efficiently supply the service or product that is desired.

2.  Business Opportunities and Potential Revenue

It doesn’t matter how quickly your team is able to complete a given process, eliminating that process from their responsibilities through automation allows them to use their time better. In a way, this allows you to accomplish twice as much in the same amount of time, increasing your business’ scope and generating more revenues.

3.  Workplace Safety

The IoT can be used to minimize the health and safety risks that some workplaces inherently have. Through data collection and analytics, you can effectively predict a number of issues and proactively mitigate them. Security solutions with IoT integrations can increase your trust in your defenses, with protections like video surveillance and identity authentication measures preventing most threats.

4.  Productivity

Most businesses have “productivity” high on their internal list of priorities, something that the Internet of Things can be used to accomplish. As mentioned above, the IoT makes many of your team’s tasks far more efficient and can sometimes free them of some responsibilities, allowing them to spend their time on more productive goals. When your time-consuming tasks are taken out of the way, your team is free to innovate and thrive. As a bonus, certain IoT tools can help schedule your activities to take full advantage of productivity trends.

5.  Analytics

One of the most important aspects to fulfilling a client or customer’s needs is how well you are able to predict them. After you have collected assorted data from your past clientele using the IoT, the IoT can help you further by compiling this data and concentrating it into actionable insights. Whether you’re looking at population trends or what an individual customer is likely to do next, these kinds of analytics can help you make the predictions you need to prepare accordingly.

6.  Cost Efficacy

I know I don’t need to remind you of how crucial it is to pull every bit of value from the investments your business makes into its operations. Using analytical processes to dictate their use of the IoT, various business expenses can be optimized. Furthermore, unnecessary and avoidable costs like those incurred through downtime can be avoided, thereby reducing the total bill without making sacrifices.

7.  Data Functions

Data plays a key role in all industries, so the data collection and tracking capabilities of the IoT are of great use in a wide variety of applications. From predictive analytics to optimizing operations, the IoT provides the information that businesses use in their considerations. This makes it easier to work on this proactively, and the predictions made become more accurate over time.

8.  Opportunities for Smart Devices

Smart devices are appearing more and more often, allowing many industries to enjoy added capabilities in their operations. As these devices only become more prevalent, the IoT will be needed to collect and process the data that these endpoints generate.

Technologies like the Internet of Things and many others can benefit businesses in many ways. For assistance in identifying and adopting the advancements best suited for your needs, give Network Solutions Unlimited a call at (217) 428-6449.