The Internet of Things

Cities worldwide are placing big bets on turning Smart. As many as 98 Smart Cities are expected to spring up in India alone. Singapore, a pioneer in embracing emerging technologies, is already on way to becoming the world’s first Smart Nation. Barcelona won recognition as the world’s smartest city in 2015, leaving behind mega cities such as New York and London.

A Smart City is one that harnesses technology to give its citizens a connected, high-quality life with a mostly positive impact on the way they live, learn, work and play. In essence, the cities will leverage technology and deliver an enhanced Citizen Experience (CX). It is all about enabling a ‘smarter’ and a more efficient government, driven by citizens exposed to a mobile and social experience.

Many of them may already be seeing a unique Customer Experience (also CX) being delivered to them through Omnichannel communications by businesses across all verticals. It is after all a digital-savvy world where customers use multiple channels — Web, social media, phone, video, mobile Apps, etc — to have their needs met. 

India’s Smart Cities vision ties into the ambitious plans of the Government to digitise and transform the country into a knowledge economy. The initiatives are bright sparks for vendors smarting under a slumping economy. The Internet of Things (IoT) is one of the factors enabling the quest for a smarter world, with the others being Big Data/ Analytics; The Mobile revolution; The rise of the empowered customer; Search for Sustainable Differentiation through Great CX.

Interactions Converge, Silos Disappear: IoT and Mobility are the two mega trends shaping the way both Governments and the corporate sector function. The “Things” in IoT refer to objects that can be assigned an IP address and embedded with sensors to usher in an environment where appliances talk to one another, where interactions converge and where silos are eliminated to enable intelligent analysis. IoT is emerging as the third wave in the development of the Internet. In the 1990s, the fixed Internet wave connected one billion users while in the decade following the dawn of the millennium year, the mobile wave connected another two billion.

5G will be a Catalyst for IoT: The fifth generation (5G) of mobile networks is already on the horizon and is set to give a further push to IoT and adoption of digital channels. At the recent Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2016 in Barcelona, chipmaker Intel Corporation opened up on its 5G plans, involving the convergence of computing and communications and making wireless networks more intelligent. Intel expects 5G to be the catalyst for taking IoT to dizzier heights through a new network revolution. 

IoT to Exceed German Economy by 2025, US Economy by 2035: Some research firms estimate that the world may have to grapple with more than 200 billion connected devices by 2020. That will be around 26 smart objects for every human being on Earth! That is a figure which analysts think will jump to 500 billion devices by 2030. But Gartner is less aggressive, predicting 25 billion devices by 2020. Even that represents a five-fold increase in five years from around five billion in 2015. A McKinsey Global Institute report says the IoT market could be worth around $4 trillion to $11 trillion a year by 2025. Interestingly, some reports state that IoT will exceed the German economy by 2025 and the US economy by 2035.

Digital, Omnichannel Communications: In a digitally connected world, no sector can claim exclusion from this explosion, with customer engagement through Omnichannel communications being key. New connected devices will mean a proliferation of new channels, adding new levels of operational complexities amid customer expectations of a frictionless experience. While automation may translate to cost efficiencies for companies, mere reliance on artificial intelligence may frustrate customers and impair loyalty. IoT will thus represent a back-end opportunity for CX enablers who will harvest human and machine-generated events by applying real-time business rules to drive orchestration and engage with customers and their devices. 

Digital channels and analytics, interwoven with a human touch, will find resonance with customers. Smart, interconnected devices will help businesses gain insights into customer behaviour faster and more reliably than ever before. With analytics tools at their command, they will be able to dissect the data to understand usage patterns and deliver personalised solutions. Wearable gadgets, such as the Apple Watch, offer another facet to IoT combining consumer fascination and technological application. Mobile Apps are also providing a shot in the arm for IoT, finding favour with both the private sector and governments worldwide.

The Smart Grid – Reactive to Proactive to Anticipatory Service: The Smart Grid was often a talking point, given that energy efficiencies were gaining traction. It is now a reality. Smart meters, for instance, are equipping service providers with the ability to proactively alert a consumer to a problem that has been detected through use of intelligent technologies. The service thus gets proactive, not reactive. It is getting even more sophisticated through anticipatory service where potential problems can be visualised and averted. A well-orchestrated, nuanced proactive communication plan thus assumes significance and this can include initiating webchats. It is bound to raise service standards and improve customer satisfaction. 

Drones and the Age of the Customer: These are times when virtually everything can be connected to the Internet. They include drones which are rapidly becoming another channel of communications. The world is already deep into the age of the customer where businesses have the necessity to target consumers empowered by the social media and the Internet that have armed them with information. As a report in Harvard Business Review highlights, “Companies that see service in an IoT world as a competitive differentiator will thrive; those that continue to view service as an episodic cost obligation will lose out.”

IoT is a burgeoning space and firms will arguably have to contend with many more digital touchpoints which will necessitate an IoT readiness for a unified, seamless customer experience. 

The writer is based in Singapore where he is the Regional Proposal Manager (Asia-Pacific) Genesys Telecommunications, market leader in Omnichannel customer experience solutions