Will IoT accelerate movement from products to services?
Will IoT accelerate movement from products to services?
At the LiveWorx conference in Boston this week, Accenture Senior Managing Director Eric Shaeffer gave some new insight about the growth of the Internet of Things and how it should change the way solution providers and vendors think in regards to business.
“Vendors are moving away from a product push approach and focusing now on much more than developing services. Leaders are creating value by doing three things — focusing on different consumer outcomes, higher- value solutions and enhanced experiences,” Schaeffer states.
See also: Qadium raises millions to build IoT search engine
He was asked about the many challenges businesses face involving IoT, due to security and no real standards. Where was the value in it, and how can vendors benefit from the Internet of Things in the next few years?
Schaeffer replied that vendors need to focus less on products and services and more on the total consumer experience, for which solution providers play a vital role.
However, customers themselves do not know even know what they want, according to a recent study by Accenture. Out of the business leaders that were surveyed, 84 percent believed that the Internet of Things would disrupt their industry in the next five years, whereas 15 percent stated they feel their company will acquire new business revenue from IoT and 7 percent have a strategy planned to address this issue. Even though 60 percent of these leaders believe that the Internet of Things should be an integral part of their business, 73 percent have still not made any progress in achieving this.
“Delivering outcomes on the Internet of Things will require companies to develop new business capabilities,” Shaeffer said about what companies needed to due to exploit IoT. “New ecosystems will be formed and vendors will need to work with partners … to provide new services to clients.”
Accenture building and acquiring its way into the IoT space
Accenture currently ranks in second place on the 2016 CRN Solution Provider 500 list, and the global consultantcy has invested into the Internet of Things over the past several years. Cimation, a consulting firm based in Houston, was recently acquired by Accenture, to help further these IoT integration efforts.
According to Schaeffer, the three value areas to focus on are using digital technology to handle customers better, exploring ways to lower the cost of the digital access chain and researching new business models that could be more effective.
“We are focusing on the customer versus the product and service functions,” he says. “There is a blend in integration between the product and the enterprise as we see products become more connected.”
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