What makes an intelligent enterprise?
A new global survey by Zebra Technologies analyzes 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.
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 Internet of Things (IoT) vision and adoption plan as well as business engagement in developing a return on investment for IoT.
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.
Business engagement is top of mind, but culture should be given more consideration
Seventy-seven percent of companies have a method in place to measure ROI from their IoT plan, and 71 percent have IoT plans that address both the cultural and process changes necessary to implement it.
Many companies lack an adoption plan
More than 50 percent of companies expect resistance to adopt their IoT solution, yet don’t have a plan in place to address it. Only 21 percent who expect resistance, have a plan to address it.
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 mobilize actionable insights that create better customer experiences, drive operational efficiencies or enable new business models. This is a journey for enterprise organizations so we wanted to see where most companies are in the process. Clearly, many are still forming their IoT strategies, but we are seeing segments that have identified targeted use cases and are aggressively deploying solutions,” said Tom Bianculli, CTO at Zebra Technologies.