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Among most of the trends which have gotten buzz among business enterprises within the past couple of years, only few have been hotter than Big Data, Mobility, and the Internet of Things (IoT).
Most enterprises now believe Big Data, Mobile apps, and the Internet of things altogether can contribute a lot in their business growth. While Mobile apps, single handily, can greatly enhance the way Information is perceived and analyzed by employees. On the other hand, IoT along with Big Data can provide multitude of actionable business insights on the basis of data extracted from millions of inter-connected devices.
While all these technologies have their own benefits for enterprises, it will be extremely important to understand how enterprises can leverage all of three together to boost their Employee healthcare, workforce management, predictive maintenance, supply chain management, customer demand forecasting and Retail supply.
In this article, I am going to tell you how well these technologies could intersect with one another and provide multitude of opportunities for enterprises to leverage upon.
Big Data, IoT, and Mobility: What does the Future Hold?
Due to an increase in wearable devices usage in IoT, there will be huge amount of machine generated data for enterprises to analyze and manage. More enterprises and organizations are going to assess the opportunities and the copious amount of data thereby analyzing how they can mash the data with the human-generated information so that they can get valuable insights.
In simpler words, Big Data is going to become Smart Data. IoT will keep on increasing the connectivity of devices and Mobility will continue to seek more cooperation and compliance between the organizations.
Role of Mobility, Big Data, and the Internet of Things (IOT) in Enterprise Growth
We often hear stats about the number of devices expected Well, yes! According to Statista, we will experience the numbers to increase in two folds. to be connected to the internet by 2020 but the main point is “Will the number still could touch the millions”?
IoT will encourage another size of advancement with the capacity to take any gadget or device you have at home or in the workplace that keeps running on power, to be controlled by existing innovation.
With the innovation reaching heights day-by-day, it’s expected for IoT to have a serious effect on different aspects of human live including the manner in which they work. Let’s dive on the specific use-cases of the IoT, Big Data, and Mobility on Workforce Planning.
WorkForce Planning
Enterprises can modernize their workforce by utilizing Eddystone beacons and Big Data insights to capture real-time insights in the form of virtualized heatmaps containing information such as their real-time location, allocated tasks etc. The data which is captured through beacons can be analyzed using mobile apps installed in respective mobile devices. This Information can be also used to generate exciting offers as their consumer behaves and interacts.
Supply Chain
IoT devices such as sensors, beacons can help in determining the real-time condition (temperature, moisture, humidity etc.) and location of assets as they are stored. This data can be transferred to the mobile devices in the form of automated alerts.
Drivers can be informed about the physical conditions such as change in weather, traffic congestion in the form of real-time alerts. This data can also be used to make urgent decisions about the delivery deadline of perishable goods and products so that the damage can be prevented on time.
By leveraging Big Data technology, drivers can also be notified about the best routes they can take for faster delivery of goods and other intelligent insights.
Predictive Maintenance
Before the age of IoT, machine related data was difficult to capture. However, as IoT continues to innovate and foster real-time physical insights, it’s no more impossible. Sensors and small cameras can be attached to different parts of machines through which workshop managers can easily determine the wear and tear damage on parts so that they can be easily replaced. These IoT-enabled system can use the real-time data to create maintenance timelines and then schedule time-to-time service appointments before problem occurs.
Mobile apps can be used to monitor the physical parameters of machine data in real-time. To unlock the full potential of predictive maintenance, Enterprises can utilize Big Data Insights to stay informed about the time on which machine breakdown takes place, present operating condition, relevant actions etc. These insights can be analyzed from a single dashboard of Mobile apps.
Customer Demand and Forecasting
For most enterprises, customer demand is a big problem as they can never understand what their customers want and when they want it.
The Internet of Things can greatly help in determining the amount of storage in tanks with the help of sensors. This information can be analyzed and viewed by sales and procurement teams with the help of mobile apps.
Based upon the past data, Big Data and Analytics can be used to predict when the customer inventory will be low so that the necessary action can be taken.
Healthcare
RFID technology can be used to provide smart healthcare services to the employees or workers using low cost, energy-autonomous and disposable sensors.
An RFID tag can be embedded in medical equipment’s. The tags can be placed into the devices by the manufacturer and it can contain a worldwide unique identifier. The staff members of healthcare department for example nurses, doctors and caregivers will wear a smart badge which stores their employee ID number.
Using mobile app patient can view all the healthcare related information about him such as digital picture, patient’s ID, disease diagnosed, refer to doctor, etc.
Big Data and Analytics can leverage data-driven findings to predict and provide relevant treatment of the disease before it is too late thereby keeping the better track of patient’s history and empower them using smart devices.
Retail
When it comes to Retail, enterprises can bring in innovative ways using IoT such as smart shelves which will contain three elements: an RFID tag, an RFID reader, and an antenna.
Information can be collected from the RFID tags and sent to mobile apps where it can be analyzed.
These smart shelves can automatically monitor inventory and send automated alerts to managers in case a certain item is running low or is going to expire soon.
On the basis of the data-driven reports collected by using Big Data and Analytics, necessary actions can be taken such as the asset replacement or instant repairing.
Conclusion
Mentioned above are some different use cases with which an enterprise can leverage upon the power of IoT, Big Data, and Mobile apps to manage workforce planning, predict maintenance, foster consumer demands, healthcare, supply chain, and retail.