From SCDigest's OnTarget e-Magazine
- July 7, 2015 -
RFID and AIDC News: Companies that Embrace Internet of Things Service Model will be the Winners, Harvard Business Blogger Says
Companies that See Only Cost and Complexity will Miss the Opportunity, IoT Expert Weichselbaum Says
SCDigest Editorial Staff
The Internet of Things (IoT) - or Internet of Everything, take your pick - is going to have profound implications in many areas of business, and no more so than how companies interact with their business and consumer customers over the long term.
So says Paul Weichselbaum, a technology industry executive and apparent expert on IoT, in a recent blog posting on the Harvard Business Review web site.
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There certain some elements of truth in Weichselbaum argument, but in the end, what will be the costs in this service model - and will users be willing to pay for it?.
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What Do You Say?
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To date, most companies sell customers a product and hope to never hear from them again, Weichselbaum notes. If a customer needs support of any kind for that product after the sale, companies just say No if the product is past the warranty period, will push that customer to self-help on the web, make them endure voice system hell if they dare to place a phone call, rely largely on offshore support for those calls that make it through, etc.
"This service paradigm is not designed for a world in which intelligent, context-aware, learning devices are interacting with each other, with the Cloud and with our smartphones while other devices are constantly being added, removed, or modified (via downloads from the Cloud)," Weichselbaum writes. "This environment requires a focus on what the user is trying to do as opposed to merely whether the crockpot they purchased is operating as intended."
Until IoT, consumers typically purchases devices, such as say a garage door opener. That physical opener in effect operates in standalone mode and requires direct physical action - for example, pressing the door opener in a car when a consumer arrives home.
But that paradigm is changing now for some already and undoubtedly countless others before long. You will drive up to your house - which has adjusted heating or cooling in anticipation of your arrival - and the garage door will open automatically, the security system will disarm, the doors will unlock and the lights come on.
This, says Weichselbaum, is more like a service than a device - and "This impending future creates a conundrum for "thing makers" as the way that services must be supported is profoundly different from the way that devices are."
Some will consider this changing dynamic and see operational headaches and increased service costs, Weichselbaum says, while others - the companies that he believes will be the winners in the IoT - will see opportunity.
(RFID and AIDC Story Continued Below)
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Rather than continue dodging customers, they'll transform their service models operationally, technically, and culturally," Weichselbaum writes. "They'll embrace the opportunity by applying different KPIs - such as improved customer experience, churn reduction, and increased customer lifetime value — hiring more technically oriented (and nimble) service reps and modifying the service model from one in which the company defines problems it's willing to address to one in which the customers defines the job to be done, and the company helps them do it - indefinitely."