Archiwa: Cisco - Tomasz Pilewicz

Internet of Things (IoT) is a phenomenon that is expected to transform manufacturing, healthcare, energy, transportation, and other sectors ofeconomy, which is expected to reach value of USD 11,1 trillion by 2025.

What IoT is about? In a nutshell IoT refers to ability of hardware, software and sensors to collect and exchange data through networks and deliver services enabled through it.

What differs IoT from current machine-to-machine (M2M) communication is going beyond simple data exchange to advanced data usage resulting in various applications.

IoT fields of exploration are linked with electronic devices and refer to e.g. build-in sensors in vehicles leading to decrease in energy consumption, weather forecasting impacting home heating systems, monitoring of human vital signals for preventing diseases, and many more.

At this moment, part of IoT value proposals being worked out can be found at Angel Lists, which collected almost 2500 start-ups focused on IoT area.

IoT is a cornerstone of wider phenomenon that in public discourse is called Industry 4.0. Industry 4.0 refers to the next wave of industrial revolution, which is happening now, thanks to the exchange of data between devices, incl. manufacturing technologies and also cloud computing. Industry 4.0 creates aan opportunity for start-ups to foster interoperability of machines, devices, and sensors, increase quality and transparency of information being exchanged, creation of assistance systems for aggregation and visualization of information collected, and execution of accurate decisions basing on them.

More insights on value looked for in Industry 4.0 era can be found in McKinsey’s report here. A lot of IoT enriching materials have been published by Cisco in form of white papers and case studies available at their website here.

IoT is supported by numerous start-up acceleration programmes and government agendas around the world. Current open start-up acceleration programmes incl. Plug and Play IoT Accelerator from Silicon Valley with ongoing call for applications, Techstars IoT Accelerator with multiple applications scheduled for 2016 in US, or ABC Accelerator in Slovenia with call for IoT oriented start-ups with deadline of 31^st of July 2016.

European Commission also fosters IoT with focus on integration and creation of open platforms leveraging its usage. Under Horizon 2020 programme European Commission announced dedicated call for research and innovation projects with particular IoT focus with EUR 35 mln budget. The call is planned to be opened on 8^th of December 2016 and closed on 25^th of April 2017. As in all Horizon 2020 co-financing programmes participation requires creation of consortium of entities from at least 3 European Union countries. Funding rate covered by European Commission is up to 100%.

What is your favourite application of IoT, worth to explore?

Remember Zohan Dvirr, who was considered one of the most effective Mosad agents’, but in the long run really wanted to… cut people’s hair and make them silky-smooth?

If not, then you’d better catch up with “Don’t Mess with the Zohan”, as the story brings pretty to what is nowadays called customer’s experience. And it is customer’s experience making them buying from you, not competitors, especially when you offer goods or services which seem to be common. Besides Adam Sandler is a great actor and another movie not to miss with him on your entrepreneurial journey is “Mr Deeds”. Especially if you are somewhere between speed of the processor and poetry of everyday life 😉 But hey, the post should be about customer experience, right?

Customer experience and customer centricity lies at heart of IT corporates like Cisco, which five-point scale of measuring customer satisfaction after all customer-facing operations in company is considered as business classic. Annual salary bonus at Cisco depends on answer their Clients to the question “What is your overall satisfaction with Cisco”, and all employees know that non regarding their position at the company, in order to maximize this indicator, they have to cooperate putting Client first and not leaving the issue raised by Clients for themselves.

Another approach of costumer experience maximization provides company called Avis operating in car renting business offered among others at airports. Avis hired Experience Engineering to perform Cient’s experience audit and redesign the way rental cars are being rented. Avis Clients’ behavior was recorded using cameras and devices installed at Client’s watches and cloathes.

The results had been analysed by Experience Engineering team consisting of futurologists, psychologists and culture anthropologists to discover what exactly their Clients see and feel at every stage of car renting. Experience Engineering team analysed body language, tone of voice and language when the Clients went emotional, they performed in-depth interviews with Clients and employees of Avis looking for unarticulated needs and inspirations referring to even smallest details. They cut process of renting car into 100 pieces, which elements had been thoroughly analysed and enriched.

As a result of this undertaking Avis installed monitors informing about arrivals and departure of the planes in places of car rentals, as it was discovered that car renting process might be stressful due to lack of access to this information. In Avis car rental spots special doors adjusted to nonstandard language of their Clients had been constructed. Avis also set up “communication centres” in the airports to enable Clients to work with their laptops, do phone calls, use Xerox machines or just sit and wait.

The most important thing resulted for Client’s experience audit was creation of service omitting car rental spot at the airport enabling to go straight away to the place where the car is parked. Experience auditors found out the need to change the Client’s outfit from formal too casual after the journey and Client’s going to the airport toilet’s to do this. Using this observation Avis installed changing rooms in their car rental spots making preparation to the journey painless and friendly. Above that they introduced option to rent a car with chauffeur and installed in their cars a system automatically calling for rescue once the airbags in the car had opened or remote diagnostics of the car.

Taking a look on how important is how your Clients experience you, what do you do make it unique, unforgettable and disco-disco-good-good style?;-)

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Dzida!

Tag: Cisco

Internet of Things and Next Industrial Revolution

What Zohan Dvirr Tells us about Customer’s Experience?