Due to the rise of the on-demand economy, best practices have fairly quickly shifted for companies across many industries, such as manufacturing and transportation and logistics (T&L). As these businesses balance the complexities of inescapable growing needs, including the need for agile fulfillment from order to delivery, technologies that enable information sharing and enterprise-wide visibility have now been embraced. Mobility, cloud computing and the Internet of Things (IoT) are here to stay, so it is important for decision-makers to comprehend the ways that digital transformation will remain to impact businesses for years to come.
 
Zebra Technologies recently printed its second annual Intelligent Enterprise Index, a global survey that measures where companies are on the journey to growing to be a truly “intelligent enterprise.” This kind of business combines the physical and digital worlds to drive innovation through real-time guidance, data-powered environments, and collaborative mobile workflows. All in all, eleven metrics were used to judge a company’s progress towards becoming intelligent, including IoT vision, business engagement, adoption plan, security and standards, and more.
 
The study discovered that the number of companies defined as an “intelligent enterprise” doubled to 10 percent in 2018, featuring the immense investment and momentum surrounding IoT deployment and integration.
 
Increased Momentum for IoT
 
From an operations standpoint, the Index signifies that 82 percent of interviewed companies are sharing information from their IoT solutions with employees mulitple times a day. This truly is a growth of 12 percent from the past year. In reality, roughly two-thirds of these companies share operational data about enterprise assets, including status, location, utilization or preferences, in real- or near-real time to help drive better more timely decisions. This indicates that brands are making the change to Industry 4.0—using connected, automated systems to collect and examine data during every step of their processes and connecting the gap between the digital and physical to maximize effectiveness, productivity, and transparency.
 
In addition, the most up-to-date Index shows 50 percent of companies are not expecting or experiencing resistance to IoT adoption, highlighting the developing acceptance of these solutions and the recognition of their advantages. In last year’s survey, only one fourth of participants revealed deficiencies in resistance. Additionally, 84 percent of companies assume it will need two years or less to complete the implementation of their IoT solutions, reflecting a good trend toward faster adoption compared to the prior year (79 percent). Finally, the findings show that more than half of companies have established an IoT vision and are performing on their IoT plans.
 
Partner Collaboration is Key
 
To continue growing adoption rates and cutting down on resistance, manufacturers and T&L companies need to integrate IoT solutions in a manner that removes the possibility of operational issues and lowers learning curves as setting up not familiar digital systems can be a multifaceted process. Legacy solutions, present data infrastructure, robotics and automation technologies, management styles and more can all create obstacles. In addition, internal IT teams may possibly not have the necessary knowledge or experience to support an IoT introduction or upgrade. Companies around the world are solving these problems by placing a higher reliance on a solution ecosystem, with many relying on a strategic partner or vendor to implement and manage their IoT solutions. This is good news because manufacturing and T&L businesses require strong venture and consistency.
 
Don’t Sleep on Security
 
Another essential aspect of becoming an “intelligent enterprise” is implementing an effective security protocol to reduce the risk of breaches and other dangers, specifically as organizations migrate their data to the cloud to fully capitalize on IoT functionality. An encouraging finding is that just about all companies with IoT strategies track their IoT security and employ standards to be certain of integrity and privacy. In comparison with 2017, there is an 18 percent increase in the number of companies that regularly monitor activity rather than routinely. And yet, a gap remains between the upkeep of IoT systems and IT in general as only 69 percent of all enterprises reported having had some sort of positive approach to IT security and network management.
 
The Future of the “Intelligent Enterprise”
 
It is not a facile task to assess how “intelligent” an enterprise is or how much the manufacturing and T&L space is altering to adopt IoT solutions. This intelligence cannot simply be determined by which technology solutions a company employs or how broad-minded they are about new processes. It also is dependent upon spending, how data is collected and analyzed, plans for change management and solution adoption, security and infrastructure, and more.
 
Nonetheless, by recognizing the collective impact of these elements, enterprises can inspire their staff members to excel while creating an exceptional customer experience. With the right vision, solutions, and partner for implementation and management, coming to be a completely “intelligent enterprise” is more achievable than ever before.
 
This article is originally posted on tronserve.com