SME IT Awards 2024/ 14 Use IoT to Centralize Customer Insights The Internet is a well-known concept that you must be familiar with, but what about the Internet of Things (IoT)? It's not a brand new technology, but it recently started flourishing thanks to its numerous use cases. One of the most useful applications of IoT is customer analytics because you can use it to gather and centralize consumer insights. Leveraging IoT, businesses can track consumer behavior, preferences, and needs with higher precision than ever before, and as a result, to create better customer experiences and strategies. In other words, they can use IoT data to serve their customers better. Our goal is to explain how IoT works and how to use it to improve customer analytics. Let's take a look! IoT: How Does It Work? Perhaps it sounds unusual, but IoT is a relatively simple concept. It describes the network of physical objects that are embedded with sensors, software, and other technologies for the purpose of connecting and exchanging data with other devices and systems over the Internet. That basically means that IoT is a network of devices that can communicate with each other. It's a four-step structure that includes: • Devices with sensors: These sensors gather data from the surrounding environment. • Connectivity: Devices now transmit the data to a central location. • Data processing: The data is processed and analysed in the central analytics system. • User interface: Finally, end users obtain relevant data through the interface. The insights are used to improve customer experiences or create new strategies. IoT devices can be anything from cars and wearable devices to buildings and industrial machinery. The whole system has become possible due to a couple of important technological advances - the miniaturization of sensors and electronics and the development of low-power wireless communication. According to Statista, the projected IoT spending worldwide will reach more than $1.387 bn by 2024. That's possible due to the improbable growth of the IoT industry - there are already more than 15 billion active IoT devices globally. More importantly, data collected from IoT devices is expected to reach 79 ZB in the next three years. It's a staggering figure that reveals the potential of IoT in the field of customer analytics. It is here that data analytics companies play a pivotal role. How to Centralize User Insights with IoT? Now that you know how IoT works, it's time to learn how to use it for customer analytics. The process is not much different from other types of data collection - you need to gather, process, and analyze data. However, there are some important things to keep in mind. When it comes to data gathering, you have two options. The first one is to purchase data from third-party providers. The second option is to collect data yourself with the help of IoT devices. They can be placed in strategic locations, such as retail stores, office buildings, or public transportation - it depends on the type of business you're running. IoT devices track consumer behavior and preferences and send data to the central analytics system. The data processing stage is important because you need to clean and organize the data. This is done with the help of special software that
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