Navigating the Path Toward Becoming an Intelligent Enterprise
Due to the rise of the on-demand economy, best practices have quickly shifted for companies across many industries, including manufacturing and transportation and logistics (T&L). As these firms balance the complexities of unavoidable emerging demands, such as the need for agile fulfillment from order to delivery, technologies that enable information sharing and enterprise-wide visibility have been embraced. Mobility, cloud computing and the Internet of Things (IoT) are here to stay, so it’s critical for decision-makers to understand the ways that digital transformation will continue to impact businesses for years to come.
Zebra Technologies recently published its second annual Intelligent Enterprise Index, a global survey that measures where companies are on the journey to becoming a truly “intelligent enterprise.” This kind of business connects the physical and digital worlds to drive innovation through real-time guidance, data-powered environments, and collaborative mobile workflows. In total, eleven metrics were used to evaluate a company’s progress toward becoming intelligent, including IoT vision, business engagement, adoption plan, security and standards, and more.
The survey found that the number of companies defined as an “intelligent enterprise” doubled to 10 percent in 2018, highlighting the significant investment and momentum surrounding IoT deployment and integration.
From an operations standpoint, the Index indicates that 82 percent of surveyed companies are sharing information from their IoT solutions with employees more than once a day. This is an increase of 12 percent from the previous year. In fact, approximately 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 shows that brands are making the transition to Industry 4.0—using connected, automated systems to collect and analyze data during every step of their processes and bridging the gap between the digital and physical to maximize efficiency, productivity, and transparency.
Furthermore, the latest Index shows 50 percent of companies are not expecting or experiencing resistance to IoT adoption, underlining the growing acceptance of these solutions and the recognition of their benefits. In last year’s survey, only a quarter of respondents reported a lack of resistance.
