Exploring the impact of digitalization use-cases on enterprises
The identified value drivers can be broadly categorized into three main areas. Firstly, creating agility, which includes factors such as faster time-to-market (TTM), and improved customer satisfaction. Secondly, advancing operations, such as opex reductions, and increased process scalability. Lastly, boosting resilience which involves e.g. enhanced safety, and reduced environmental impact.
In the evolving landscape of business technology, decision-makers and employees alike are overall recognizing the transformative power of the three IoT-centric use-cases as well as the three human-centric use-cases studied this research. These use-cases and the technology tools alike provide values in all three areas: increased agility, advancing operations and boosting resilience.
Cellular technology is considered to be a key enabler for the growth of both IoT and human-centric use-cases by almost 7 in 10 decision-makers on average stating its importance. However, there is significant untapped digitalization potential as the usage of use-cases is still limited.
For decision-makers, the primary motivator for adopting new technologies as described in the use-cases is improved customer satisfaction, closely followed by enhanced innovation capabilities. Although important, the reduction of operational expenses (opex) and capital expenses (capex) are considered slightly less critical. Employees, on the other hand, emphasize improved efficiency as the dominant value driver across various use-cases. This may be a natural result of the lack of insights employees may have over the other values.
IoT-centric use-cases leverage connected devices and sensors to automate data collection and decision-making, enhancing operational efficiency.
Human-centric use-cases focus on improving user experiences and interactions through digital tools, enhancing productivity and satisfaction for employees and customers.
Different value drivers
The identified value drivers in this report can be broadly categorized into three main areas:
- Creating Agility: This includes for example faster time-to-market (TTM) and improved customer satisfaction.
- Advancing Operations: This area focuses for example on enhancing employee competence and increasing process scalability.
- Boosting Resilience: Key aspects here involve for example enhancing safety, and reducing environmental impact.
This study examines how IoT and human-centric use-cases are implemented in various enterprises, by adopting an industry segmentation based on two key criteria:
- The first is the connectivity characteristics. These are determined by the nature of the company’s connectivity needs and how value is created for both internal and external stakeholders. For example, a company with only one large site will have different connectivity needs than a highly distributed company.
- The second criteria is the industry-shaping characteristics. These encompass factors that significantly influence industries, such as regulation and types of production or services offered.
By using these criteria, each enterprise can be assigned to a specific industry segment for analysis, see figure 1.
Figure 1: The 7 industry segments
Asset-centric
Value creation based on mobile, distributed, connected equipment for production.
- Industry examples: Agriculture, automotive, construction, transport and logistics
Site-centric
Value creation based on connected production sites.
- Industry examples: Discrete and process manufacturing, pharma, resource extraction
Society
Value creation based on connected equipment for provisioning highly regulated governmental services.
- Industry examples: Education, government, healthcare
Finance
Value creation based on distributed, connected equipment for financial transactions.
- Industry examples: Financial services, banking, insurance
Service
Value creation based on distributed, connected equipment for professional service creation.
- Industry examples: Professional services, media, journalism and other services
Consumer
Value creation based on connected assets in consumer hotspots.
- Industry examples: Retail, e-commerce, leisure, tourism and hospitality
Infrastructure
Value creation based on highly regulated, connected, mission-critical infrastructures.
- Industry examples: ICT, utilities, water/waste management
As seen in the study, these values contribute to the seven enterprise segments in different ways:
- Creating Agility is primarily driven by infrastructure-centric and asset-centric industries.
- Advancing operations and boosting resilience are more uniformly distributed across various use-cases but show significant variation in focus depending on the industry segment.
Observations on Industry-Specific Preferences and Investments
There is generally a high relevance of digital use-cases across all the 7 industry segments, with slightly lower relevance for all use-cases in the society segment. This pattern also holds for current investment levels. This lag in digitalization of use-cases amongst societal organizations could be attributed to regulatory constraints, privacy concerns and a larger legacy base that creates inertia for change.
Digitally enabled product and service development is both the highest-ranked use-case and the one with the highest average share of IS/IT budget currently being invested in, see figure 2. Remote meeting and remote control have the lowest current average investment level (expressed as share of IS/IT budget), and investments for remote meetings are geared somewhat more towards the future.
The relevance of specific use-cases varies notably between industry segments as well as between decision-makers and employees. For instance, remote meetings are highly valued by both groups, but there is a significant discrepancy in the perception of remote control of computers, machines, or vehicles—likely because the average employee is less exposed to these systems directly.
Figure 2: Relative position of each of the 6 use-cases based on current importance to decision-makers (y-axis), current average investment level (percentage of IS/IT budget) and average timing of current and future investments (x-axis) [self-reported]
![Figure x: Relative position of each of the 6 use cases based on current importance to decision-makers (y-axis), current average investment level (percentage of IS/IT budget) and average timing of current and future investments (x-axis) [self-reported]](/4ad92d/assets/global/qbank/2024/11/25/report-4.3-figure-04-1-181253d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e.svg){kind=small}
Future Projections and Employee Perspectives
Looking ahead, IoT-centric use-cases has the highest expected growth rate across all industry verticals and is expected to grow by 23 percent on average over a ten-year perspective. The consumer and society-related organizations show the highest growth rates, while the service oriented companies have the lowest growth rates.
These growth projections are related to the increasing dispersion of enterprise operations across the globe with enterprises going further to get the right competence. This is something discussed in our previous report future of worklife. This leads to a shift towards decentralization and an escalated need for remote oversight and control over resources.
The convergence of technological adoption with the expectations of businesses and employees is shaping a new era of operational dynamics. Decision-makers are focused on leveraging technology to enhance customer relationships and innovation, while employees seek efficiency and resilience. Understanding these perspectives and aligning them with organizational goals is crucial for maximizing the benefits of technology investments, fostering a competitive and agile business environment, and ultimately achieving sustained growth and satisfaction at all levels of the organization.
