9 Promising Advantages of IoT for Businesses

• By Kaitlyn Alfaro
• 12-05-2023
• Internet of Things

Businesses aim for dynamic changes to cope with the potential competition, production, communication, and more. The IoT, or the Internet of Things, is one of the most momentary technologies. Moreover, businesses are currently relying on this niche technology for aspiring transformations.

Now, we are in an era where almost everything is connected. For example, your smartphone, home automation, office security cameras, and more devices connect to your car. All these devices communicate with each other consistently, and the IoT is a world of interconnected devices.

In addition, these devices can collect data and convey it to other machines through cloud computing platforms. Thus, you can imagine what IoT can accomplish in enterprises. Already, businesses have started reaping benefits from IoT.

Are you excited to reveal the advantages a business can avail of from the Internet of Things? Let’s find out.

Pros of Implementing IoT Tech for Businesses

Smart Data Recovery has confirmed that the number of IoT devices will reach 43 billion in 2023. This is almost a 300% increase from the number of IoT devices in 2018. Thus, you can understand that both enterprises and individual consumers depend on numerous IoT devices.

This is the golden moment to explore what your business can do with IoT support. The more devices connect to the internet, and the easier it will be to keep track of the global network. Consequently, IoT can offer low operating costs, business optimisation techniques, and customer insights to different enterprises.

To summarise, IoT offers 2 prime advantages. The first perk is widespread connectivity. Since almost everything can now connect to the internet, this will give your business access to numerous information.

On the other hand, IoT works on automation. It implements direct communication among individual network-enabled devices, hardware, and apparatuses. Additionally, IoT technology must involve data transfer, analysis, and response among devices.

However, automation isn’t possible without Machine learning, Big Data, and Artificial Intelligence. On top of that, the pillar of communication is cloud computing, along with wireless technologies. Now, Let’s review how IoT can benefit a business irrespective of its scale and landscape:

1. Elevated Revenue Chances for Businesses

The Internet of Things opens a new horizon for enterprises and their corresponding revenue streams. No doubt, IoT introduces your business to advanced models and technology.

IoT-optimised solutions help your business increase its investment return by creating impactful use cases. In addition, IoT can assist businesses in making changes in the global communications landscape.

Since your business can reach a whole new audience globally, your revenues will increase further. Achieve more flawless connectivity with your target consumers with IoT.

2. Reduction in Human Labour & Increment in Productivity

Automation is a huge part of the Internet of Things. Therefore, IoT can take care of too many complex tasks at the same time without the interference of human labour. As a responsible business owner, you can deploy different smart devices to control and monitor everything essential automatically.

As a result, you can decrease the demand for human labour on your business premises. Moreover, this can boost your business productivity. IoT-driven devices can accurately assess market trends and demands. They can also manage diverse production stages and inform you about the real-time tracking of multiple machines.

On top of that, arranging meetings and other enterprise-level daunting tasks can be managed by IoT devices. Furthermore. IT experts can go through analytics from IoT devices to sort out technical issues. In essence, IoT can be the driving force to amplify your business productivity and usefulness.

3. Cost-Efficient Operations

Do you want to know what more IoT devices can do? The Internet of Things can turn into the control centre of the following business operations:

• Inventory management
• Shipment tracking
• Spare parts management
• Fuel management

Smart devices can stay connected through IoT, which helps in daily business operations. Shipping and inventory management requires RFID tags along with the respective sensor network. This enables location tracking of goods and equipment.

4. Spruced up Customer Service & Experience

Enhancing customer service and corresponding experience is a challenge for businesses. The Internet of Things can make customer service more fruitful and relevant. As a result, this can be beneficial for businesses to build trust and credibility among customers.

How can IoT help in customer service improvement? Modern IoT technologies like mobile card readers and smart trackers can level up the game. For instance, mobile card readers ensure smooth transactions over mobile devices. On the other hand, customers can easily track their shipments using smart trackers.

Besides this, enterprises prioritise delivering top-notch customer service with IoT applications in business. Utility service providers can combine smart meters and smart grid technologies to revamp the customer experience and solve different customer-oriented problems.

5. Clarification in Consumer Behaviour

Consumer insight is a relatively new term in the business world. However, this single term can be as powerful as exploring new opportunities for any particular business. Indeed every industry is desperate to learn about its target customers’ behaviour and preferences.

With the Internet of Things and its innovations, now it’s possible to monitor what your customers are looking for. IoT-driven devices can empower retail companies to receive, track, and analyse data collected from social media, mobile use, video surveillance, and the internet.

However, these datasets shed light not only on consumer insights and future prediction of preference but also on upcoming market trends. Thus, you can understand where your business has to work regarding products and services. Consequently, your business can pick up the top spot in delivering relevant and personalised services.

This will also benefit your business to keep engagement healthy with consumers. IoT lets you look in-depth at consumer profiles to retain your customer base.

6. Upgraded Workspace Safety

The widespread connectivity across countless devices in the name of uninterrupted communication might threaten you. If you are sceptical about IoT solutions and their security, then we have good news for you.

It’s possible to strengthen your IoT network with security management approaches. For example, IoT devices offer scopes to build defence and enforce workplace safety. Employees can rely on smart locks, motion sensors, and advanced video surveillance systems to prevent data theft and other digital threats.

Apart from handling negative digital consequences, IoT devices can make workplaces safer for human beings. High-risk industries such as construction, real estate, mining, and equivalent industries can encourage employees to use embedded sensors and wearables. This will make data tracking seamlessly possible, along with 24/7 supervision.

7. Improved Use of Assets and Resources

How can IoT again keep track of resources and their usage? Well, interconnected sensors shortly will offer much higher efficiency for your business. For example, you can monitor and analyse your power management resources with the help of these sensors.

On the other hand, you can even program these sensors to manage your business’s power sources automatically. Similarly, you can install motion detectors to keep track of water and energy consumption. In addition, you can use motion detectors to retrieve the total electricity and water bills.

IoT devices can even analyse these bills and suggest reducing energy and water consumption. Thus, you can save money for businesses irrespective of their sizes. You can also move a step forward in both economic and ecological approaches.

8. Smart Marketing and Newer Business Models

IoT devices include smart devices such as voice assistants, which are now omnipresent in most homes. These devices can directly communicate with customers or end users daily.

Well, this results in an exchange of valuable information about business between end-users and smart devices. Thus, IoT devices can help businesses gather large volumes of user-oriented information.

After observing and analysing them, it’s possible to develop targeted marketing strategies. Additionally, you can work on developing new business ideas and models to improve further. Besides this, as a business owner, you can revise price policies, advertising, management, and other marketing protocols with dedicated IoT innovations.

9. Reduced Operation Costs

You might have already got a hint about how IoT can decrease the overall operations cost of a business. Achieve sustaining business operations in a cost-effective way with advanced IoT-centric applications. Since companies connect to a large customer base with countless smart devices, it's easy for an enterprise to monitor consumer insights.

Therefore, you can only implement additional operations to retrieve these data types, resulting in a trimmed-down operation cost. IoT devices can do a lot in manufacturing industries besides tracking consumer insights and preferences prediction.

These industries can deploy IoT devices to predict future failures and overcome possible errors. Additionally, IoT devices can track goods and shipped equipment and decrease downtime to a great extent. Hence, businesses can save a lot on tracking and shipment cases.

In addition, businesses can reduce energy and water utility bills, as you have seen before. Optimise electrical and water usage by letting IoT devices monitor and limit the redundant use of these resources.

Disadvantages of IoT

Is the Internet of Things all gold and glitters? No, it’s not, as the prime concern associated with IoT is its security flaws. A few inventors have suggested that IoT should connect toothbrushes, toasters, trash bins, and more to the world of this technology. Now, this can risk the privacy of individuals.

Let’s check out the probable cons of IoT:

Privacy Violation

IoT makes sharing easy, but this feature can be a huge cybersecurity risk. IoT devices are not always built with integrated security features.

That’s why the following attacks can be common:

• Physical access
• Internet-based software attacks
• Hardware-based attacks
• Network-based attacks

Not complying with data privacy standards can be an offensive punishment. Additionally, a breach in the healthcare and finance industries might hamper the business image. That’s why the integration of encryption and other security protocols is a must to preserve data.

Power Dependence

IoT operates entirely on smart devices and their interconnection. Primarily, smart devices should connect to stable power and an internet connection to operate. This means that IoT implementations demand a huge and well-planned infrastructure.

Your business will require many surge protectors, UPS devices, and additional equipment with IP ratings. In addition, this will cost you more money, time, and effort to integrate IoT with your business.

IoT in the Future….

Undoubtedly, IoT needs lots of complex technologies to be implemented and supervised. As a business owner, you must appoint professionals to deploy, set up, maintain, and change IoT infrastructure. However, IoT offers enormous business opportunities and magnitudes to reach tempting destinations.

IoT will continue contributing to smart applications for hospitality, healthcare, education, finance, entertainment, and transportation. This will construct the domain of every business in the near future. Big tech giants such as Google, AWS, Microsoft, etc., already benefit from IoT. On the other hand, small and medium enterprises can also follow their footprints to respective pioneer industries.

Also read:12 Tech updates to improve your tech knowledge