‘APAC business owners are as aware of new technologies as their Western counterparts’

Deep Agarwal, Regional Sales Director – India, Zebra Technologies throws light on what actually is the Intelligent Enterprise Index and can a customer benefit from this index  to call itself a truly intelligent company - 

What is the intelligent enterprise index that Zebra has?
Zebra’s “Intelligent Enterprise” Index measures, to what extent companies today are meeting the criteria that define today’s Intelligent Enterprise. The criteria was identified by leading executives, industry experts and policy makers across different industries at the 2016 Strategic Innovation Symposium hosted by Zebra in collaboration with the Technology and Entrepreneurship Center at Harvard (TECH). 

The framework consists of technology solutions that integrate cloud computing, mobility, and the Internet of Things (IoT) to automatically ‘sense’ information from enterprise assets.

What makes any enterprise smarter than others?
According to Zebra’s Intelligent Enterprise survey, the most advanced companies have a clear vision of their IoT future, an understanding of the ROI and are investing currently to make it happen. These companies invest in technologies that drive their frontline operations, which in turn enable both new data insights and advanced applications that guide users to the “next best action”.

How can companies make the greatest use of their internal intelligence?
There has been an increasing focus on Big Data analytics to derive intelligence from company transactional data.  While there are plenty of insights that can be gained here, this can also overlook the opportunities to leverage real-time operational data. 

For a retailer, tracking sales and inventory are necessary to improve planning. But knowing in real-time when a shelf is empty and directing a worker to restock it has an immediate and significant financial impact. The most progressive companies Zebra works with look at their opportunity costs and workflow inefficiencies and consider how they could improve these by leveraging real-time data.

Why are organizations still resistant to embracing intelligent digital transformation?
Several studies have already confirmed that enterprises in Asia Pacific are leading the way in digital transformation planning. However, there are still many challenges in undertaking that journey. In order to tap into the power of intelligence, businesses will have to: 

•    Set priorities on what to invest in currently - customer acquisition, engagement, efficiency, information management, and analytics to name a few
•    Strategize and assess available and required resources
•    Determine the operational plan
•    Understand the required technological infrastructure to enable change
•    Conduct risk analysis of investment and long term benefits to capture future opportunities

How does APAC enterprises compare to global enterprises?
Only 2% of APAC companies are considered truly “intelligent”, scoring lower than their global counterparts (5%). These are the companies scoring more than 75 points on the Intelligent Enterprise index. That said, 51% of enterprises in APAC have achieved half of their “intelligent” potential, scoring above the global average (48%), according to the survey. These are the companies scoring between 50-75 points on the index.

Interestingly, we observe that there are only small differences between APAC and global numbers. This means APAC business owners are as aware of new technology as their Western counterparts, and are similarly seeking ways to ramp up their technology adoption.

Interesting findings –

Some of the key findings from Zebra’s Intelligent Enterprise 2017 survey include -
•    IoT vision is strong and investment set to increase - In APAC, 38 percent of companies spend more than $1 million toward IoT annually, and 80 percent expect that number to increase in the next one to two years. In fact, 67 percent of APAC companies expect their IoT investment to increase by 11 percent or more during this time. However, 39 percent of companies today have not executed on their IoT plans or do not have any plans at all. Although only 36 percent currently have company-wide deployment, it is expected that 65 percent will have it deployed company-wide in the future.

•    Customer experience is driving IoT - Seventy-one percent of companies claim the largest driver of IoT investment is improving the customer experience. In the future, increasing revenue (54 percent) and expanding into new markets (53 percent) are expected to be the largest drivers.

•    Business engagement is top of mind, but culture should be given more consideration - Eighty-one percent of companies have a method in place to measure ROI from their IoT plan, and 73 percent have IoT plans that address both the cultural and process changes necessary to implement it. 

•    Many companies lack an adoption plan - Fifty-four percent of companies expect resistance to adopt their IoT solution, yet don’t have a plan in place to address it. Only 27 percent who expect resistance have a plan to address it.

•    Companies keep employees informed, but there is room for more - Approximately 83 percent of companies share information from their IoT solutions with their employees more than once a day, of which half of these employers share in real or near-real time. However, only 34 percent provide actionable information to all employees, and information is provided either via email (69 percent) or as raw data (67 percent).