What is the future of wearables in the enterprise?

Wearable tech on your wrist

Wearable devices like fitness bands, digital glasses, medical devices, smart watches, smart clothes and various other devices that augment our reality promise to radically change the manner in which information is collected, stored, processed, delivered and used.

These devices are helping people in tracking their physical activities, sleep pattern, location, check emails on the go, listen to music etc. The potential benefits of wearable devices are manifold, as they make our life more connected, hands-free and efficient.

There has been lot of buzz around how wearables will continue to enhance our daily lives. Wearables are starting to show their influence on our personal lives, and with so many technology giants like Google, Apple, Microsoft, Intel, Nike etc. competing to be in the forefront, it’s hard to imagine that wearable technology won’t be popular eventually, says Tushar Bhatnagar, IoT project manager with TechMahindra.

International Data Corporation (IDC) forecast that by 2019 there will be 214.6 million units of wearable devices sold globally, with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 28%.

Tushar Bhatnagar
Tushar Bhatnagar, IoT project manager with TechMahindra

No matter how exciting it seems for end-users, it’s actually the business implications of wearable devices that are worth noting. Wearables are helping us in increasing productivity, efficiency, safety, and creating tremendous opportunity for growth.

In the retail sector, wearable devices are bringing improved shopping experience by providing a differential experience for each buyer, improving customer service throughout the store, improving loyalty program and speeding up purchases. In manufacturing, they increase productivity by creating hands-free guidance tools. In healthcare, they ensure accuracy and sufficiency of user’s medical information at desired intervals, thereby, helping the clinician in predicting their diagnosis, prescribing appropriate treatment, streamlining suitable procedures and facilitating clinical trials.

In advertising, it is being used to deliver marketing messages directly to the users, facilitating seamless engagement with media and devices and securing more advertising inventory to drive e-Commerce. Irrespective of the sector employing the wearables, effective implementation of this technology benefits both the user and the enterprise adopting them, by increasing efficiency and efficacy.

A study by Salesforce Research found that users using wearable devices experience an improvement in their business performance, wherein 79% agree that wearables are, or will be, strategic to their company’s future business success and 86% plan to increase their wearable investment.

However, consumers are sometimes skeptical about the impact of wearables on privacy and security of their personal information. If proper security measures are not taken a hacker can spy on their health records, take a view of their home from a remote location and know whereabouts of their family members, or even worse it can take control of their medical device to send incorrect messages which could even be lethal. The U.S. FDA has expressed concern over the same and urged the device makers to address these wireless vulnerabilities.

Conclusion

In my opinion, measures for privacy and security need to be increased. Moreover, to reach the true potential of wearable technology for both users and enterprises, huge amount of data generated needs to be integrated and an interoperable ecosystem is required to be built, rather than restricting it to a standalone use case. The data needs to be consistent across all devices real time. Wearables should be able to interact with other services and be used in conjunction with the cloud and corresponding big data applications.Future technology

Enterprises should begin entering the wearable market by identifying appropriate use cases within their business. They should identify tasks that require users to perform uninterrupted work, without engaging their hands to frantically look for multiple data sources. This can later be evaluated for assessing their productivity, efficiency and efficacy while working with and without the wearables.

Furthermore, they should evaluate which type of wearable display best solves there business problems. It is essential to test the assumptions by experimentation and obtaining feedback from the users and then iterate them before adopting it fully. It’s no longer a question of “if” but “when” the disruptive potential of wearable technologies will become mainstream.

The author of this blog is Tushar Bhatnagar, IoT project manager with TechMahindra

Comment on this article below or via Twitter: @IoTNow_ OR @jcIoTnow

RECENT ARTICLES

Airtel to power more than 20 million Adani smart meters

Posted on: April 29, 2024

Airtel Business, the B2B arm of Bharti Airtel, has announced that it will power over 20 million smart meters for Adani Energy Solutions Limited (AESL). Airtel, through its nationwide communications

Read more

CDG and Innovation Incubator launch AI-powered telecom solutions

Posted on: April 29, 2024

Communications Data Group has announced an alliance with Innovation Incubator to operate an extension of CDG’s innovation lab and develop Generative AI powered solutions aimed at transforming the subscriber and

Read more
FEATURED IoT STORIES

What is IoT? A Beginner’s Guide

Posted on: April 5, 2023

What is IoT? IoT, or the Internet of Things, refers to the connection of everyday objects, or “things,” to the internet, allowing them to collect, transmit, and share data. This

Read more

The IoT Adoption Boom – Everything You Need to Know

Posted on: September 28, 2022

In an age when we seem to go through technology boom after technology boom, it’s hard to imagine one sticking out. However, IoT adoption, or the Internet of Things adoption,

Read more

9 IoT applications that will change everything

Posted on: September 1, 2021

Whether you are a future-minded CEO, tech-driven CEO or IT leader, you’ve come across the term IoT before. It’s often used alongside superlatives regarding how it will revolutionize the way

Read more

Which IoT Platform 2021? IoT Now Enterprise Buyers’ Guide

Posted on: August 30, 2021

There are several different parts in a complete IoT solution, all of which must work together to get the result needed, write IoT Now Enterprise Buyers’ Guide – Which IoT

Read more

CAT-M1 vs NB-IoT – examining the real differences

Posted on: June 21, 2021

As industry players look to provide the next generation of IoT connectivity, two different standards have emerged under release 13 of 3GPP – CAT-M1 and NB-IoT.

Read more

IoT and home automation: What does the future hold?

Posted on: June 10, 2020

Once a dream, home automation using iot is slowly but steadily becoming a part of daily lives around the world. In fact, it is believed that the global market for

Read more

5 challenges still facing the Internet of Things

Posted on: June 3, 2020

The Internet of Things (IoT) has quickly become a huge part of how people live, communicate and do business. All around the world, web-enabled devices are turning our world into

Read more