Three predictions for the future of smart technology: more collaboration

In today's world, a large number of interconnected devices and products are changing the way we know business. However, this trend has also raised a question as to which companies can take full advantage of this momentum and benefit greatly from it, and which companies are easily damaged by this trend.

Recently, Cognisant's "Center for the Future of Work" teamed up with the Economist Intelligence Unit, an economic analysis think-tank of the Economist Group, to participate in the United States and Europe. Product design and innovation Some company executives conducted research. The survey found that smart products and electronic data derived from smart products have had a major impact on B2B and B2C product development, manufacturing, marketing, sales and customer experience. In addition, the survey also found that smart products and electronic data derived from smart products may even affect other consumer products in the future.

Even so, respondents are still unclear about the long-term impact of smart product strategies as smart products continue to disrupt the market and existing business models. Nearly half of the respondents believe that smart product development will lead to more intense competition and higher profit margins, but only slightly more than one-third of respondents have a long-term impact on smart product strategy. Very optimistic attitude.

In any case, one thing is certain, that is, the new smart product economy has already begun. As different entities compete to gain control of consumers, it is bound to trigger an "arms race" in the future of smart products.

Future status :

Although in the short term, the smart product economic strategy is not very clear, there may be earth-shaking changes in the next 10 years, and some companies should use this opportunity to lay a solid foundation for potentially huge business opportunities. Overall, the future smart product market will develop in the following three stages:

1. Product methods and changes :

Smart products will gradually become more and more intelligent, and electronic interfaces that control and track customer interactions will emerge as the times require. As more data is analyzed, the corresponding product development work will continue to improve and improve. At the same time, related production, marketing and customer service functions will also help people to understand more about customers using smart products.

To clarify the goals of this phase, companies should invest in building a “digital lab” to study the most important business impact of manufacturing smart products. It is also important to encourage joint efforts to create smart product models through crowdfunding techniques and open collaboration platforms.

2, master the data :

In the highly competitive phase of competition, the focus of the smart product sector will also shift to product experience. As companies increasingly rely on integrating software and technology to succeed, this will also require more data sharing and collaboration.

To be successful, companies need to form a “product cloud” concept and integrate product clouds into complementary products and platforms through open infrastructure and shared APIs. As more third parties engage, these companies also need to secure a flexible, paired infrastructure and enhance the security of their facilities.

3. Carry out more cooperation :

A new enterprise architecture will emerge and reduce the risks of working together. In order to solve this problem, the company should integrate more data with third parties to start the research and development of smart products. Through this cooperation, they can also discover some new cooperation models and organized ways to better share the risks in the process of following the smart product strategy and share the benefits of this process.