Phil Skipper, global head of IoT business development, Vodafone:
“The key question is what will rise and fall in 2020, in terms of digital transformation for industry. At the end of 2019, low-power wide-area (LPWA) technologies, mobile private networks, and mobile edge computing are all making IoT accessible to a far wider range of use cases.
“This trend will continue into next year.
“The second trend for 2020 is the increase in companies that are transforming their operations around IoT. Industry 4.0, logistics and smart buildings are just three areas where IoT is making this change possible at scale.
“The third is an increasing awareness that IoT has become a service rather than a technology. As the reliance on IoT increases, so organisations are selecting their ecosystem of partners based on the consistency of delivery, stability and longevity required to complete the digital journey.
“The value of IoT has moved into the after-sale, where the shared responsibility between the mobile operator and the business is the basis for delivering a reliable, repeatable and consistent digital customer experience.
“The final trend is a result of digitising around IoT and is hyper-personalisation. The ability to deliver a bespoke service at an individual level will become even more important in 2020. This spans everything from automation of the supply chain, through digital-driven manufacturing, to product customisation by the customer.
“The result of hyper-personalisation is the metabolism of the organisation will change, creating new products faster, more efficiently and re-inventing the customer experience.
“This trend towards personalisation is already emerging in the insurance industry. In 2020, policies will change to become more service-based. In transport, for example, insurance for individual journeys will start to be more common, with policies short-lived, as opposed to fixed-term insurance for single vehicles.
“To deliver the improved service that technology promises, and consumers demand, businesses will need to think very carefully about who they partner with. This is where communications companies can play a critical role in educating businesses about what they need to sustain growth and success in 2020 and beyond.”
