IoT will be the key to thrive in the post-COVID world

As the world continues to grapple with the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, it has accelerated the digital transformation curve for enterprises and made us ponder as to how technology can used to save lives and ensure business continuity.

Digital agility will be a clear dividend going forward as enterprises are fast accepting the new reality of working and managing their operations remotely. Decreased economic demand will force enterprises to go for solutions that are capex and asset light and boost their productivity while being controlled remotely with minimal human intervention.

The priority at this point of time is to integrate and streamline digital infrastructure at various stages of public health, economic momentum, particularly in the context of epidemic forecasting and decision-making. With stricter norms for social distancing and continued restrictions on travel, new-age technologies like Internet of Things (IoT) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) will see more use cases and enterprises will invest in these for long term benefits.

Securing Healthcare Professionals

Doctors and other healthcare professionals across the world are working tirelessly while risking their own lives to save the patients. AI-backed IoT solutions will play a crucial role in providing safety to these professionals while ensuring that the quality of care does not suffer. At the same time, these can be leveraged to understand the community spread and evolution of the virus.

The healthcare technologies are of great importance amongst the IoT service providers as it will drive significant transformation in the health sector. Hospital drug and waste management, robotic surgery, real-time health monitoring through apps, and diagnostics via IoT solutions will witness increased adoption.

Remote Working is an Imperative now

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, remote working has become an essential capability to enable business continuity. There has been a spike in adoption of work from home as a modus operandi, with technology as the key enabler for robust connectivity, collaboration and communication.

Early adopters of IoT based solutions have been able to keep their operations running in these unprecedented times. Enterprises have begun to adopt IoT powered solutions to continuously monitor, access data and perform daily tasks. It helps with the smooth functioning of critical operations and enhance the safety and accountability of the businesses. These AI-backed IoT solutions boost inventory management, enhance employee productivity remotely, and let enterprises conduct augmented real-time interactions with customers to gain precise insights to achieve effective forecasting, resulting in more efficient business decisions.

Contactless Future

The current situation has made people cautious about their purchasing activities in public places. Consumers are increasingly embracing digital wallets and contactless payments as they require less physical interaction and are more secure. Contactless technology is in high demand for sectors that deal with a large number of financial transactions such as BFSI, supermarkets, transportation etc. The IoT enabled smart devices have the potential to disrupt the fintech industry by moving the markets to non-touch, digital-only transactions.

We can expect to see innovation in the use cases of NFC chips, payment apps, sensors and tracking devices. Connecting these devices using IoT allows for greater business intelligence gathering, live performance monitoring to upscale productivity and enable better customer service.

Enabling efficient fleet management

The pandemic has disrupted the supply chain and logistics ecosystem, leading to a significant negative impact on business operations and the lives of people. Fleet maintenance management has become a massive challenge with one of the key concerns about how to manage assets remotely and mitigate business risks. IoT can help to address this challenge by enabling smart fleet management solutions that will help in vehicle tracking/monitoring, analytics, remote diagnostics and pre-emptive crisis mitigation.

Sai Pratyush, Group Product Head – IOT, Cloud and SaaS, Tata Teleservices Ltd.

Transform Operations of the manufacturing units

IoT can provide crucial support to the manufacturing sector by enabling solutions like predictive maintenance that can digitize manufacturing processes and help large scale industries perform quality control checks and manage asset malfunctions. Enterprises can predict the eventuality of machines shutting down and automatically schedule service requests, hence decreasing machine downtime. It will also ensure the safety of employees and allocation materials on time to reduce unplanned downtime and stabilize productivity.

Getting Ready for a New Future

The post COVID19 world will be radically different from what was envisioned by us before the pandemic. We are at a point of no return, as we head towards a new way of living and working, a 'new normal'. Every organization needs to fast-track the deployment of new-age digital technologies like IoT, AI and others to make themselves future-ready.