Convergence of IoT to shift consumer expectations

NEW YORK: Organizations will soon be creating a new wave of transformative digital services driven by the convergence of the Internet of Things (IoT) and shifting consumer expectations, finds a new report from Accenture.

The report, titled “The Era of Living Services,” predicts a new era of highly sophisticated “living services” that can learn and tailor themselves in real-time to meet the changing needs of consumers, workers, patients and citizens.

Their emergence will create change in every industry while presenting brands with tremendous opportunities for growth and differentiation, and marking a radical departure from today’s dominant approach of companies creating generic and static services designed for mass consumption, according to the report from Fjord, which is the design and innovation group within Accenture Interactive.

The concept of intelligent services that adapt and change based on consumer preference isn’t new, but the technology that enables living services has recently matured enough for brands to create and deliver them at scale, the report finds.

According to the report, enterprises and their marketing leaders will need to strengthen their understanding of customers through data and analytics; maintain a services platform and technology that is flexible enough to recombine products, services and information in many different contexts, experiences and situations; and concentrate on one or two aspects of user experience delivery and make these as “living” as possible. Design too will be impacted as organizations seek to deliver impactful yet consistent services using challenging new interaction types such as voice, gesture and location across a range of new devices.