In an increasingly connected world, the migration from analog to digital is well underway. In this new digital era, humans and machines will all communicate seamlessly in a variety of ways through a common secure network.
As a civilization, we have probably peaked when it comes to (human) inter-personal communications. However, we are still quite far behind when it comes to machine-to-machine and person-to-machine communication. But that’s all about to change!
The recent technological innovations coming out of the machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence space has accelerated development and incorporation of smart technologies making machine-to-machine and person-to-machine communication the norm (and transcending conventional IVR prompts).
Why does IoT matter?
New developments in the Internet of Things (IoT) field has already started to influence all of IT in general, but specifically unified communication (UC) technologies. As the adoption across industries keeps rising, the global IoT market spend is expected to reach $30 billion by the year 2020.
For businesses, IoT’s mass appeal makes complete sense as connecting smart things and further, connecting them to people, can have a significant impact on productivity. Furthermore, it also has the potential to help enterprises identify new business opportunities.
According to Verizon, revenue growth is the primary driving force behind the rise of IoT adoption. But at present, only 8% of businesses are utilizing more than 25% of the IoT generated data. So there is plenty of room to scale and enhance operations across industries.
Businesses are now utilizing IoT to engage in process automation that also involves UC. The aim here is to develop and deploy optimized operational strategies that are focused on providing support to all stakeholders.
Small businesses can also benefit from IoT as it will help them significantly streamline their work and processes and enhance productivity. For example, they can benefit from an AI-powered virtual assistant and automate office maintenance.
Challenges associated with IoT enabled UC models
What we’re talking about here is enabling omnichannel communication to help businesses achieve seamless communication experiences regardless of how the end-users and machines connect with them. But achieving this level of operational harmony can be a huge challenge.
This is because the extensive scale of connectivity along with the complex networking that’s needed for IoT and its applications create a lot of endpoints that need to be considered and monitored. Furthermore, when omnichannel communication tools utilize separate APIs for each communication channel, it will create a lot of conflict within the system.
The key here is to achieve seamless communications between different native technologies that are often averse to working together. Furthermore, it will make life easier for IT departments in the long run as IoT-based UC models can create a greater scope and scale of troubleshooting.
One way to respond to this is to engage a UC service provider who is highly experienced in filling the gaps to help enterprises achieve this level of connectivity. It’s important as when it happens, it can create multiple opportunities to automate various processes and functions that are often associated with industrial and enterprise UC communications models.
Further Reading: Explore the role of SD Access in the future of networking. Download your FREE guide today!
