Digital Transformation describes the transformation of business activities, processes, competencies and models to leverage the opportunities of digital technologies. So what do we mean by Digital Transformation with location-based technology?
Encompassing a number of existing and emerging technologies, it’s the key for all businesses to survive in today’s world. And the acceleration of digital transformation puts increasing pressure on enterprises to stay innovative.
It’s become essential for businesses to integrate various technologies into their network. However, the real key to successful digital transformation lies in the seamless transitions between systems and devices. Wherever they’re located.
We’re seeing an increasing number of remote workforce’s. Where employees not only move between numerous offices but also rely on off-site data to complete their tasks efficiently. Leading the necessity to create that seamless transition through digital transformation becomes ever more important.
When we mention supporting digital transformation with location-based technologies, we’re talking about a mix of different devices and systems. All of which are equally important, and can be used in many different ways. With the underlying opportunity of improving your business processes.
Integration of GPS and/or Map services (Google Maps, Apple Maps) into an enterprise app creates huge opportunities to improve your employee workflows. When managing remote workers, there are two areas to consider; employee safety and task efficiency.
GPS Integration
Employee safety is important for all remote workforces, including those travelling overseas. Using GPS integration, you can track your employee’s location when required. This is particularly useful when travelling through high-risk locations, performing dangerous tasks or during a disaster.
Integrating GPS into an enterprise app also allows businesses to create reactive itineraries for remote workers. Using a workers GPS location, an enterprise app can review the workers current schedule of work against the time, jobs scheduled in and new jobs that are logged locally. For instance, an issue with a gas line can be logged by customer support in a certain location. Which triggers a new job and assigns it to the closest field staff providing them with full job details and requirements.
Location-based Intelligence
Data on specific locations is vitally important if you’re undergoing risk analysis for new strategies, or for trying to understand inefficiencies at a specific location. This intelligence can be made up of a number of different data sets. From general insights on an area such as weather, occupancy or income. To more specific data sets of a particular building or office, such as staff attendance, temperature, and complaints. The key to utilising this data is being able to access it from an external location.
Understanding how a specific location (be that a road, a town or a city) performs across the board can be instrumental in the success of a new business venture. Whether that’s a coffee shop looking to open on a new high street, or a business looking to move a manufacturing plant to a new location. Much of this data is already available and by using algorithms to analyse it, you can gain a true understanding of how a new location may perform and support digital transformation.
Maybe your business operates across multiple locations. Therefore you can also use location technology to understand where inefficiencies lie. For example, maybe one office is considerably under-performing against a similar office in a different location. You can use data collected by devices at the location to review why this might be happening. Intelligence on the local environment, how the team interact and the times at which they enter and leave the building, can all give insights into where the issue lies.
The most important thing to note is that to utilise location data you need to set a clear outline of the result you need. You’ll need to create an ecosystem that not only communicates the relevant data back to you, but that analyses patterns and provides you with actionable insights.
Connected devices and the IoT
One of the biggest disrupters in digital transformation, which you’ll hear about everywhere, is the use of connected devices; be that intelligent chips, Bluetooth tags, beacons or internet-enabled objects.
For the logistics and retail industry, transformation to a digital supply chain rests heavily on the IoT, including the use of smart devices for consignment tracking and tags to assess local environments. Similarly to employee location tracking, we can use smart chips to track objects and products, whether that’s a consumer package out for delivery or a power tool on a construction site. Giving businesses automated notifications when an item leaves a secure zone, has been damaged or simply to track its activity.
The use of connected devices allows you to manage automation better than ever. Whether that’s automatically logging an employee into a system when they enter a specific office or performing intelligent actions. Such as passing information onto the next connected device or sending notifications to your customer.
The IoT will continue to push innovation within the enterprise, creating networks of devices, sensors and systems across expansive areas. Working autonomously, collecting and sharing data throughout the space. Whether this is guiding passengers through an airport to their gate, monitoring warehouse space availability or giving staff immediate access to systems when in specific locations. We have the opportunity to create more convenient journeys and better personalise the user experience. We can provide more support than ever by utilising location technology.
What next for Digital transformation with location-based technology?
If you’re looking at supporting your digital transformation with location-based technology within your organisation, consider all of the technology carefully. Think about how it will improve a specific task. Think about the effect it will have on your business and most importantly how it will benefit your employee or your customer.
Using this type of technology will produce huge amounts of data. So, it’s important that not only is the data protected and managed sufficiently but, moved between systems and devices seamlessly. You’ll need to create an IT structure that supports data movement and prepares you for digital transformation. It’s true that we don’t know what technology tomorrow brings us, but we can prepare ourselves for what’s to come.