Accenture Exec: IoT Is Less About Products And More About The End-User Experience

As the popularity of the Internet of Things grows, vendors and solution providers see the importance of products and services being trumped by the end-user experience, said Accenture Senior Managing Director Eric Schaeffer.

’Vendors are moving away from a product push approach and focusing now on much more than developing services. ... Leaders are creating value by doing three things -- focusing on different consumer outcomes, higher- value solutions and enhanced experiences,’ Schaeffer said at the LiveWorx conference in Boston Wednesday.

With the challenges involved in the Internet of Things -- including security and a lack of standards -- Schaeffer posed a tough question that solution providers today are facing: Where is the value, and how can businesses cash in on the Internet of Things in three to five years?

[Related: Accenture To Acquire Industrial IoT Consultancy]

According to a study by Accenture, customers themselves aren’t yet sure.

While 84 percent of business leaders surveyed said that the Internet of Things will disrupt their industry in the next five years, only 15 percent said they think their company will derive new business revenue from it and 7 percent have a comprehensive strategy. And while 60 percent of enterprise leaders think that the Internet of Things should be a main driver for their business, 73 percent have yet to make any concrete progress.

Schaeffer stressed that vendors need to focus not on products and services in order to find this value, as they have in the past, but on what he called the ’total consumer experience’ -- and solution providers play a critical role in this strategy.

’Delivering outcomes on the Internet of Things will require companies to develop new business capabilities,’ he said. ’New ecosystems will be formed and vendors will need to work with partners … to provide new services to clients.’

Accenture, No. 2 on the 2016 CRN Solution Provider 500 list, has invested into the industrial Internet of Things over the past few years. Most recently, the company acquired Houston-based Internet of Things consulting firm Cimation.

Accenture has developed a framework around the Internet of Things with three ’value areas,’ surrounding not products and services, but client businesses and the end-user experience, said Schaeffer.

The three value areas include digital customers, or leveraging digital technology to address customers in a more comprehensive way; business operations, or exploring ways to decrease the cost of the digital access chain; and looking at new business models around products and services.

’We are focusing on the customer versus the product and service functions,’ he said. ’There is a blend in integration between the product and the enterprise as we see products become more connected.’