When you start to think about the smart, connected product capabilities and features you might want to add to your products, it can get pretty complex, pretty quickly.
One way to approach this problem is to break down the different capabilities of smart, connected products into sub-groups.
There are four core groups, which cover these capabilities:
- Monitoring – the ability to know what’s happening with the product, both in terms of how it’s working and how it’s interacting with it’s environment
- Control – the ability to control what the product doing or how it’s configured
- Optimisation – the ability to change what the product is doing in light of changing circumstances, so the product creates more value
- Autonomy – the ability to automate the product and give the product the capacity to do its own information processing/make some of its own decisions about how to best react or optimise in different situations
If you start to think about smart, connected products in terms of these four groups, then the decision about which capabilities you need to invest in will become clear. There will be one or more of the core groups that naturally aligns with your existing product, which makes prioritising the direction you take easier.
How will smart, connected capabilities benefit your company?
Then, the next way to think about how to add smart, connected capabilities to your products is in terms of how it will benefit you as a company. It could be in terms of the following:
- Operational efficiency – improving your ability to sell, service and/or maintain the product
- Differentiation – it makes your product stand out/better than the competition
- New revenue streams – it enables you to sell a service, in addition to the product or new modules/capabilities you can add to existing products
- No perceived value - be careful of this one. If adding smart, connected capabilities to your product isn’t bringing an obvious value, then you need to evaluate the reasons why your doing it to make sure you’re achieving a return on your investment
Really, what it comes down to is refocusing in on those capabilities and those features that help you to reinforce your competitive position in the marketplace. They should help your company to create unique value and competitive advantage.
