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Gartner: Homes the next digital frontier

Joanne Carew
By Joanne Carew, ITWeb Cape-based contributor.
Cape Town, 30 Sept 2015
Companies need to create a competitive advantage forecast, says Hung LeHong, a research VP at Gartner.
Companies need to create a competitive advantage forecast, says Hung LeHong, a research VP at Gartner.

The average home has many devices connected to the Internet. To handle all of this networked technology, a household would ideally need a central hub or command centre to control everything.

Speaking on the last day of Gartner Symposium/ITxpo 2015 in Cape Town, Hung LeHong, a research VP at Gartner, outlined how companies like Google and Apple are competing to be the platform we use to manage and monitor all of these connected gadgets. He examined how their efforts are intertwined with achieving competitive advantage in digital businesses.

In the 60s or 70s, competitive advantage was intricately linked to foot traffic; it was about visibility and getting bodies in store, stated LeHong. The Internet transformed this into a measure of browsers and searches, and social media moved the conversation to one about collecting fans, followers and members.

He suggested the competitive advantage of the future will centre on collecting homes. "That is why Apple, Google, telecoms companies and cable companies are trying to become the command centre in your home."

While we do generally think the Internet companies are better positioned to win this battle, in the case of very strong brands, this may not be the situation, he noted.

"Think about this in relation to competitive advantage. If they know how often you run your dishwasher, they can target products at you accordingly," he detailed. If it is the company or "aggregator" controlling all of the "stuff" in your home, the likes of Apple and Google have a wealth of knowledge about you and your family and how each appliance is used.

This enables big brands to foster a more intimate relationship with customers, LeHong continued. "Customer knowledge in the future will also include knowledge of the physical world. New technologies allow us to gain a digital and physical context advantage, which aids customer insight."

In line with this, he stressed the importance of identifying a clear link between the customer data being gathered and how this info can be used to deliver value to clients. But this goes beyond connected homes, noted LeHong.

He outlined how anything from health devices to toys can be digitised and automated. "As things digitalise, they all become units of something. Be it physical products, services, lending, funding or knowledge."

The idea is to take something complex and present it to your customers in a user-friendly and simple package, he went on to say. Companies need to create a competitive advantage forecast, LeHong advised. They should think about what will happen in their industry and how they can do business differently to put them ahead of their competitors.

"Industry boundaries will blur and early adopters are already positioning themselves to take advantage of these new sources of competitive advantage."

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