The output rate of technology has grown exponentially and shows no indication of reaching an asymptote, to the delight of business owners. The innovations described in this article will all assist in the security, quality, and increasing of margins of ALL businesses.
Every innovation is computerized in this article, not by coincidence, but rather because of recent societal and technological trends. Every period in history endures a similar transition: until the Middle Ages, agricultural and architectural innovations dominated, then transportation innovations ensued for trading purposes up to the Industrial Revolution. Each period has a necessity to attend to, and fortunately enough, we live in a World where innovation mostly comes from comfort-related intent while earlier technology was inspired by the need to suppress famine or trade with other countries to pay for warfare. We are now at a transition period, where we can have luxuries like these business efficiency uplifters listed below.
Microfactories
First introduced to me through Bright Machines, a software-defined manufacturer who have participated in this new trend, micro-factories are eco-friendly and efficient for large scale manufacturers. If you wish to learn more, check out their article here.
Micro-factories are essentially highly automated (low labour costs), small dimensioned manufacturing plants. The high level of automation allows the factory to be more adaptable and customizable to the consumer’s needs, rather than producing one uniform product by the hundreds of thousands.
These production giants also fit modern eco-friendly standards by using less space, energy and materials in comparison to the common factory. In addition, UNSW has started a micro-factory initiative to recycle e-waste through a small furnace that isolates useful alloys. More intriguingly, these alloys can be used to “reform” new electronics that can be sold on the market. To learn more, see Veena Sahajwalla’s informational short-video describing this process here.
From a geographical standpoint, these micro-factories will allow larger corporations to produce in secondary markets without investing unnecessary capital in an area of smaller product interest in contrast with larger markets where the main factories reside.
Marketing-wise, micro-factories allow a company to proclaim their environmental efforts. With rising demand for the suppression of environmental degradation, micro-factories will offer additional purchase incentive for the consumer that their competition may be unable to offer.
Blockchain
Blockchain is the latest improvement to online monetary transactions. Used originally for cryptocurrency such as bitcoin, Blockchain now allows all industries to enjoy it’s benefits.
First, and most importantly, Blockchain significantly improves the security of transactions through revolutionary encryption. Blockchain works in steps for the user:
- Transaction Request
- Formation of a block for the transaction
- Block is broadcasted to the network
- All network nodes validate the block
- The block is added to the chain
- The transaction is now successfully executed and validated
The above steps were derived from the 101 blockchains article “The Ultimate Blockchain Technology Guide”.
Step 3 and 4 have importance in the nature of blockchain and aren’t just logistical steps. The essence of blockchain is the democratization of transactions, meaning that all blocks are immutable and visible. This can allow companies to see all transactions and reverse approval. Also, millions of computers view all transactions and store their unique history on a ‘block’, making it nearly impossible to falsify a record.
Blockgeeks.com asserts that Blockchain threatens middle man apps such as Uber and Airbnb. Now, there is no need to have a middle man and pay transaction fees when Blockchain charges 0. This also destroys the subscription business, as minute per-article or per-video charges are applied (often below 1 cent) with no transaction penalty.
This level of technology would have an expected transaction fee, however, Blockchain does not charge any transaction costs, only initial infrastructure costs.
While quantum computing will likely challenge the security of Blockchain in its current form, MIT writers assert that quantum Blockchain will uprise and continue the security reputation of regular Blockchain.
To implement this into your business, just start utilizing Blockchain for payroll, B2B transactions, and possibly B2C transactions. The security and lack of transaction fees will make this transition proposal irrefutable.
Machine Learning
This is definitely the most broad innovation on this list in terms of its functionality, but machine learning (a.k.a “ML”) is the future and has a mandatory spot on any modern innovation list.
ML allows a computer to take in statistical models and algorithms to execute a task without explicit procedure. The functions ML is capable of are nearly infinite, however, some limitations include massive data usage, bias in some cases, and the inability to cooperate with other algorithms.
Some examples of ML in a business setting include:
- Siri and Alexa – speech recognition programs
- Short-term automated trading strategies generated by ML
- Business predictions, including annual sales models
- Extracting arbitrary data and organizing it (i.e website to excel)
- Traffic Predictions (Google Maps)
- Crime Prevention (i.e surveillance recognizes potential crime)
- Customer Support (Online and through telecommunication)
- Recommendations on YouTube, Social Media, and Search Engines
Ultimately, ML is a must-use to cut the costs of labor and production, innovate and organize business data and analytics, and increase margins, which all increase profit over time.
IoT (Internet of Things)
IoT is a complex system with a simple definition: IoT is the gathering and connection of things to the internet. To clarify, some things receive information and respond to its appropriate stimulus, things that gather information and distribute it, and things that are multidimensional and perform both tasks.
Some examples of things that Receive & Perform upon Information:
- A printer receives instructions and prints.
- A TV receives a signal from remote to turn on or change channels.
- A garage opens after instructions from a remote.
Some examples of things that Collect & Distribute Information:
- Motion Sensors
- Tesla Car Sensors
- Temperature sensors
Some examples of things that are Multidimensional and Collect Information and Act on it:
- Smartwatches (FitBit included)
- Self-driving cars sense danger and avoid it
- Sprinkler systems can detect moisture and restrict their water output
IoT is a must-have for physical location security (seen through surveillance that has multiple preventive functionalities), product improvement (as seen in Tesla and their pursuit of safe, autonomous vehicles), and internal company efficiency (through the use of easy-to-use remotes that can change lighting, temperature, etc. and employee safety-centered devices).
Digital Twin
Thankfully, IoT has allowed for the digital twin to rise in cost-effectiveness and usage. A digital twin is simply a virtual model of some physical phenomena such as a product, service, or process.
A digital twin has great importance if available at a reasonable cost because of the analysis and monitorization that it enables. Similar to some IoT devices, as a digital twin is, the virtual model uses sensors to gather data on the physical world and distribute that data to the virtual model.
The digital twin ultimately allows mistakes to occur in the virtual world before they occur in the physical world, allowing the implementation of preventative methods to address these issues that likely would’ve occurred without the digital twin.
NASA, as reported in Forbes, uses a digital twin to maintain proper functionality in their space exploration devices. Without a digital twin, NASA would be unable to monitor the success of their systems and act upon failures due to the limitation of physical distance.
Digital twins open future opportunities for data scientists to determine the importance of data and notify others in the company who can fix the issue and/or make improvements to the product/procedure/service.
iotforall.com addresses their application in health care and real estate if further examples are needed for you to fully grasp the digital twin concept.
For business, digital twins are huge in allowing product improvement and innovation. Certain models have great strengths in predicting consumer reaction, which can allow for product manipulation to appeal to the greatest potential profit margin. If you are a part of a technology-driven start-up, the digital twin technology is a must, especially when considering the recently improved cost-effectiveness brought by IoT.
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Very well written article, I learned a lot!
I’m glad to help out Michael!