Wearables -
Are They Good
For Business?
The case for wearables in enterprise
We are entering the age of ‘peak wearable’. From fitness bands to smart watches to devices that augment reality, wearables have never been more ingrained in general public consciousness. Yet, as we move towards what our good friends at Fjord call the age of living services, where wearables are building-blocks fuelling real-time, personalised services, this mass awareness has yet to translate to mass adoption. Some would argue the to current consumer wearables’ inability to deliver experiences significantly different to those offered by current generation smart phones.
This creates a problem for brands looking to adopt wearables as part of their customer experience strategies. With devices still relatively immature, and audiences small it can be difficult to develop a compelling business case for consumer wearables.
Instead of wrestling with these challenges to gain a share of the still small consumer wearables space, brands should start to look within their own organisations for the fertile ground in which to plant the seeds of a wearable technology project.
Why enterprise wearables work
The case for wearables in enterprise first came to my attention during a recent renovation project. I noticed one day that the contractor I had installing the floorboards had a smart watch and, this being the first smart watch I’d ever seen in the wild, I naturally asked him what he used it for. He told me that prior to having a smart watch he would lose almost an hour a day from stopping work to answer his phone (the nature of his job made it unsafe for him to keep his phone in his pocket). With a smart watch he could simply glance at his wrist, assess if a call was important and, if not, get back to work immediately. He would then return any missed calls during natural breaks in his work. In a roundabout way what he was saying was that by making calls a smaller of number of times a day he had more time to focus on his primary value-generating task of laying floors.
Now, while this might have been a relatively simple business case it got me thinking, not only was it surprising to not see more building contractors utilising smart watches in a similar way but that surely other sectors could benefit from a similar approach to boosting efficiency, improving service and saving time.
When I took to exploring the topic further, it turns out the case for enterprise wearables is not entirely new. Many large organisations across a range of sectors have already taken steps to introduce wearable technologies into a number of their business processes. As far back as 2012 resources companies have been using RFID technology to monitor staff locations and improve worker safety. In 2013 Phillips Healthcare developed a proof of concept to demonstrate how Google Glass could be used to deliver hands-free and voice-controlled diagnostic information to surgeons during surgery. These examples are just the tip of the iceberg.
The factors that make for a successful project
So why do wearables work so well in enterprise and what sort of things can brands use to help identify a case for wearables within their own organisation?
A smaller more defined set of user personas and scenarios
While an organisation’s target audience may number in the tens of millions its workforce is likely to number in the tens of thousands. In addition, its workforce is likely to be made up of a number of clearly defined roles each with its own set of clearly defined tasks and responsibilities — generally in a position description. More clearly defined audiences and a consistent set of processes lend themselves more easily to transformation by wearable technologies.
Standard IT operating environments
One of the biggest challenges in delivering a consumer wearables project is managing the various platforms used by your audience. If you’re developing an app for Apple Watch but only 70% of your audience use Apple Watch, you are basically saying that 30% of your audience will be unable to use the app. In enterprise, your internal audience will generally be utilising a consistent standard operating environment and wearables should be no exception. A consistent technology platform will maximize penetration and uptake of wearable technologies within your organisation.
Less concern about looking silly
This may seem simple on the surface, but when you look at the initial failure of Google Glass you can argue that one of the reasons for this failure was that it didn’t deliver an application so good that you forgave yourself for how creepy you looked. In enterprise, this is less of an issue where uniforms and more specialized equipment are common.
The ability to more easily quantify success
In the case above, my flooring contractor was able to easily quantify the benefit of his smart watch in terms of additional time spent laying floors. Take this sort of case to a workforce of hundreds of field technicians where wearables might be used for a similar purpose and you can already see significant benefits. Does allowing people to check-in to their flight via a smart watch deliver the same sort of business benefits? It’s debatable.
A willingness to start small and iterate
Where consumers are generally less accepting of unfinished articles, your workforce is more than likely willing to try out a prototype that may make their job easier and will be more accepting of shortcomings in the product. They will also generally be more accepting of failure than consumers should an initiative prove to be unsuccessful.
All of this isn’t to say that there is no case for consumer focused wearable technologies. The recent success of the Apple Watch launch shows that mass adoption of consumer wearables might be closer than we think. That said, while such cases may exist it is possible for organisations to improve the way they service their customers by utilising wearable technologies to improve their own organisation’s ability to provide exceptional customer service.
