Most companies today rely heavily on analytics, and those that can effectively understand massive amounts of data can stay on top of their industry. In just a few years, our society shifted from analog to digital. Now, it is necessary to collect information on almost anything to get much-needed value for a business. Among all this data, probably the most important is event information or what we’ve come to know as the Internet of Events (IoE).
What Is IoE?
IoE refers to all available event data. For example, in a warehouse setting, it can refer to events that occur inside a conveyor belt or an automated vehicle. It can also refer to happenings inside a transportation system. That includes checking in to a flight or buying a ticket. Essentially, these events can be machine or life events or both.
IoE is a combination of:
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Internet of Things (IoT): This refers to all tangible objects that can connect to a network. It includes devices that can be specifically identified in a network like Near-Field Communication (NFC)– or Radio Frequency Identification (RFID)-enabled gadgets. Examples of these are smartphones and any RFID tags such as those that restaurants use to tell you your order is ready. It also includes any portable device that can be connected to the Internet like fitness trackers, smartwatches, and smart TVs.
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Internet of People (IoP): This pertains to all data about social interaction. It comes from emails, forums, chats, and social media platforms.
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Internet of Content (IoC): This includes all information created to improve people’s knowledge. Examples include Wikipedia, YouTube, and newsfeeds.
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Internet of Location (IoL): This data involves all that possess geospatial attributes, including mobile phones.
All of this information overlap and can be used to come up with a business process model (BPM). Companies can use a BPM to analyze the data they collected to create effective processes and strategies to grow their business.
How Can IoE Provide Business Value?
The big data that comes from IoE can give companies clues to enhance their operations. But the information can sometimes be confusing, especially to the untrained eye. That is why organizations started applying data science.
Data scientists are trained to do process mining, a method used to come up with a business model that highlights differences between model practices and observed applications.
Let’s take a look at an example. Companies can use event logs to scrutinize a process. Armed with this information, they can analyze previously unseen inefficiencies and deviations then devise guidelines to enhance faulty processes to improve performance ultimately.
Process mining helps companies transform data into visual representations for easier monitoring and analysis. As such, users can better understand the chain of events and detect gaps. They can then shift priorities to improve efficiency and grow their business.
Simply put, IoE helps in process mining. It identifies what a company does right and what it can improve on.
What Sectors Can Benefit from IoE?
Healthcare
Given the current healthcare landscape, medical staff and patients can use event data from reliable communications technologies to improve collaboration. Feeding event logs to electronic health records (EHRs) can help medical practitioners monitor patients’ health remotely.
Retail
Retailers can use IoE data to attract more customers to patronize their stores using targeted promotions based on their purchasing behaviors. They can track a customer’s purchases and recommend products that they may be interested in buying, perhaps. They can also entice people with discounts on goods they frequently purchase.
Transportation
It won’t be long before people live in smart cities with so-called intelligent transport systems (ITSs). These include emergency notification systems like eCall in Europe. It is essentially a built-in car feature that lets those involved in an accident anywhere in the European Union (EU) automatically call for assistance. Through IoE, public road builders can spot trends like where collisions occur frequently and do something to avoid more such instances from taking place.
Energy
Climate change has become a big issue now. IoE data can help utility providers observe consumer behaviors to identify possible ways to conserve energy. They can determine, for example, when homeowners are usually out in certain areas and ration the amount of electricity or water in those places appropriately.
Manufacturing
IoE can help manufacturers explore the possibility of converting disposable items into renewables to conserve natural resources for future generations.
Banking and financial services
IoE can help banks and financial institutions improve their internal processes like auditing and compliance checks. Event data can help them identify which processes can be automated and which have to be done manually.
In today’s business landscape, it is a must to make use of all available data to improve processes and thus provide better value for their customers. Only then can companies edge out the competition and go well above their bottom line.
