We have been in the Information Age for decades and more than ever technology, through the interaction of digital data, is shaping human behavior and helping companies to improve their operational efficiency. And this has a high value: gaining a competitive advantage over your competitors.
The so-called Internet of Behaviors (IoB) is a connection of smart devices, home devices and online activities that continuously exchange data with each other. Whether it’s social media usage, geolocation data via smartphones, credit card purchases or even food preferences, their aim is not only to capture as much information about our patterns but, even more importantly, to influence our behavior and choices.
At the intersection of the Internet of Things (IoT), data analytics and behavioral science, this information is all combined to gain IoB insights. These insights allow for a significantly more granular understanding of people’s behavior. Simply put, IoB integrates big data analysis, facial recognition, and location analysis technologies that have long been applied separately, but in this approach, a human body essentially becomes a data platform.
According to Gartner predictions, IoT is among the top 10 strategic technology trends. This means that, by the end of 2023, the individual activities of 40% of the global population will be digitally tracked to influence their behavior. Furthermore, it is expected that by the end of 2025, more than half of the world’s population will be subject to at least one IoB program, whether commercial or government.
Why is IoB important for leaders and organizations?
The world’s application of IoB is likely to be broad, encompassing everything from the way we work, shop and eat to the people we interact with. For leaders and organizations, in addition to guiding them to make more assertive investment decisions based on customer preference data, IoB technology should mean marketing products more effectively, improving the overall user experience of a product or service, and also the employee.
Three main advantages of how the IoB can be beneficial for companies and consumers can be mentioned: customer knowledge, marketing strategy and opportunity. In the first case, there is precise demand determination, in the second, campaign optimization and in the third, consumers can benefit from the IoB if it is used to help them improve their well-being.
Companies and organizations that discover the key to understanding human behavior, and how to influence it, will have a significant advantage over competitors in all industry sectors. In general, relationships and people-centered thinking are at the core of developing successful, agile organizations led by the Internet of Behaviors.
What is up to the leader?
Collecting data to influence behavior has the potential to be a powerful tool, and because its reception depends on balancing a vigorous and delicate approach, to harness its power, the role of leaders will have to be redesigned and reinforced. It is necessary for this professional to wear several hats, from business to risk and from technology to software engineers to achieve success.
As the ideal application of the IoB platform is only leveraged when companies operate simultaneously on the internet.
have sections on technology, analytics, and behavioral science. The Leader needs to keep in mind that tightly linking all these experiences, rather than individually improving each one in a silo, creates a sustainable competitive advantage for the organization.
Another challenge is to offer the best results to the company in an IoB-driven world. In this regard, an open, customer-centric work culture with cross-functional corporate teams and members from different domains is crucial. Multifaceted teams naturally synthesize disparate data sources faster than those accustomed to working in silos. This can maximize business value in a much more innovative way.
Finally, in attempting to develop a future-oriented IoB approach, the leader should consider adopting internal environments where information sharing is ingrained in the workflow.