Why M2M?

M2M slashes your costs, opens up for new revenue opportunities, strengthens brand attractiveness and delivers benefits to your customers. This is why companies who have taken this route have both increased business efficiency and grown their business.There are some key reasons for implementing M2M, resulting in both business efficiency and business growth.

Business Efficiency

The most obvious activity that a connected product can make for you is increased efficiency in existing business processes. Moving from reactive to proactive actions deliver huge value, often in the form of cost reductions. Major savings can be achieved by being able to carry out tasks when required, implementing assignments faster and using field personnel more efficiently. Many tasks can be implemented from a distance with substantial costs savings as a result.

Business Growth

Another benfit of M2M is the value add it will bring to your offering, the possibility to create new offerings - thereby growing your business. You will be able to increase your existing revenues, create new revenues and increase customer loyalty and the perception of your brand.

One way to add value to your product is by creating new services. Can you assume responsibility for an element of your customer's application of the product? Customers are able to make their processes more efficient by being given information about the product's use, the functions used most and the problems that usually arise. You can also take a larger grip by totally leaving product sales and delivery and taking responsibility for a function. Your relationship with the customer is now extremely tight and the delivery is so vital that the you and your customer can begin a long and, for both parties, profitable partnership.

By bringing in the consumer into the equation (M2H, Machine-to-Human) and leverage relevant information and interact with your consumer, you will increase customer loyalty and sales by providing a new direct communication channel. This is relevant for most services, from reading and controlling energy consumption in the utility industry, to home surveillance in the security industry, to controlling and accessing your digital media in the consumer electronics and entertainment business. For the smart home, M2M implementation will be the key enabler.

Know why – know the value of your business case

When implementing M2M in your business, the most important question to ask is not to know how, it's to know why. The value of the business case for your company depends on the answers you give to these questions:

• Who will handle the information?
• Who will own the information?
• Who will use the information?
• Who will you share the information with?
• Who will benefit from seing the information?
• Who will pay for the information (business model)?

It might take some time to realize all the possibilities and all of the impact M2M will have on your business, but one thing is for sure - sooner or later it will. It is not necessary to take a giant leap at first. It is however important to take the initiative and protect your territory, since it can in most cases also be done by others. Being early on the market has huge advantages.