The key is a digital twin.

Money is pouring into development.

AR will become the new interface between humans and machines.

AR will become the new interface between humans and machines.

Smart, connected products are completely changing the game. The evolution of products into intelligent, connected devices—which are increasingly embedded in broader systems—is radically reshaping companies and competition. This is forcing companies to redefine their industries and rethink nearly everything they do, beginning with their strategies. Companies will need new types of relationships with customers. They […]

Smart, connected products require functions within manufacturing firms to collaborate in new ways. As a result, firms’ structures are rapidly evolving. A new unit focused on data management is starting to appear. Though rare, units focused on ongoing product development and customer success are also starting to be recognized.

Data from smart, connected products is generating insights that help businesses, customers, and partners optimize product performance. Simple analytics, applied by individual products to their own data, reveal basic insights; more sophisticated analytics, applied to product data that has been pooled into a “lake” with data from external and enterprise sources, unearth deeper insights.

Their impact on the value chain and organizational structure. The second in a two-part series.

Smart, connected products require companies to build and support an entirely new technology infrastructure. This “technology stack” is made up of multiple layers, including new product hardware, embedded software, connectivity, a product cloud consisting of software running on remote servers, a suite of security tools, a gateway for external information services, and integration with enterprise business systems.