| | December 20208IN MY OPINIONIN MY OPINIONBy Phil Skipper, Head of Business Development and Strategy, IoT, Vodafone Business, Vodafone Group Plc [LON: VOD]The digital world of business is faster, more demanding and less forgiving. To succeed, companies must master the increasingly complex interplay between design, development, supply chain, manufacturing distribution and service and ultimately create a truly winning customer experience. In this digital environment, success can no longer be guaranteed by simply having a great product; it needs to be constantly refreshed, upgraded and refined at an accelerated rate and this is where digital transformation really comes into its own.Digital transformation helps automate existing processes but more importantly creates a watershed for business to re-assess, and redesign the way they operate. This opportunity does not come often and it's a real chance to step back and decide what sort of business you want to be in the future and how you can structure your digital transformation to help deliver solutions and products faster, quicker and, with less risk. IoT is a natural part of this digitalisation process. From new connected products, automated supply chain and logistics, to manufacture and customer services, IoT provides the back bone for the digital business as well as offers a rich stream of data on which processes and products can evolve in line with market demand.Harnessing the Power of DataAccess to data on demand enables organisations to adapt at a faster speed and the Internet IoT is the ultimate gateway to the source of all things data. According to the latest Vodafone IoT Barometer, 84 percent of adopters of the technology describe their IoT projects as `mission critical' to success, and 72percent say digital transformation would be impossible without IoT. Fortunately, new technology such as narrow band low power networks (NB-IoT and LTE-M) and 5G open up more opportunities for IoT to be deployed at scale, enabling it to be a true driver of digital transformation for businesses. Becoming truly data-led is the key to success in digital transformation: IoT has the ability to measure and record highly valuable data sets from a variety of devices and systems across a business's network, which can directly feed analytics models powered by AI. Therefore, the combined rise of IoT, cloud computing and the emergence of AI creates an environment for the secure and, rapid processing of large IoT is the Key to Successful Digital Transformation
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