If, as Peter Drucker said, “the purpose of business is to create and keep a customer,” then what is the purpose of digital business? Today’s customers want digital engagement because it improves their buying power and offers new sources of value, writes SiliconAngle Media Head of Research Peter Burris in “Transforming to Digital Business.”

Internet of things (IoT) is central to digital business, he argues. Much of the information that businesses need to better understand and anticipate customers’ desires is in analog form, including human experience in the real world. IoT is the collection of technologies that translates that analog information into digital, making it “free data” – not in the sense that it costs nothing but in the sense that it is in a form that can be used freely by artificial intelligence, machine learning and other advanced digital analysis tools.

Some of that data will come from consumer machinery, such as washing machines and air conditioners, and empower proactive support services to keep those machines running. But much of it will come from customers themselves. This is the data that will help businesses know what their customers are doing and what they may need in products and services.

Capturing and processing this data is the focus of big data technology. Automation and cognitive computing can support instantaneous actions to better serve customers and empower businesses to respond to business opportunities on the fly, whether by up-selling a customer to a better product or identifying a new market.

However, Burris points out, getting insight is one thing. Acting on it is another. “Here’s where digital business rubber will (or won’t) meet the real world of business and other human institutions,” he writes. The winners will be the companies that learn how to take action based on insights derived from data.

The full Professional Alert, which is available to Wikibon Premium subscribers, discusses these issues in depth and provides insight into the requirements for digital business success.

photo credit: Internet Of Things via photopin (license)