How Smart Connected Products Are Transforming Competition

In the new Harvard Business Review article, “How Smart, Connected Products Are Transforming Companies”, co-authors Michael Porter of the Harvard Business School and Jim Heppelmann, President and CEO of PTC, examine the impact of the Internet of Things on companies’ operations and organizational structure.

Smart connected products and the data they generate are transforming traditional business functions, sometimes radically. For example:

• Product Development requires seven new design principles, including evergreen design
• Marketing and Sales convert the way to sell, go to market and manage customers relationships
• After-Sale Service shifts from reactive to predictive and increasingly remote service

How do companies transform their organizations to capture the IoT opportunity?

• Increasing collaboration and integration between IT and Product Development
• Establishing three entirely new functions: Unified Data Organization, DevOps and Customer Success Management.

This article provides examples from dozens of companies that have successfully transformed their organizations and provides three models for how companies are making the transition.

Here is a link to download the two  articles published  by Porter & Heppelmann in the Harvard Business Review:  Link.

DCL: Of course CEP is the technology that enables “smart connected products”. But these articles do not get into enabling technology. They are about the business effects of the technology.