May 18, 2015
Who are the main players involved in wearables for enterprise, and what solutions do they have to offer?
When it comes to implementing wearables into your business, understanding the solution stack is not easy. Potential enterprise users may not know how to go about exploring wearable devices for their business, or who to contact. This is not surprising, since wearables for enterprise is a budding space, and therefore the solution stack is still immature.
So what is the solution stack? Well, as I have come to see it, the solution stack refers to all the parties involved in actually getting wearable technology into the enterprise. This includes hardware/device manufacturers, software and app developers, integrators, and network connectivity providers; but how all the players interact is still unclear, and there appears to be no standardized course of action for going about adopting and integrating wearable tech into business.
How does one then navigate the solution stack? If you’re a company that wants to start using wearable devices in your operations, who do you approach, when, and how do you partner up? Right now, “the how” varies from user case to user case, sometimes with a consultant advising an enterprise client to adopt wearable technology; and other times a software company recommends wearables to an enterprise with which it has worked, and customizes an existing device for that business. Still other times, an enterprise may reach out to a manufacturer of wearables directly.
On top of this lack of regularity, potential business users as well as software developers and the like do not know what’s out there on the wearable tech market. Since a lot of wearable technology events are largely consumer-oriented, it can be hard to get a handle on the maker community serving enterprise needs. There are many smaller makers (as compared to the Googles and Epsons) who perhaps do not have the opportunity or know-how to “get in” with either big business or the organizations who serve the enterprise.
