Episode 52: What IoT and Wearables Mean for IT

[Music] foreign [Music] welcome to the Enterprise Mobility insights Outlook podcast I'm Gina Daniel Lee vice president of strategic alliances and Partnerships here at stratix isn't Mobility great I mean it's always changing and never stagnant it's so exciting to see new developments Solutions and ideas today's topic is about evolving technology and how it is influencing it strategies everywhere my guest and longtime friend Rob peric is here to chat with us about this Rob is Vice President product management for mobile Computing at zebra Rob I'm so happy to have you today thank you for joining us and welcome to the podcast Regina thanks for the invite and so I've great to be here with uh with you and your fellow podcast members and I look forward to that the great dialogue I know we're going to have a great one so as we start off the podcast why don't we just have you tell our listeners a little bit about yourself sure um so I'm rock urick uh like like you said on the vice president of product management um I started at symbol Technologies back in 1997 and worked my way up through uh through the vice president level I did have a standard Honeywell where I managed to connect an old business before coming back in 2017 to run our field mobility and then ultimately our our entire segments and uh business operations for for mobile Computing so really excited to be here today and you know strikes is a very strategic partner for uh for zebra and we work a lot on a lot of different deals and I just wanted to uh to convey to the audience that uh number one we we kind of look at this relationship in two ways one is getting insights from from stratix and their team to help us develop better mobile Computing products but also to to share with them on what we're hearing back from customers as well so I think this is going to be a good dialogue on on this topic area of I.T and where we see things going in the future so so go ahead and fire away there Gina I completely agree though we really have had a long great strategic partnership and you're one of the reasons for that so thank you so I don't know if you had a chance to read I recently published 2023 Enterprise Mobility Outlook report but in it there's a really interesting statistic and that is that 78 of respondents told us that emerging technology is influencing their I.T strategies does that percentage surprise you at all no not not at all especially in the world that we live in today this on-demand economy and I think what's what's shifted a lot was this nice to have uh features to must-have features and I I think when I talk about features you know we're talking about bingy the Wi-Fi sticks you know that's just the the beginning Catalyst of of that that's almost like a natural to have those Technologies but we're not talking about is some of those other emerging technologies that we're seeing like mobile dimensioning uh wound management uh depending upon what vertical segment you're going after there's specific needs that were that we're seeing and I think the pandemic that we just came out of helped us uh or educated Us in that remote Workforce and that whole bulcus buy online pickup in store that we then started to realize wow there's a there's a real increase for this on-demand economy and what we're seeing and what we saw there was definitely an increase from of online ordering driven to driven by the pandemic through that wheelchair retail storefront becoming the de facto warehouse and retailers who are familiar with using these wearable Solutions in a distribution center now using them in the front of the store as well so we definitely see some uh some synergies and in driving different uh use cases like well this is a different use case I never merge through through the pandemic so so seeing um a lot of this happened real time and then also you know if kind of a full understanding of how Mobility drives more productivity and it's all about productivity what what everybody's seeking and going after so whether it's a tablet a handheld a wearable you know this is where zebra looks to Partners like stratix to to really help us help and understand what that customer demand in those new use cases are that's a great question yeah I completely agree with your assessment there um you know in our Enterprise Mobility report there's another interesting statistic that says that 59 of Enterprises are now using more wearables that's more than in the combined three years and 67 percent more iot are you seeing that at zebra Rob and and how are Mobile use cases changing yeah so that's a that's another great question and so especially when the wearable area definitely more around iot do I be internet as things and you'll get full convergence that we saw like with with your own personal use like the smart the smart watch that that's becoming a wearable wearable device that people use every day now right in the in our iot space we're seeing a lot of that being deployed in Supply Chain management remote patient monitoring retail store management and customer getting that customer data real time so I guess a good data point to give to you is what we saw over the last say from 2018 and 20th by two out bluetooth ResCare sale almost tripled between that time frame and most of this growth was really driven by deployments where customers are pairing a host device like a TC C5 or tc2 to a Bluetooth rescan so we saw a lot of that happen but now we're seeing that whole Advent of the smart watch taking on a new form in wearable technology for in the iot space and that's one of the reasons why we just launched the new ws50 which is a kind of a smart watch type a little bit bigger because we have to see more organization more more capabilities like voice picking and all of that so that's a key area in wearables the other one is robotics I mean why is this playing a bigger role I'm sure you're seeing it as well saying a bigger role in the warehouse management piece and now combining the ws50 to then signal to the to the adult to the robot where to go on my next pick and I want you to be at this location is something that we're seeing and again driven a lot by what we're seeing around increasing productivity improve of work you can work Workforce ergonomics so having it on the wrist as opposed to you know having it on my hand we up at hand to do more more of that picking operation and then device loss is another big area that we're we're really dulling down on and providing newer software technology to help find lost devices whether it's a Bluetooth rescanner or one of our TCS or MC devices we're doing a lot of work in that area yeah we're seeing a lot of growth in wearables as well exactly for the reasons you called out productivity I think it's interesting that you know we've talked about wearables in the context of the warehouse and the Enterprise but now we're also seeing you know wearables on our own personal bodies right with watches and things like that but are you seeing the Rob in business that most wearables are being implemented as a standalone solution or are they being paired with another device like a tablet uh that's a great that's another great question I think we're seeing a combination of both Standalone being the your more traditional you know TC device you know using it in the retail store in the warehouse but then when it comes time to again go back to that productivity especially during peak season where they have to get get Goods in and out there there will dally then switches from enhanced a Hands-On device to or Standalone device to now a hands-free device so they coupled it with on their wrist combining with the uh Bluetooth ring scanner to now have hands-free operations to do their to do their picking the same thing with the tablet with you know it's a kind of like a mini computer that does everything a laptop can do but now it's more affordable and easier to to use from anywhere that you're working but coupled with that Bluetooth ring scanner gives that mobile user now the the hands-free capabilities that they maybe didn't have before and I think that's what we're seeing some of the shifting occurring going from that that more of a tcmc see Type 4 factor to now more of that wearable solution then you could then couple depending upon the the user environment the use case that you're going after and of course it's the seasonality because during peak season whether you're a tnl worker or a retail worker you're always constantly putting stuff uh on the shell to replenish them so I think that's another key area that we're seeing uh being being that in that area so collectivity being that that key operative word that you mentioned in your in your opening question as well so after lots of anticipation 5G is finally here I almost feel like we should have a drum roll here right um but yeah I think there's a little bit of confusion because 5G is not just about faster download speeds it also reduces the time it takes to send a packet of information and get a response which is really important for things like virtual reality and self-driving cars and Robotics but as we know 5G also gives you the ability to connect to many more devices which is becoming more and more critical as we bring more and more iot devices online right and then there's private 5G which is becoming more and more important to the Enterprise why do you think that is yeah I think there's there's two reasons for that I think first and foremost um you know similar to what happened you know several years ago the whole 3G to 4G listen 4G isn't going to be around for quite a while but 5G I think this and then I'll talk about the public 5G we're getting into 500 5G the public 5G uh you know obviously the The Operators you know the the carriers are building down on that because they need to make more room for the infrastructure there that's why they took 3G down to begin with but I think this gets more exciting for us than in the iot area because as you said it opens up new doors and new opportunities to sell more equipment in these other use cases and you mentioned AI we're spending a lot of time in around around the AI area um AR core is something that we have in almost all of our products today and certified AR core that is so that whole augmented reality is something that we're seeing more and more play out with the Advent of the cameras that we're putting into these newer devices gives the customer ability now to look at things like stock apps in Arena retail store to then give real-time information and feedback to say hey look I bet a stock out problem on this door show I need to replace that as short that store shell in that time frame it also gives us a higher reliability and more customizable more flexible capabilities in that area so that's the probability of sign the private sign is very fascinating I mean one of the things we did we were the first ones to put band 48 cdrs in all of our in some of our units in the tablet um as well as in the handheld device why is that important well because we're going to go after that by the 5G Market think about the use case there for a minute Gina right you've got a tnl operator that has a huge yard that has all these trailers that they have to bring into these bra stocks every day every single uh every minute of the day they have to do that what happened in that area was they had to secure and add all these different Wi-Fi access points and so I'll give you a statistic one cbrs baseband replaces 12 access points think about that for a moment from a TCO standpoint yeah that's a huge investment that now I'm an I.T perspective against

the ability now to put in those private 5G or cbrs baseband stations in those areas now let's talk about the warehouse a little bit that's outside of four wolves let's talk about inside the four walls for a minute from five or five G Manufacturing and Warehouse are the two biggest areas that we're seeing the movement into the final slide chain and why is that important again go back to the total cost of ownership I have to put a Wi-Fi network I got to put in all these access points I gotta run wires to the access points and then at the loaded security and all that such points and all of that that becomes a a more burdensome effort as opposed to equity I try to 5G Network that then they control even though it's 5G they're thinking oh my God I gotta talk about the carrier no the product 5G Network they control the destiny of their their I.T infrastructure and they control their own environment and they're able to run like you were just saying before robotics automation that's when you need that bandwidth the 5G bandwidth to run those type of use cases and run those those type of operations in those environments so we saw some pretty sizable deals coming in from BMW and Tesla VW you all going into private 5G and we see more and more that happen if they can the next on year to two years for sure I think we are too you know there seems to be kind of this competition if you will in the Enterprise between different teams in the organization pushing for more and more mobile technology but you know I wonder what's the impact of all this new technology on other teams in the organization like I.T and others yeah so I think that's a uh one one of the things that I think we're seeing there also is you know far more devices to manage right so how do I now manage all these devices in that in that area Iowa support them how do I provide them the updates that they need how do I provide a security protocols that we have there so I think we have to watch out for a little bit of that burn out there but you know you talk about that Mobility report you know I think it's it was interesting to see that that statistic that you threw out about 41 printing everything uh in it very or extremely important in that in that Essence so I think that's an area that I think we both collectively zebra stratix need to take a look at how these I.T

organizations are going to be managing deploying these devices and helping them make it easier for them to switch to some of these newer devices that offer the 5G and that means the Wi-Fi 6E because that's another thing that that we're seeing in that movement as well and and helping them uh to not only understand the benefits of that technology but also to to help them uh not only understand it but also to that area and give them reasons for that and that's the reason why you probably answered that question before as well that's right that's right and I know I keep bringing up the 2023 Enterprise Mobility report but man there's such good information in there and some really great statistics so I'm going to quote another one and that is that 75 of respondents told us they're at least somewhat overwhelmed by the increasing number of mobile devices with 41 putting it at very or extremely overwhelmed I mean that's a lot of overwhelmed people yeah but no no go ahead no I think a lot of that is is very it's very factual I mean we we we see every you know every every day like when they're trying to deploy like a thousand of these devices and the time it takes to do you know the the pilot program that they have to get everything up and running before they start the full deployment I mean it takes a lot of time and it takes a village to to do it uh to do it correctly I would say right and the people that mastered that are the ones who really go out and do the necessary pre-work on getting these units prepped uh getting them staged getting them provision and then doing the pre-pilots on that before the full deployment so they don't they don't run into those paint points uh later on down the road agreed and talk to me a little bit about organizational best practices I mean how can some of these best practices help to lessen this feeling of being overwhelmed yeah I think there's really three things I that I see I think the first one is around this holistic endpoint management platform you know it helps to simplify things better security at the end point just because it's so fragmented I think that that's one area I think asset management and we talked a little bit about that before um some of the work that we're doing around uh what are some of the like lost devices um and using our device tracker software um you know Biometrics is coming up a lot like how do I use uh facial recognition potentially instead of offering it and constantly putting in that six digit or eight digit PIN code every time the unit falls asleep so we're looking at at those decisions but also I think this also the last one which is around centralizing that decision making process you're curing those Mobile Solutions and enables us to see multiple Potential workflows from the same technology and what that equals is a higher Roi a higher cost savings and easier to manage these devices I think those are it's kind of the three things that I'll leave your audience with in terms of what we're seeing around best practices and how is emerging technology influencing I.T strategies today yeah that's another great great question as we move into this new age of 5G and Wi-Fi 6C and those I think technology is more critical than ever into business success factor anything especially when when companies are thinking about deploying private 5G they need to look at that analysis a little bit more more closely so on overall business planning is one area goal setting is another like with your I.T stakeholders uh and making sure that you have all the checklists done properly in that area um I think another area would be you know that um it has an eye on what's new and what are the potential new use cases that this technology can give them I think that's where where you and I can come in and better educate those customs in that so you know looking at those potential disruptors is another area like what what could be you know happening Downstream what's your vision or for some of those areas um I think that's another you know this you know spot on on that area in terms of where it is looking at how to leverage these assets more effectively um and how to combine them and choosing the right devices whether it's a TC a talent or a wearable computer and then the other that you you'll very well know this model is you know is it a full capex model is it a Das model or is it even a rental model I mean those are the other business decisions that that we see uh that we're making in that area and finally the road map right what you know yes so zero can can and offer very these various business models all up to a full blown topics model but you know we're we get to work together and figure out what is best for our end customers what is that business model that they're looking for that makes it easier and more uh intuitive for them to to proceed forward with I agree I think it's really all about businesses being ready to grow and evolve as technology grows isn't it and I also think it's about proactive planning and sometimes thinking outside the box on how to go to market I mean like you mentioned with some of zebra's unique financing offerings and working with Partners to get creative on how to go to market while working collaboratively with other partners like carriers to bring to Market New Solutions right absolutely and then you got to think about the resources right and it's that's one thing that we do have fun yes these those resources I mean whether it's resources and Marketing sales uh product management teams which is where where I come from you know it's very important to you know uh it's very important to listen to our customer including our partners and I think that's a you know a key asset that I think we we all need to do a better job in terms of listening to what our customers are telling us whether it's good or bad uh but especially in this day and age of where how fast things are moving in the in the iot space I think it's even more important now and I think that this is an area that I think we you know I I strive every day to at least have a conversation with with a customer with a partner to really understand the Dynamics of what's going on in the business I travel a lot all over the world I speak to cios all the time about looking at and listening to their pain points and trying to figure out ways to solve them and if they that's a key a key area that we both strive and work really hard and and accomplishing there completely agree any final thoughts as we wrap up Rob you know I think the the final thought that I I gave everybody is what I just kind of kind of articulated before like just lead to I think the first thing is really trying to understand a customer paying points what's new what's emerging use cases that they're looking for what problems they're trying to solve uh second you know we need to do the proper training and education um and start looking at this we started doing that in in earlier this year if you were at NRF the whole Monastery initiative that we rolled out that is a key thing that I think stratix is looking to look into that as well and third and I think it's making sure that our partners like Stratus understand that where the Market's moving so that we move together in these areas that we become a better team uh and looking at what we need to do in developing new products coming up with the right feature sets and making sure that when you're addressed The Right Use cases so I think that that's a an area that I think we both saw could share and not agree on but I completely agree and those are great thoughts to end on so if you've listened to any of our podcasts rob you know that we like to end with a little fun and some random rapid fire questions if you're a game you bet all right so number one how do you unwind after work uh so I unwind after work I either I either exercise or I try to play nine holes of golf at least once a week and and I also read a good book and that that kind of helps me unwind uh the day in Day activities any particular genre of book well right now I'm reading uh that's called a Fearless organization by uh Annie Edmondson so it's a it's a good book on organizational development which is I'm always trying to do uh I have the best of breed team I could possibly have so very good very good all right let's switch gears and talk pizza thin crust or thick crust well for me it has to be think for us because I had a gluten allergy so I have to go with the thin crust on that one that's an easy one well good I'm glad that you hear that you and I can have pizza together because that's where I lean towards too and maybe even a little cauliflower crust there you go uh would you rather see the Loch Ness monster or Bigfoot oh that's an interesting one so I I think I choose a Loch Ness monster and I think the reason why I I I live by the water and I enjoy do I do water and uh I tried to uh enjoy the water with fishing as well as as best I can so I got to go with the Loch Ness monster love that love that Rob it's been so great having you on the podcast today thank you for joining me and sharing your insights well thank you Gina thank you to shattuck's team there and uh thank you to your listeners and uh thank you for all your uh you're helping that one too thank you of course and listeners if you liked what you've heard and would like more information or would like to sign up for future episodes please visit us at stratixcourt.com slash podcast to subscribe we'd also love it if you would rate and leave a review for any podcast that you've listened to or to Simply suggest any future topics you would like us to explore I look forward to seeing you next time goodbye foreign

2023-06-27 10:50

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