Steve Isaac • May 16, 2018

3 Internet of Things (IoT) Location Trends in 2018

With McKinsey estimating that the Internet of Things (IoT) has the potential to make an economic impact of $3.9 trillion to $11.1 trillion a year by 2025, IoT has evolved from a buzzword to a reality that businesses can’t afford to ignore.

IoT—or the linking of the physical world with the digital one—is fundamentally concerned with issues related to Location Intelligence (from sensors monitoring traffic, to indoor mapping) so it’s no surprise that IoT will lead to major improvements and developments in the smart city, retail, and real estate industries.

Here are 3 location intelligence IoT trends to keep an eye on in 2018.

Trend 1: Smarter cities with less traffic

As cities are becoming “smarter,” local governments increasingly rely on location of things technology to help their citizens find everything from parking to leisure facilities. But traffic congestion remains the bane of every city dweller’s existence, offering an opportunity for tech companies.

Open data projects such as SFMTA’s Bike Ridership Data program are using sensors and predictive analytics to meet mobility challenges. Public private partnerships are combining crowdsourced data and IoT data streams to create traffic solutions that anticipate gridlock, offer alternate routes, decrease emergency response time, and even reduce air pollution to improve city health.

The smart city movement is sure to keep expanding, with Navigant Research predicting that the global city revenue will grow from $36.8 billion in 2016 to $88.7 billion in 2025.

Trend 2: Personalization of the retail experience

IoT has already made retail supply chain management more effective and efficient, but with sensors and smart beacon technologies, retailers can now tailor the shopping experience with greater accuracy than ever before. Imagine walking into your favorite store and receiving an alert with a coupon for an often-bought product. Or pulling up an indoor map of the store and being led right to the products on your shopping list.

75% of retail and wholesale companies recently polled by Forbes ranked LI as either “critical” or “very important” to ongoing revenue growth strategies. Consumer demand for a seamless experience has been steadily growing, and Location Intelligence (LI) and IoT technology are providing retailers a chance to catch up to customers’ omni-channel expectations.

Trend 3: Using psychographic data in commercial real estate

Never before has Location Intelligence offered commercial real estate (CRE) such hyper-local demographic and psychographic information for optimal site selection. When opening a physical store, businesses can now minimize risk and maximize their competitive advantage by analyzing psychographic data to figure out where certain products or stores are likely to be more popular.

Although somewhat of a controversial topic, psychographic information will only be more available in the future. According to IBM’s Marketing Cloud report for example, 90% of data available today was produced in the last two years.

Even after being aggregated and anonymized to meet modern privacy and security standards, new data points collected from crowdsourcing, IoT, Mobile data, and semantic technology will make it easier than ever for businesses to figure out local customer attitudes before investing in real estate.

What’s Next?

Armed with developments in connected technology and hyper location-specific data, businesses will continue to implement sophisticated strategies in 2018. Whether it’s incorporating geospatial technology in smart cities, geomarketing in the retail industry, or data conveying local dispositions in the CRE market, IoT is reshaping the way industries are thinking about the importance of location.

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Content Marketing Manager at CARTO.

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