Innovating the retail industry an IoT approach
The nature of service based innovation is a rather under searched area. This paper focuses on how the Internet of Things allows retailers to innovate their services in new ways by looking at the key drivers of innovation in the retail industry. Based on a critical literature review and an expert questionnaire it can be concluded that the Internet of Things is a successful tool to enhance innovation in the service based retail industry. It provides several tools that enhance the overall shopping experience, by making it more easy, fun, interactive and personal. Furthermore the Internet of Things is better than other existing tools in predicting and analyzing the consumer market, as it allows retailers to gather not only information about existing processes, but also processes that were previously unconnected. This new data allows retailers to analyze needs per individual, resulting in micro segmentation. On top of that it enables real time analytics, which creates a new level of flexibility and better chances to adequately adapt to the ever changing consumer market. The biggest restriction to the wide spread acceptability of the IoT is the consumer its concern about security and privacy.