Internet of Behaviors Symbolizes A Technology Trend In 2021

According to the US market research company Gartner, the “Internet of Behaviors” symbolizes a technology trend in 2021 that will have a significant impact on IT operations by 2025.

They gather and share information about our behavior on the Internet. This includes buying or even tracking a brand online.

One can imagine that human behavior can be deciphered through data mining. The things that collect data about our customer behavior include location tracking devices, facial recognition devices, and more.

It is believed that in the Internet of Behaviors, value judgments can be applied to events. This is done to encourage specific behavior.

In Western countries, the most common example of the behavioral business model is property and casualty insurance. It is also believed that over time, everyone will be exposed to some form of Internet of Behaviors.

What is the value of the job?

The IRB is believed to have the potential to become a secret weapon in a company’s marketing and sales department. It helps to give them a deep and personal understanding of their customers and offers them outstanding services.

A person’s search patterns are analyzed, for example, when people listen to music, play online roulette, watch sports, or enjoy a few games of online slots to relax. This behavior is recorded for analysis to show consumers goods and services tailored to them.

The IRB will provide fundamental insights into behavior and enable marketing professionals to assess and guess future customer behavior.

What is behind this innovation, and what changes will it bring with it?

Technologies have to realign themselves due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

In the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic and the resulting negative economic consequences, companies are currently more than ever forced to redesign and rethink their work processes.

 On the one hand, the challenge here is to contain and minimize the economic damage and adverse effects caused by the virus, and on the other hand, to enable steady growth of one’s own company. 

To master these requirements, progressive technologies have to do one thing above all: realign themselves.

IRB is a further development of the IoT.

As part of this realignment, people and their digital behavior will play a central role. The deep-tech innovation represents a further development of the Internet of Things. 

Although the data collected via IoT is used within the Internet of Behaviors thanks to smart links, it is expanded by subsequent evaluation, use, and linking of further information. 

Thanks to data mining, this decryption is used to improve specific product standards and optimize customer understanding and personalized services.

The approaches of the innovative IoB are diverse. Tracking, facial recognition, or similarly generated big data of physical and digital behaviors should be recorded, analyzed, understood, and monetized. 

Especially in sales, marketing, and development, with the help of this processed data, you can evaluate, understand and possibly even predict certain behaviors to adapt corresponding advertising strategies and produce new products.

Best practices for using IoB in companies

An example of an IoB program is property and casualty insurance in the automotive industry. In this way, data and information collected from a driver and their driving behavior can in the future support automobile manufacturers in improving their safety standards and technical details – such as engines – of a vehicle. 

But there are many more possible uses. In the future, thanks to the integrated IoB in fitness apps, predictions about the user’s health could also be made.

After analyzing heart rate, blood pressure, exercise level, calorie consumption, etc., health risks could be predicted, and users could be warned in good time.

In times of the Covid-19 pandemic, IoB supports compliance with hygiene rules.

The example chosen by Gartner’s research company shows that the IoB will also support correct compliance with measures to contain the coronavirus in the future. 

Various sensors or RFID chips can be used to check proper hand hygiene within companies. This sensor transmits information about the type and frequency of hand hygiene applied, then collects and contains this.

 A facial recognition software could also check the correct way of wearing a mouth and nose protection and the body temperature and alert loudspeakers to violations of the hygiene rules.

About the development of the Internet of Behaviors, Gartner also predicts that by 2025 more than 50 percent of the population will be covered by at least one Internet of Behaviors application from government, commercial or private institutions.

 This progress could also bring benefits to companies that make use of this information. Problems of personal, product-technical, and economic issues can be recognized in good time, eliminated, and avoided in the future. 

This consequently enables optimization at all levels. Last but not least, by influencing behavior, which is only possible through extensive monitoring.

IRB and data security

However, with this mass of collected and processed data, there is also the known risk of inadequate data security in countries where data protection does not play a significant role.

 How can the implementation of IoB prevent personal data from being misused, or does the population no longer have any control over who and how all data is used?

According to Gartner, despite the use and processing of personal data, global data protection laws should ensure sufficient protection and privacy for private individuals and protect them from the data above misuse.

 Nevertheless, data protection monitoring remains a challenge, like all processes, from data collection to forwarding, must be designed securely.

Fever screening solution based on IoB

The German company Kentix proves with its data protection compliant IoT solution for temperature measurement that the IoB is not far away, even within Germany. 

A self-learning self-service device enables contactless fever screening thanks to sensors and continuously optimizes its height using deep learning algorithms. 

The storage and evaluation of this data occur in seconds, and other areas of application, such as the control of the access mechanism based on the body temperature, can be connected as required.

Potential use cases of IoB

The IoB is still in its infancy, but some companies already used the technology during the COVID-19 pandemic to monitor employee behavior in the workplace.

 Some companies installed sensors and RFID tags to see if employees wash their hands regularly. Computer vision algorithms recognize whether employees are wearing masks. Thermal cameras identify people with a fever.

Transport companies can use telematics IoB solutions to holistically determine driving behavior, e.g. B. Distractions of the driver, rapid acceleration, sharp cornering or heavy braking. 

This data enables companies to improve driver performance, route planning, and safety.

Mobile health applications that track nutrition, mobility, sleep patterns, heart rate and blood sugar levels encourage health-conscious behavior. 

They collect various health data, investigate them and notify users that they are e.g. For example, you should increase your calorie intake, change your workouts or take better care of your rest periods. 

This data can help healthcare companies develop new support offers, tailored insurance policies and healthcare products that benefit users and providers alike.

Potentials and risks of IoB for companies

Because the IoB uses behavioral science, it offers great potential for companies and a clear competitive advantage. Thanks to linking acquired data, target groups can be analyzed, understood, and served accordingly. 

As a result, the interaction between the individual and the company is positively influenced. Even in the current corona pandemic, IoB technology pays off by increasing safety in the workplace and checking user behavior.

However, Gartner also emphasizes the massive ethical and social implications that such extensive monitoring and unconscious behavioral manipulation will have in the long run.

Conclusion

Before reading this article, had you heard of IoB? Your smartphone is used to track your movements; Most of us now know that. We also know that brands can find out a lot about us. 

This includes your online search behavior, what you like or dislike, how you shop, and many other things. For example, Uber uses IoT data about their drivers’ locations to send them to the next customer.

The Internet of Behaviors can have a significant impact on human behavior in the digital world. Who doesn’t want their business to thrive? The IRB is something that could become an important technological trend in 2021…