March 2015
Considerations
for Wearables in
Enterprise
This white paper discusses the
considerations for utilising wearable
technology in a business environment,
outlining the challenges and
opportunities.
1
Contents
Considerations for Wearables in Enterprise
3
Introduction
3
Industry-specific drivers
4
Challenges
5
Developer challenges
5
Wearables or apps (chicken or egg)?
6
Screen size
7
Create a new app or extend existing?
7
Health and safety
8
Change management
8
Data challenges
9
Security challenges
9
Employees’ reactions
10
Benefits for the enterprise
12
Impact of wearables
12
The role of beacons with wearables
13
Conclusion
14
Considerations for Wearables in Enterprise
Considerations for
Wearables in Enterprise
Introduction
With increasing demand to have information delivered in realtime, using an always-on connection, it’s no wonder industries are
seeking out more innovative ways to access this data. Wearables
present that opportunity.
The evolution of wearables is being driven by the desire to
develop advantages to improve access to information, process
efficiencies and deliver value to the organisation through
increased engagement. If one company is using such devices to
improve ROI, it’s likely other organisations will be motivated to do
the same, in order to remain competitive.
The Internet of Things (IoT) also plays a large part in driving
forward the use of wearables, both at home and for the
enterprise. With the ability to control everything in the home and
office using a single device, wearables present the perfect
opportunity because they are potentially always on your body.
Just as smartphones helped to bring down the price of mobilising
business operations for thousands of businesses, there is potential
for wearables to have an impact. The opportunities that wearables
present are driven largely by the apps that companies use or have
created for them, helping to further extend the usability and
efficiency drivers.
Considerations for Wearables in Enterprise
Evolution of mobile
tools
3
Industry-specific drivers
Across a wide range of industries, technology provides the ability
to do things more efficiently. Engineering, logistics and
manufacturing are just some examples where mobility has
delivered a large amount of value and competitive advantage for
a number of years.
For any job where both hands are needed to carry out most tasks,
wearables allow operatives to view information without
technology getting in the way. This enables hands-free working
for fixing equipment, packing boxes onto a lorry or operating machinery.
Context awareness
As is found in mobile, one of the key drivers for the adoption of
this technology will be centred around further improving
operations or engagement. In many cases, all companies will need
to do is extend current apps to work with wearables. As with
Glanceable
information
smartphones, much of the demand for supporting wearables in
office environments will come from employees, whilst field
workers will likely be provided with the devices by the
organisation.
Many industries, especially those in the medical sector require
access to real-time data while carrying out day-to day tasks. For
Provide the right
tools
example, a surgeon may need to see patient information while
operating on them.
Wearables provide glanceable data on a screen, in front of the
user’s eyes or on their wrist, making this information instantly
accessible. For this precision based work, wearables also allow the
Ease of navigation
user to drill down into detail, zooming in-and-out of a real-time
view. For example, no longer do those operating on patients need
to refer to screens that could prove to be unhygienic, or waste
time finding out further details on the patients’ condition.
For industries where hazardous materials are commonplace, such
as on oil rigs or in chemical manufacturing, wearables allow
operatives to carry out their jobs safely, without the risk of
interference.
Considerations for Wearables in Enterprise
4
Challenges
Before wearables can truly take off across sectors, a number of
challenges need to be dealt with, especially when it comes to
employee and employer perceptions. Additionally, from a
technical perspective, frameworks and technical infrastructure,
such as APIs, may be required to make them useful.
Developer challenges
At the moment, wearables are still largely unproven in the
marketplace. For success, they require developers to create
solutions that demonstrate value to users. For business use cases,
proof of success will come from showing how ROI can be
achieved, as well as establishing other metrics for success.
This will likely come from apps that utilise wearables to drive
value to both the end user and the business as a whole. This could
be from reducing the steps it takes to complete tasks, or from
providing employees with the information and tools they need.
It could be something as simple as providing employees with
information, in context to what they are doing. For example, it
could be a CRM related app that will alert a sales member if one
of their contacts is nearby, their name and the last topic they
discussed. This could integrate with a backend system to make
physical interactions smarter, without the need to look at a mobile or tablet.
For companies who have already created APIs and web services
that speak to existing apps, it should be relatively easy to extend
functionality to wearables. This is largely because data will already
be flowing to a mobile app, so the development work only needs
to focus on extending it to the wearable.
Considerations for Wearables in Enterprise
5
Apple, Samsung and Google have all launched developer kits,
aimed at making it easier to extend apps to their wearable
devices. Due to the nuances of the new devices, such as the small
screen sizes and unique input methods, this takes time to perfect.
One advantage is that these companies have already showcased
how apps can make use of the devices, to enhance the user
experience and journey.
In the case of the enterprise, there will be some apps, such as
time-sheets, mail or calendar, that are standard across industries
for daily activity and workflows. However, for operational use
cases, that deliver unique value to companies, it is bespoke apps
that need to be created or enhanced, to interact with wearables
around specific use cases.
For example, a logistics app will need to be linked to your orders
database and include blueprints of the warehouse floor. This
would enable pickers and packers to find orders and navigate to
the specific part of the warehouse. Within this activity, there may
also be processes that will be unique to the company, that a third
party app may not be able to provide.
From the perspective of a wearable, it will be key to know how
best to present this information, in a way that makes a meaningful
improvement to operations.
Wearables or apps (chicken or egg)?
It’s widely agreed that apps will be one of the features that make
wearables compelling for users. There is currently a chicken or
egg scenario with wearables - will they take off because of the
hardware, or because of killer apps that make them appeal to
more consumers?
At the moment, with Android Wear, there are a few thousand
apps available which are either designed specifically for Android
Wear devices, or are extensions to existing apps. Since launching
in the summer of 2014, 720,000 Android Wear devices have been
sold worldwide, indicating that mass adoption hasn’t yet been
reached. One of the reasons for this may be that they are a
smartphone accessory, which won’t appeal to all users.
Considerations for Wearables in Enterprise
6
Screen size
The majority of people feel that they need a smartphone as it
provides them with a communication device, portable computer,
media hub and camera (to name but a few of the reasons for
owning one). As the current trend with smartphones shows, the
bigger the screen, the better. Ironically, it is the increased screen
sizes which have created the opportunity for wearables. In many
cases, this is because devices have become less conspicuous and
Design for
brief interactions
unwieldy to use one handed when walking or moving.
Understanding the screen size and how best to present
information on the screen is a key challenge for developers and
companies. When extending apps to wearables, it’s important to
understand what functionality will matter most to users for brief
interactions on a small screen.
Unlike a smartphone or tablet, a wearable isn’t something that
can be easily shared, meaning that anything that gets displayed
has to be relevant to the owner. Many of the enterprise apps that
have been developed for wearables so far, have focused on this
hyper-personal element.
Create a new app or extend existing?
Within the frameworks for Android Wear and Apple Watch, both
companies have sought to make it easy for developers to extend
existing apps to communicate with paired wearable devices. The
same is true for platforms available for devices like Pebble, which
aim to make it easy for developers to tap into their capabilities.
Extend existing
apps
Developers and companies may seek to create new apps,
designed around processes or use cases that are unique to
wearable devices. A decision will need to be made on whether a
strategy needs to be created around the use case, or whether
they take existing apps and extend functionality to wearables.
With enterprise apps focused around engineering or maintenance,
extending existing apps may make a lot of sense, as they can
provide the right information to employees when they need it.
Wearables could also be used to show process flows, ensuring
that employees follow the right procedure and confirm that they
have followed it, helping to create an electronic trail, should it be needed from a legal standpoint.
Considerations for Wearables in Enterprise
7
Health and safety
From a health and safety perspective, employers may be
concerned that a headset or glasses will get in the way of the
user’s line of sight, with the eyepiece obstructing one eye. On the
flip side, although many of the Google Glass style devices are
light, they also do not cover the whole of the eye, like safety
goggles, meaning you may need to customise the casing to
ensure they are aligned with health and safety policies.
For many job roles, such as field engineers or construction
workers, apps can push health and safety notifications to
wearable devices.
For certain sectors or jobs, consumer grade wearables will be
unsuited to the unique challenges and environments the
technology would be used in. For these industries or roles, we are
seeing a number of specialist wearables being created for use.
Examples include both Sony Smarteyeglass and Microsoft
Hololens that could be customised for enterprise scenarios.
No matter the device, it will be important for companies to
consider how wearables will help with health and safety
procedures. Primarily, this would be done via an app that
recognises when employees are in areas where health and safety
information needs to be shown, to ensure that, if an accident
happens, the company can be sure employees were aware of the
dangers.
Change management
One of the biggest obstacles to wearables in enterprise will be
ensuring that devices, or app data can be managed. Current
wearables may not add extra strain on existing networks, as they
pair with a smartphone and use its data. However, if wearables are
being used to generate data, this could see another rise in the
amount of data coming into an organisation, or being stored in
Integration
the cloud.
The biggest change would come from the perspective of what
happens with apps that may be used in the business. Companies
will need to understand when third-party apps get extended to
wearables and what that means from a security perspective. For
custom apps, it may be an in-house IT team or an outsourced app
developer that would handle the change management.
Considerations for Wearables in Enterprise
8
Data challenges
Whether you need to set up a new server to process the data, or
boost an existing cloud solution, the data will need to be hosted somewhere.
When Intel built its solution to analyse Parkinson’s disease
symptoms, each patient generated 1GB data per day,1 which was
hosted on the company’s Cloudera network. If you are monitoring
hundreds of employees, this may generate a huge amount of data
per day from your whole workforce, which will put a strain on any infrastructure.
Security challenges
Devices like Google Glass, HoloLens or smartwatches which
feature built in cameras, may need to be managed by the IT
departments to ensure they fit with company policies.
Similarly, wearables that feature built in microphones would also
need to be taken into consideration. As with many highly sensitive
areas, it may be that IT enforces any wearable to be under the
corporate Mobile Device Management scheme to add control over
device hardware, or prevented from entering sensitive areas.
In addition, data that makes its way onto wearables must be
secured, on your servers and in between. If an app is used to
control the wearable, or to process the data before its sent to a
server, it will all need to be secured against the threat of hackers.
Data integration
A big concern in the enterprise space is the security of new
devices being introduced to the workplace, particularly if they can
store sensitive information about the business. Although for most
wearables, the smartphone is the host device meaning a higherlevel of security should be present, there are some devices, such
as LG’s Watch Urbane LTE, that don't need a smartphone in order
to operate.
However, the majority of wearables require a smartphone to be
paired for connectivity.. This means there’s already a security
protocol to help alleviate some concerns; the wearable cannot be
used without its host. In addition, the wearable can be used as a
second or even third-factor authentication device, disabling
1
http://www.itpro.co.uk/mobile/22890/michael-j-fox-collaborates-with-intel-on-big-data-wearables-initiative-to-helpmonitor
Considerations for Wearables in Enterprise
9
anyone else from using them if, for example, they fall into the
wrong hands.
Processes for securing wearable and their host device include
using two-factor authentication, where the wearable needs to be
paired to operate. The authentication token on the smartphone
must match the token on the smartwatch, otherwise they are
unable to connect.
Although two-factor authentication is pretty commonplace, thirdfactor authentication is something that will become more
important as wearables become smarter. Opportunities lie in
biometrics, meaning you could activate the device using a
fingerprint scanner, heart rate monitor or for eyewear, retina scans.
Goode Intelligence2 believes that wearables will prove to be
revolutionary for the authentication and security industry. In a
report, the company explained: “We are very much at the
beginning of another transformational aspect of authentication —
the use of wearable technology for authentication purposes. In
particular, leveraging the next wave of biometric technology to
create seamless, continuous, authentication.
What will be truly transformational about the use of biometrics on
wearable devices, is the birth of the universal authenticator — a
device that intuitively knows who we are, where we are, what we
want to do and can open doors — both physical and virtual.”
Indeed, this is how Apple Pay will work on Apple Watch. The user
has to use their passcode or TouchID on their phone when putting
on the Watch to authenticate it. If the Watch is taken off and loses
contact with the wearers skin, the Watch will cease to work with
Apple Pay.
Employees’ reactions
If you are introducing a wearables policy in your workplace, you'll
probably find employees will have mixed reactions and it's
important to address any concerns they may have as quickly as possible.
2
http://www.goodeintelligence.com/media-centre/view/biometrics-on-mobile-and-wearable-devices-set-to-becomethe-universal-personal-authenticator
Considerations for Wearables in Enterprise
10
Those who embrace technology are likely to be excited about
using wearables and may appreciate the benefits of such
equipment more readily. For that group, the results of using
wearables will be clearer, with employees working more efficiently
as a result of the ease of access to information.
On the other side of the fence sit the people who are more
resistant to change, especially if they are unsure how to use the
technology and need to undergo additional training to use the
equipment effectively. The biggest concerns are likely to be about
privacy, as the company has more access to employee actions
and can track exactly what they're doing, where they are and
when productivity reduces.
Additionally, they may have concerns that the equipment will be
bulky and will hinder their work performance. So making sure you
test out the equipment, using employee trials to ensure they are
still able to carry out their job safely and comfortably, will be important.
It's important to ensure the benefits of using wearables are
communicated to employees, reassuring those likely to be
resistant to using them that it's about helping them become more
efficient, rather than replacing them with technology. Considerations for Wearables in Enterprise
11
Benefits for the enterprise
Although the challenges of implementing wearables may make
you think adoption in your company is a mammoth task, the
benefits of implementing such an ecosystem usually outweigh the
potential pain points. It’s important to involve users, roll out the
technology slowly and grow this initial base as you receive
feedback from the trial group.
Those who have implemented wearables in the workplace have
reported a huge uplift in productivity and job satisfaction.
Research by Goldsmiths, at the University of London in
partnership with Rackspace, showed productivity increased by
8.5 per cent, as well as job satisfaction levels, by an average of 3.5
8.5%
increase in
productivity
per cent, across 85 companies using wearables3.
When it comes to tracking technologies, always-on wearables
allow you to track more precisely where employees, patients or
customers are and this can be shared quickly with those who
need to analyse it, in real time. For example, if something
unexpected happens, such as a patient’s wearable records a
dangerous change, an alert can be sent out and assistance can be
provided faster than before.
Impact of wearables
Aside from obvious benefits, wearables can impact the wider
company in a variety of ways.
As previously mentioned, the data you will collect as a result of
introducing wearables is likely to increase and as such, you may
need to invest in a new storage solution. Consider a scalable
option, preferably utilising the cloud to ensure you will have
3
http://www.gold.ac.uk/news/homepage-news/wearabletechnologiescanboostemployeeproductivitybyupto85.php
Considerations for Wearables in Enterprise
12
enough capacity for now and the future. Additionally, your IT
infrastructure may need adapting, whether you require more
network capacity to account for the extra data exchange.
You will need to ensure you have a solid software and app
development strategy in place. It will be important, as part of this,
to understand whether development can be handled in-house, or
whether it needs to be outsourced to a company that specialises
in wearable development.
Be prepared to tweak your policies too, whether that's internally
or externally. For example, when Google Glass was in its Explorer
programme, many companies, such as cafes, banned their use to
protect other customers. Internally, companies may also want to
assess which type of wearable devices they allow, or govern how
they are used.
The role of beacons with wearables
BLE Beacon technology, that provides physical objects a
presence and connects the digital and physical world, is already
being used to provide users with more relevance, based on where
they are. When applied to wearables, beacons offer the chance to
improve the experience, by bringing up the right tool, at the right
time.
With the reduced screen size, one of the major challenges of
wearables is around how to navigate to what a user needs at a
given time. Beacons help to solve this by telling the wearable, or
paired smartphone, what that user likely needs.
Beacons &
wearables
An example of this in action is an engineer approaching an asset
and the wearable knowing that it needs to bring up the right
information about the asset, without the user manually navigating
to it. This would then bring up the right process flow or data that
helps that engineer to do their job, without having to get a phone
or tablet out.
Beacons and wearables are all part of the growing world of The
Internet of Things, where objects and devices are able to
communicate with each other. Where apps on mobile phones
have been moving towards a way of controlling an environment,
wearables take that one step further by removing the need to
hold a device. Considerations for Wearables in Enterprise
13
Conclusion
As this white paper has demonstrated, there are many areas that
companies and developers will need to think about when
approaching wearables. As it currently stands, wearables are yet
to become a mass market product. Yet, companies who have
already started to test what is possible, are reaping the benefits of
being ahead of competitors and being seen as innovative.
As the popularity and adoption of wearables increases over the
coming few years, companies need to understand the
opportunities and assess the challenges of wearables as they will
be brought into the enterprise space. Unlike tablets or
smartphones that would sit in a pocket or bag, wearables are
devices that are more personal and intimate than any other
previous technology - they will be worn, after all.
The case for utilising wearables won’t be there for every company.
However, when it becomes important for employees to be hands
free or to have quick and easy access to information, it will be
easy to build a case for investing in wearables.
Companies who have already focused on building APIs or
creating apps, based around employee efficiency, process
improvement, customer engagement or channel management will
find that they can move quickly with adapting to wearable
devices.
Should wearables take off, in the way technology companies and
analysts expect them to, it will be important for companies to
take them into consideration when creating or evolving their
mobile strategies. This is still seen as a future technology, but it is
a future technology that is getting increasingly close to moving
towards mass adoption.
The opportunity is there to future proof your company and be
where technology is moving, driving new opportunities and
improvements. As happened with the early days of apps, the
companies who invest early have the opportunity to capture
attention, before competitors.
To view other white papers that discuss topics including strategy,
opportunities for wearables in enterprise or how to approach
mobile security please visit www.mubaloo.com/whitepapers. Considerations for Wearables in Enterprise
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Considerations for Wearables in Enterprise
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