At the start of the year, the physical store was regaining its competitive edge in the battle against online retail, in many cases as a result of the adoption of new technologies that supported customer experience. The brick & mortar Retail environment would have been in the midst of a digital transformation of course, had the coronavirus pandemic not disrupted the world 2 months ago. With massive worldwide lockdowns that spared essentials stores such as supermarkets and groceries, any retail vertical was stopped in its tracks and the image of our own daily lives as in-store customers was shifted.

Businesses around the world are being transformed by the Internet of Things (IoT). After all, smart devices and systems can enhance staff productively, cut costs and refine business processes, driving new revenue and allowing firms to get closer to their customers.

Challenge

Christmas is almost upon us and, while Santa and his Elves are busy creating magical Christmases for children around the world, Tech Data has been pulled in to support Santa Corp with a radical new digital transformation project.

Santa Corp has operated in the same way for hundreds of years, with cumbersome processes and legacy equipment making their operations inefficient and not at all viable long-term. Consequently, Tech Data has spent the last 12 months overhauling Santa’s entire journey (from start to finish) to bring the latest in connected technologies to a traditional set-up and ensure Christmas 2018 is his most successful ever!

By Victor Paradell, Vice President, IoT Solutions & Analytics Europe, Tech Data

The Internet of Things is rapidly evolving, re-shaping thousands of industries in fresh and exciting ways. Gartner predicts that 20.4 billion connected devices will be in use globally by 2020 (source: Gartner, 2017).

The Internet of Things (IoT) is transforming the way we live and work. I’ve even heard it said that organisations who ignore IoT risk going the same way as the dinosaurs! Those leading the market in this field are already innovating in incredible ways to give their organisations a clear and unique advantage over their competitors, displaying the real-world business value of IoT. For those who can effectively leverage IoT, the business potential is enormous; in almost every industry there are processes, functions, products and services that can be transformed by the application of IoT technologies.

Listen to our Solutions Business Strategic Consultants and our specialised vendor Nexiona, as they discuss the next generation trends around the smart factory of the future.

The internet of things (IoT) is changing the world. In this webinar, recorded in November 2017, Tech Data talk about creating smart parking solutions for towns and cities. Imagine if you arrived in your car to a new town for the first time and your navigation system could tell you where the nearest available parking space was. It has powerful commercial applications for things like tourist buses also. With smart parking you can reduce congestion and therefore pollution.

Watch our webinar here: 

By Stephen Ennis, Director, Tech Data Academy Europe.

Tech Data is one of the world's largest wholesale distributors of technology products, services and solutions. So when it comes to IoT and IT training, Stephen Ennis, Director, Tech Data Academy Europe, has some wise words of advice for IT providers looking to get into IoT.

By Victor Paradell, Vice President, IoT Solutions & Analytics Europe, Tech Data 

The Internet of Things is rapidly evolving, re-shaping thousands of industries in fresh and exciting ways. Gartner predicts that 20.4 billion connected devices will be in use globally by 2020 (source: Gartner, 2017).

By Victor Paradell, vice president, IoT Solutions & Analytics, EMEA at Tech Data

The Internet of Things (IoT) is connecting humanity to physical objects in ways we never imagined. With billions of objects exchanging an endless stream of data and becoming active participants in business processes enabled by the cloud, IoT is helping businesses transform the way they operate, creating significant efficiency gains and improved customer experience. Worldwide, IoT is a huge business, as global spending on the technology reached more than $643.8 billion in 2015 and, it is expected to account for approximately $998 billion of IT budgets in 2018.