BENGALURU: Organizations will soon be creating a new wave of transformative digital services driven by the convergence of the Internet of Things (IoT) and shifting consumer expectations, finds a new report from Accenture. The report, titled “The Era of Living Services,” predicts a new era of highly sophisticated “living services” that can learn and tailor themselves in real-time to meet the changing needs of consumers, workers, patients and citizens.

Their emergence will create change in every industry while presenting brands with tremendous opportunities for growth and differentiation, and marking a radical departure from today’s dominant approach of companies creating generic and static services designed for mass consumption, according to the report from Fjord, which is the design and innovation group within Accenture Interactive.

The concept of intelligent services that adapt and change based on consumer preference isn’t new, but the technology that enables living services has recently matured enough for brands to create and deliver them at scale, the report finds. The services will start to grow on a new layer of connected intelligence formed by sensors, the cloud, connected smart devices and real-time analytics, also known as the Internet of Things.

“We call them ‘Living Services’ for three reasons,” said Brian Whipple, senior managing director, Accenture Interactive. “They will change consumer experiences such as travel booking and shopping in real time around us. They will be driven by things that are very proximate to us such as wearables and nearables. And, at the human level, living services will affect our lives in a much deeper and more positive way than mobile and web services have. In effect, living services breathe life into what is rapidly becoming a vast network of connected machines and objects, enabling branded services to flow through and utilize this connected environment.”

Giving rise to Living Services

“The emergence of living services is being driven not only by the digitization of everything but also by ‘liquid expectations,’” said Mark Curtis, chief client officer at Fjord, Design and Innovation from Accenture Interactive. “When consumers engage with a brand today, such as an airline or a bank, they compare their experience not only with other airlines or banks but also with any service company, such as ride-sharing providers. Take the seamless and largely invisible payment systems these providers offer. Now consumers want payment experiences like this in every industry, consciously or subconsciously. We call these expectations that bleed from one industry to another ‘liquid expectations.’ In effect, expectations will rise across every industry as innovation increases in any industry.”
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