Preface: Internet of Things

Abstract

I am very happy and thankful to live in today’s world – with all the technological innovation and the transformation of society, factories etc. The rapidly changing technological environment can be compared to the generational transition: from my birth until the age of five, there was barely any technical revolution or rather not a visible one. At least it was certainly not comparable to the revolution of mobile development during the first five years of the life of my daughter from 2003 until 2008.

If we want to predict the business world of tomorrow, we have to observe the purchasing behavior of our children: they walk into a store, have a look at the products, compare the prices on the spot by using their smartphones and order the product online if the price is more favorable. I have not taught my children to do so. However I can see them applying this particular behavior almost daily. It is exactly how we sometimes save money. The same applies to the communication of the future. Today our children ask us why we are using old‐fashioned mediums like e‐mails in our company; messengers such as WhatsApp or the likes seem to be far less complicated …!

Not only the purchasing behavior of the next generation is changing, the whole society is. Therefore especially retailers must prepare themselves. New technologies are changing our lifestyle. The basis for this change is formed by the internet of things (or in abbreviated form “IoT”).