A Complete Guide to the Internet of Behaviors (IoB)

internet of behavior (IoB)

IoB is an emerging technology that will influence the tech market for the next few years. But what does IoB mean? IoB or Internet of Behaviors is based on understanding, predicting, and affecting human behavior through data analysis.

WHAT IS IOB?
This term is related to behavioral science. In other words, the IoB concept is to use the result of data analysis to create UX design, get a new approach to search experience optimization, or change the way of product marketing. Another term related to IoB is the Internet of Things (IoT), as technically, all the data gathered from IoT and other sources are used to influence consumer behavior.

IoB has expanded from the IoT. As you may know, the Internet of Things is a network of physical devices that helps to collect and share a wide variety of data. For example, your phone can track your real-life geo position. IoT technology connects your phone with a laptop, voice assistance, or smart house and gets a lot of information about your interests and how you use products. Organizations can use the data for different reasons, for example:

  • to measure the effectiveness of their campaigns,
  • to measure the patient’s activity (health providers can use these features),
  • to personalize content.

HOW DOES IOB WORK?
The idea of IoB is to use this data to change behavior. The implementation of IoB in different industries can vary. For example, there is a solution for the logistic market well-known as telematic. Cprime has broad expertise in building telematics solutions for commercial vehicle tracking. Telematics can analyze real-time data on a vehicle’s location, speed, fuel consumption, route, or driving behavior to improve the logistics.

For instance, the data can be shared with insurance companies to get accurate information on breakdown or incident reasons. It also helps to manage the workload and delivery schedule in real-time. Telematic solutions for fleet management are an example of implementing IoB for this industry.

It is also important to mention that IoB has ethical implications depending on the goals of using it. That is why privacy laws have a significant impact on the adoption and scale of the IoB. In the following paragraphs, we will discuss the privacy and security concerns of IoB implementation more in detail.

The next point is how the IoB works. All the devices connected to the internet or synchronized provide a vast amount of different data. At the same time, it is not something new for us. Every time we open social media, the platform gets information on what we were doing on the site. IoB is focused on specific data. For example, it analyzes what page you opened, how long you have been scrolling it, what page you launched after that, how many times you did the same set of operations? For example, you can predict that you are going on vacation at the beginning of January and can not decide where to go – Miami or Los Angeles. The IoB will use this data to provide you with the most accurate advertisement on those destinations on specific dates.

IMPORTANCE OF INTERNET OF BEHAVIORS FOR INNOVATIONS
In 2021 Gather named IoB, Internet of Behavior, one of the top trends for the next few years. They predicted that 40% of people worldwide will be subject to at least one IoB application by the end of 2025. The data from IoT will improve user behavior experience and help businesses grow.

IoB is a significant boost for the sales industry. At the same time, businesses used to drive their decisions based on data for decades. Why has the IoB trend become crucial for business, government, or non-profit nowadays? First of all, IoB focuses on collecting, analyzing, and understanding users’ behavior to improve the service quality and value chain. This technology works closely with behavioral science and can bring more insights from data. Also, it helps to build better relationships with customers, as IoB ensures two-way communication with them. Businesses can understand customers’ needs much better and provide a valuable improvement instead of launching surveys to learn from them.

Here are the most significant benefits of implementing IoB:

  • Analyze the purchasing behavior and habits of your clients across different platforms.
  • Open previously unreachable data on user interaction with devices.
  • Ensure real-time POS notification and targeting.
  • Reduce the time you spend on problem-solving.
  • Test the campaign effectiveness and improve it based on the insights.
  • Get more accurate insights from the data gathered by IoT.

IOB APPLICATIONS FOR DIFFERENT INDUSTRIES
As we mentioned already, IoB is a powerful tool for sales increase and managing marketing campaigns. At the same time, many other industries use IoB for the purpose and benefit from this technology. What does IoB stand for in different sectors?

LOCATION TRACKING
Tracking users’ locations for sending notifications based on this information became usual for many businesses. Moreover, you can get a request from the restaurant just after reviewing this place. Such services use GPS or near-field communication (NFC) techniques. It ensures accurate location tracking for personalized notifications or emails.

IOB FOR HEALTHCARE INDUSTRY
Internet of Behaviors and Internet of Things provide a set of opportunities for healthcare providers to manage patients using specific applications. First, these new technologies ensure remote patient monitoring, as IoT devices can collect such metrics as heart rate, blood pressure, temperature, and more and send this data to software applications. IoB apps can notify users of potential health problems or remind them to take drugs based on the data from IoT devices.

TRAVEL RECOMMENDATIONS
Another significant influence of IoT and IoB was on the travel industry. Booking applications can learn from searching history and other indexes, such as demographic or social status. It allows the most fitted travel recommendation for the clients.

IOB FOR E-COMMERCE
E-commerce is used to analyze data from various sources to know more about clients’ behavior. IoB helps to learn how the buying journey of each product started – why people became interested in the product, and what influenced their purchases behavior. IoB brings insights for this industry that help improve the proposals for customers’ needs.

IOB FOR LOGISTIC INDUSTRY
As we mentioned already, logistic IoB can be implemented for rote and delivery planning and accurate rote recommendations based on real-time data from different devices. Telematic solutions are internet of behaviors’ examples. For instance, fleet managers can implement strategic route planning based on the advanced data from vehicles. This data can also include specific driving habits, real-time data about incidents on a route, type of delivery to predict the most accurate course and logistics.

TRACKING CITIZEN BEHAVIOR FOR CREDIT SCORE
IoB also can be used by governments to track citizen behavior. Government can use this data for goods, for example, to predict crime, terrorism, or provocations. At the same time, some countries use this tool to track citizen loyalty to the regime. Also, in China, a tracking credit score system can change your credit score based on your behavior (for example, you can get a low score because you did not pay an electricity bill). At this point, it is vital to remember privacy and ethical concerns. That is why the implementation of IoB for government use probably will have a lot of discussion in the next few years.

IMPROVE CARE INSURANCE PRICING
Internet of Behaviors brings a new opportunity for insurance companies to provide personalized prices based on user driving behavior. IoT devices can collect distance and car speed, usually used for driving, and provide proper premium insurance. It means that responsible drivers will pay less.

Google, Facebook, Youtube use the data from user behavior to provide accurate, personalized recommendations and advertisements. IoB helps to identify the most specific target auditory. This is the basic principle of the algorithms that work for those companies and ensure that customers get appropriate information.

As you can see, almost all industries effectively implement IoB. Internet of Behavior can change how we build a workflow, invest, use banking apps or choose car insurance.

PRIVACY AND SECURITY OF IOB
Data security is one of the most discussed topics in the last year. At the beginning of 2021, Apple proscribed applications to track user’s behavior, which was crucial for tech industries. Users’ data should be highly protected and used only with their permission. At the same time, there are no critical problems when we speak about IoT. People used to synchronize their devices by themselves, and it is a pretty helpful practice. The real question is how we collect and use the data at scale. This is the most vulnerable question in IoB ethics.

Many experts define that implementing IoB into daily life lacks legality and structure. We also need to discuss how to organize the processes and how to make the use of IoB ethical. At the same time, IoB is a considerable step into the future, and solving a data privacy concern should be the priority for the industry. Nowadays, we have a lot of successful cases on implementing IoB, and their number can increase after ensuring data safety for all collected information.

We define such risks from using IoB as:

    • data privacy (we need to have a framework for data gathering)
  • access to sensitive data (cybercrime is not a new issue, and we need to focus on protecting the data we collected).

CASE STUDY: IOB FOR DRIVING MONITORING
As you already learned, telematics is another example of implementing IoB in practice. Cprime has broad expertise in implementing such Fleet Telematics solutions. Next, we will share one of the cases of how technology can help improve fleet productivity and safety.

Our client GreenRoad needed a reliable outsourcing partner to continue developing GreenRoad’s web service for 3PL operators to improve fleet costs, productivity, and fleet safety.

Utilizing the latest telematics technologies, Cprime had to develop multiple features for the GreenRoad solutions for tracking vehicles, analyzing and improving drivers’ performances to advance the overall quality of the products.

What solution did we provide? The GreenRoad solution includes the tracking device installed in a car called GreenBox, a web management platform, and a mobile application. It was also an option to have an additional seatbelt sensor and RFID or magnetic key.

GreenBox tracks and transmits to the web application the vehicle’s speed, analysis of driving modes, environmental impact, idle time. This solution represents the basic principle of the IoB application and helps our client achieve the goal.

Driver behavior monitoring solutions also include:

  • Configurable dashboards and reports.
  • Real-time alerts.
  • Access from a smartphone or laptop at any time.

FINAL THOUGHTS
In the next few years, we will see the growth of using the Internet of Behaviors, as it is still one of the biggest tech trends for 2022. At the same time, security and privacy concerns should be broadly discussed shortly. IoB is a powerful tool for a lot of industries. It helps to track chronic disease, provide personalized shopping recommendations, ensure car tracking for insurance, or permit to manage a fleet with telematics solutions. All those IoB applications help people be more effective and satisfied with products and services.

This article defined the IoB meaning, analyzed the best cases of implementing IoB, and pointed out the most significant concerns in using this emerging technology. We also share one of the Cprime cases on implementing IoB solutions to improve fleet productivity. You can contact our specialists if you need to discuss your case or search for help in building IoB solutions.