Samsung launched its business offerings at CeBIT 2015. Samsung Business is a new brand and combines Samsung’s Knox for security and enterprise mobility management, Smart Signage, and printing. Samsung Business offers industry-specific solutions for retail, education, hospitality, transportation, healthcare, and financial services.

In retail, Samsung offers digital mirror and video wall devices. School Solution integrates its mobile devices with interactive learning tools. Its Smart Hotel Solution offers premium in-room experience and information bulletin touchscreens. The Preventive Mobile Cardiac Rehabilitation solution enables real-time monitoring of chronic conditions. For financial services, Samsung provides secure document handling and printing services. And its transportation solution provides real-time information and analysis of data. My main takeaways:

  • Samsung Business is a good first step toward catering to businesses. Samsung has enormous potential to leverage its existing consumer device expertise and experiences, especially in the B2B2C space. Samsung is right to opt for an open and collaborative Internet of Things (IoT) ecosystem to overcome the challenges of platform compatibility, data analysis, and security. Samsung has a long track record in focusing on user experience. This should help it deliver high-quality and intuitive-to-use business solutions.
  • Samsung’s sector solutions are still rather basic. At this stage, Samsung is right to focus on a handful of offerings that it is familiar with and can deliver with high quality. However, Samsung will need to drill down deeper into business processes and business models to become successful in the emerging world of IoT longer term.
  • Samsung Business’ offerings are hardware-centric. This is not necessarily a bad thing, as Samsung brings tested and established solutions to the table. But Samsung needs to boost its software activities and experience in order to succeed in the enterprise solutions space. Its partnerships with Oracle for data solutions and with SAP for wearables for industry lines are steps in the right direction.
  • Samsung needs to support businesses during the transformation process. In order to become a true partner for businesses during the digital transformation process, Samsung needs to provide consulting services and transition and transformation capabilities. Of course, Samsung can’t pull this expertise out of a hat. But Samsung must move swiftly to find a strong partner in the consulting and systems integrator space.

The Samsung Business launch comes as market observers expect slower long-term growth rates for smart devices. It took Samsung a long time to discover the opportunities that the IoT offers for enterprises — but better late than never. As CIOs prepare their own organizations for the digital age, they should welcome the arrival of Samsung in the business space as an additional global provider of quality B2B2C solutions.