HOW FIRMS USE INTERNET OF THINGS (IOT) TO BUILD AND SUSTAIN THEIR COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE

Internet of Things (IoT) is growing as a new trend in global business context. It is affirmed through the development of applications and hardware to exploit the advantage of network and data in sustaining business performance of the companies. The World Economic Forum (2018) reported IoT spending has been gradually increasing at nearly 14% in its compound annual growth rate during the period of 2017-22022 with estimated spending amount of US$1.2 trillion by 2022. According to Russo & Wang (2019), the number of IoT-connected devices reached 11 billion and it could be 10 times higher by 2030. Recent development in Five-Generation (5G) network enables the opportunities of IoT that facilitates online collaboration and communication, video streaming, and real time file sharing (D’Mello, 2019). Manika et al. (2015) highlighted nine settings in IoT, including home automation and security, office management, factories management, retail, human health and fitness, worksites management, logistics and navigation, smart cities, and autonomous transport vehicles. In which factories management, smart cities and human health and fitness are among the settings with top value generation. The development of IOT also adds accumulate values to the economy that translates to US$0.4-2.2 trillion value in national GDP (Frontier Economics, 2018). Moreover, accelerating IoT application facilitates the development of small and medium enterprises in the economy (World Economic Forum, 2020). Given to the importance of IoT, the study is developed to explore how Vietnamese companies perceive and adopt into their business in order to leverage competitive advantage.