According to the report, 60 per cent of businesses agree that making use of IoT has either entirely disrupted their industry or will be doing so in the coming five years
In this digitised world, the adoption of Internet of Things (IoT) is becoming one of the key factors for businesses success. Around 34 per cent of businesses worldwide now make use of IoT, according to latest findings by Vodacom Business.
In addition, 70 per cent of these IoT adapters have moved further pilot stage and 95 per cent of these adopters are witnessing the benefits of investment in IoT technology as it is finding its place into the mainstream, says the IoT Barometer 2019 survey by Vodacom Business.
IoT makes technology easier to deploy
Commenting on the findings, Peter Malebye, Managing Executive for Vodacom Business IoT said, “IoT is central to business success in an increasingly digitised world, with 72 per cent of adopters saying digital transformation is impossible without it. The good news is that IoT enablement platforms make the technology easier to deploy for businesses of all sizes and connectivity options like narrowband (NB)-IoT and 5G will make implantation easier and improve services.”
“In this climate, companies need to be considering, not if but rather how they will implement IoT, and they must also be fully committed to the technology to capitalise on the positive value/outcomes enabled by IoT,” Malebye said.
According to the report, 60 per cent of businesses agree that making use of IoT has either entirely disrupted their industry or will be doing so in the coming five years. On the other hand, 84 per cent of adopters mention growing confidence in the IoT, while 83 per cent respondents said they are increasing the scale of IoT deployments to gain complete benefits.
In addition, the report grades businesses based on the IoT usage, by analysing strategy, implementation and integration of IoT deployments. Around 53 per cent of IoT adopters globally fall into the top two levels, out of five. Region-wise, Americas is the most advanced, with 67 per cent of adopters falling into the top two levels, as compared to 51 per cent in the Asia Pacific (APAC) region and 46 per cent in the Europe.
Significant returns on investment
The report finds that the most advanced organisations witnessed the highest return on investment (RoI) in IoT. Nearly 87 per cent of those in the top level witnessed significant RoI from IoT, as compared to only 17 per cent at the ‘beginners’ level. On the other hand, 76 per cent of adopters reported that IoT is mission-critical and even some are finding it difficult to imagine business without IoT. About 8 per cent of respondents said that their complete business depends on IoT.
Malebye said that looking to the future, new technology will continue to power the performance of IoT.
“Over half (52 per cent) of adopters plan to use 5G, which promises to support higher volumes of data, increase reliability and offer near-zero latency. Combined with mobile edge computing, which will process application traffic closer to the network edge, users can expect better performance, less risk and faster data speeds,” he said.
