Australian market research firm Telsyte says it has identified a rise in shadow IoT among Australian businesses: experimental IoT projects initiated by individuals or business units without authorisation from IT or other appropriate authority.
Telsyte estimates one in four companies have IoT capable devices without a formal strategy around them, and says 81 percent of these are experiencing stalled projects. “Other issues such as inconsistent technology selection, poor fit for purpose and higher costs are also experienced by organisations experiencing shadow IoT,” Telsyte says.
However, on a more positive note, Telsyte estimates 32 percent of organisations now have a strategic approach to IoT, and about half of these have pilot programs running or already have IoT in operations.
“Among companies that currently do not have a formal IoT strategy, almost one in three large organisations (200+ employee) plan to adopt an IoT strategy within 12 months,” Telsyte says.
Barriers to IoT uptake
“The biggest barriers are lack of a business case (26 percent), IoT seen as too expensive (25%) and a lack of skills and expertise (20 percent). Among those that have overcome the barriers, early signs show that IoT is having a big impact on their businesses.”
Telsyte managing director Foad Fadaghi said businesses that are just tinkering with IoT devices are hitting a wall. “Critical to the success of implementing IoT strategies seems to be taking a scalable and holistic approach, with security considered upfront.”
Telsyte reported finding a diverse range of applications, with the main areas businesses believe IoT will be used in being maintenance (32 percent), manufacturing (31 percent) and sales (30 percent). Thirty two percent of large firms surveyed also reported IoT being suitable for customer service applications.
IoT delivering returns
“Of the third of existing businesses that have measured the RoI of IoT, 65 percent claim it increased revenues; half saw an increase in productivity; and, similarly, half realised ‘better customer satisfaction or advocacy’,” Telsyte said.
Operational cost savings was reported by 39 percent of organisations surveyed of which around 80 percent saw nearly a one-third reduction in costs, either through efficiency gains or better management of assets.
Telsyte’s findings are reported in its Australian Enterprise IoT & 5G Study 2019, based on interviews with 271 IT decision makers across Australian organisations with greater than 20 employees.
Sixty eight percent of respondents saw 5G as being crucial for their business strategy going forward, and half of these said it was critical for future application development and for supporting existing applications.
The top three barriers to 5G investment cited were integration with current systems (34 percent), a lack of business case (23 percent) and security concerns (17 percent).
Based on the findings Telsyte forecast the enterprise 5G market in Australia to generate around $45bper annum by the mid-2020s, consisting of next generation application development, IT services, platforms and connectivity.
