IoT has truly moved beyond Proof of Concept (PoC) and trials into full-scale deployments, but firms cannot view these as one-off projects, by GSMA Intelligence’s Principal IoT Analyst, Sylwia Kechiche
GSMA Intelligence recently conducted an IoT Enterprise survey to measure the spread of enterprise IoT projects. Its results show that 48 percent of enterprise had deployed IoT by 2018. What is even more staggering is that these enterprises span across all sizes, from 20+ employees to 1,000+ employees. Which means that IoT is truly moving beyond Proof of Concept (PoC) and trials into full-scale deployments.
According to GSMA forecasts, industrial IoT connections will grow from 3.7 billion in 2018 to 13.8 billion, and will account for just over half of all IoT connections in 2025. This is due to the growing adoption of IoT solutions within enterprises in addition to growth in specific vertical industries – for example, utilities and manufacturing-related applications.
Industry of things
In the industrial context, IoT enables new business models, which create value by connecting existing and new things together to establish new business processes, increase business efficiency, enable greater innovation and drive improved visibility across an organisation. IoT implementation leads to CAPEX and OPEX savings as well.
According to GSMA’s survey, productivity increase is one of the key benefits derived from implementing IoT solutions. Others are related to improved customer care as well lower operational costs. For example, Ericsson’s Panda Nanjing factory, deployed IoT to automate production resulting in savings from efficiency increase, reduction in maintenance costs and increased flexibility in product line design. The first year provided a 50 percent return on investment, while breakeven is projected in less than two years.