IoT investment forecasted to surpass cloud computing

Respondents from several industries suggested that they are looking to invest most of their IT budget into IoT projects over the next three years.

IoT takes, on average, 7% of a business’ IT budget between 2017 and 2020, and it is set to rise to 10% over the coming years. Organisations across all industry sectors are planning to spend an average of $2.8 million on their IoT investments through to 2024.

Intended investments into IoT are higher than other industry 4.0 technologies such as cloud computing (9%), next-generation security (7.5%), big data analytics (7.3%), robotics (5.3%), machine learning (4.8%) and virtual reality (4.3%).

President of Inmarsat Enterprise, Mike Carter said: “Our latest research reveals IoT is now the primary Industry 4.0 technology in which companies are investing over the next three years.

“The emergence of IoT as an investment priority for businesses, and the increasing level of cost-savings they expect IoT to deliver in the years ahead, demonstrates how well-established a technology IoT has become across multiple industries.”

The study also reveals that the increase in adoption of IoT in the mainstream market is already saving organisation’s operational costs. Respondents note that IoT projects currently save their organisations 9% of their yearly costs.

Respondents expect to achieve an average of 15% cost savings in the next year, increasing to 22% in three years and 30% in five years.

Oil and gas companies plan to invest the most in IoT over the next three years ($3.2 million), followed by electrical utility companies ($3.1 million), transport and logistics business ($3 million), mining operators ($2.7 million) and agricultural business ($2 million).

“However, there are still noticeable differences between sectors and several significant areas for all organisations on which to improve to draw optimum benefits from the technology, namely: securing reliable connectivity, improving data management and addressing their IoT skills gaps and security concerns,” Carter added.

“Despite already seeing rapidly increasing levels of IoT adoption, Covid-19 has emphasised the importance of Industry 4.0 technologies like IoT for business continuity.

“With the world’s production and supply chains becoming increasingly interconnected and digitalised, those companies producing digital twins of their supply chains and sharing data, are the ones reaping the benefits.”