The Internet of Things (IoT) revolution has undoubtedly arrived and has now permeated all sectors. In the past year alone there were around 8.4 billion connected devices in the world. This number is expected to exceed 25 billion in 2020 (source: Gartner).
2017 was also the year of consolidation of IoT in the world as an important tool for companies. Globally 85% of companies are interested in implementing IoT by 2019. This goes up to 92% for Italian companies.
At this point, the question arises: why should companies embrace IoT solutions?
IoT is one of the main drivers of the ongoing digital transformation that is radically changing the way business is done. It is a disruptive technology changing the way we do things. It is therefore essential for companies to keep up with this wave of digital disruption and adopt IoT solutions.
The main 5 advantages of adopting IoT are:
- Improving efficiency and productivity: efficiency is one of the main advantages of implementing IoT. Through the use of IoT solutions it is possible to automate production processes, monitor remotely and verify operations in real time. All this implies an optimization of resources and consequently an increase in productivity.
- Improving the quality of the service/product: according to the 2017 Manufacturing Vision Study research presented by Zebra Technologies, more than 60% of survey participants said they had made significant improvements in production since introducing IoT. Moreover, more than half of the respondents said that by 2022 they will use IoT sensors to improve the quality of production.
- Reducing cost and waste: the primary consequence of improving asset utilization, efficiency and productivity is the reduction of costs and waste.
- New business opportunities: IoT is revolutionizing traditional business models, offering companies interesting opportunities to create new businesses based on the use of information and data collected in real time.
- Improve competitiveness: thanks to the use of IoT solutions, companies can obtain a lot of data about processes, markets, customers, products and services, consequently improving their agility and competitiveness on the market.
Are there any issues which are critical to the introduction of IoT in a company?
Of course there are. The main issue is that small and medium-sized enterprises do not have a clear strategy for implementing and using IoT effectively.
We will discuss why it is essential to have a clear vision for the IoT strategy to succeed in the next articles.
