APAC organisations ahead in IoT adoption: Survey

Zebra Technologies Corporation, a provider of enterprise-level data capture and automatic identification solutions, has said that companies are effectively leveraging Internet of Things (IoT) more than ever and companies in the APAC region are leading the race. Let’s take a closer look at the findings of the ‘Intelligent Enterprise Index’.

Savanna, Zebra’s data intelligence division, designed an ‘Intelligent Enterprise Index’ which measured companies on how they “connect the physical and digital worlds to drive innovation through real-time guidance, data-powered environments, and collaborative mobile workflows.” In other words, the index is meant to measure the annual growth of IoT deployment and investment in businesses. Organizations that scored more than 75 points on the overall index were defined as ‘intelligent enterprise’ by the survey. 

The overall ‘Intelligent Enterprise Index’ consists of eleven metrics, namely, IoT Vision, Business Engagement, Technology Solution Partner, Adoption Plan, Change Management Plan, Point of use Application, Security & Standards, Lifetime Plan, Architecture/Infrastructure, Data Plan and Intelligent Analysis. The results of the survey were released last month. 

What did the survey find? 

The results show that companies in the APAC region are adopting IoT-based technologies at a faster rate than the rest of the world. Here are the highlights of the same:

APAC outshines global peers in IoT adoption 

• 91% of the companies surveyed in the APAC region stated that they expect their investment in IoT to increase in the 1-2 years; nearly half of them expected this rise to be to the tune of 11-20%.

• The entire Asia-Pacific region was identified as the world leader in the IoT adoption, as 22% of the companies were recognized as ‘intelligent enterprises’ – up from a mere 2% in 2017; the global average is currently at 10%.

• The average APAC score on the overall Index shot up from 49 points in 2017 to 63 points in 2018. 

• 58% of the APAC companies surveyed were found to be sharing real-time guidance information from their IoT solutions, as opposed to 52% globally.

• While 32% of the global respondents stated that they are offering insights to their front-line workers, 41% of those in APAC said the same.

IoT is Being Used and Accepted More

• 40% of the respondents are using a ‘strategic partner’ to manage their entire IoT solution – up from 21% in 2017.

• More than two-thirds of the respondents said that they have devised a plan on how to “organize and analyze their data” – up 10% from the last year.

• Real-time analytics (66%) and security (63%) were the most popular constituents of a company’s data management plan. 

• Globally, as employees are becoming more comfortable with new technologies, the number of companies that anticipate resistance to their IoT plans has decreased from 75% last year to 64% in the current year. 

The results of the index are in line with several other studies that indicate an increasing adoption of new tools and technologies in Asian economies. Experts at McKinsey opined that recent shifts in the nature of our work have altered the business landscape and paved way for emerging economies in the APAC region to catch up with the USA and European nations in automation, AI, robotics, and ML. Surveys have also consistently shown that employees in Asian countries are far more welcoming and receptive to AI-tools and consider working alongside machines an opportunity rather than a challenge. Other reports indicate that leaders in the region are well aware of the future challenges are preparing for the future of work actively. 

Tom Bianculli, CTO, Zebra Technologies, sums it up best when he says “As new technologies continue to transform the front line of business, real-time data-driven signals at the edge of operations are empowering front-line workers with the right information to optimize actions and outcomes. Based on our second annual Index, it’s clear that more companies acknowledge the value of leveraging IoT strategies, and they will continue to propel adoption and investment in the future.”