A research by Inmarsat, a leading provider of global mobile satellite communications, reveals that investment in the Internet of Things (IoT) is set to overtake cloud computing, next generation security, big data analytics and other digital transformation technologies in the near future.
Respondents drawn from multiple industries reported plans to invest the greatest proportion of their IT budget on IoT projects over the next three years.
The report is based on interviews with 450 global respondents in early 2021. According to Inmarsat, IoT has reached a high level of maturity across most organisations, with businesses across all industry sectors now planning to spend an average of $2.8 million on their IoT investments through to 2024.
The report says, while IoT accounted for an average of 7 per cent of an organisation’s IT budget between 2017 and 2020, businesses are planning to spend 10 per cent of their IT budgets on IoT projects over the next three years. Planned investments in IoT are notably higher than those earmarked for other Industry 4.0 technologies, including cloud computing (9.0 per cent), next generation security (7.5 per cent), big data analytics (7.3 per cent), robotics (5.3 per cent), machine learning (4.8 per cent) and virtual reality (4.3 per cent).
In addition to receiving more investment than other technologies vying for IT budgets, the new research also reveals that the mainstream adoption of IoT is already making a significant difference in terms of operational cost-savings to many organisations. On average, respondents report that IoT projects currently save their organisations 9 per cent of their yearly costs. In the future, respondents expect to achieve an average of 15 per cent cost-savings in 12 months’ time, rising to 22 per cent in three years and 30 per cent in five years’ time.