A report by IoT Analytics has revealed that manufacturing, transportation, energy and utilities, tops the list of global industries that have fully adopted the use of IoT in their operations.
IoT Analytics is a leading provider of market insights and competitive intelligence for the Internet of Things (IoT) and Industry 4.0.
The latest report focused on over 700 global IoT system integration and services companies.
Manufacturing top the list with 64 per cent adoption, followed by Transportation with 37 per cent adoption rate, while Energy and Utilities came next with 34 per cent adoption rate.
Other industries on the list are Health with 31 per cent adoption rate, Retail with 25 per cent adoption rate, Supply Chain, Public Sector, Agriculture, Smart Cities and Buildings had 23, 21, 16, 8 and 5 per cent adoption rates respectively.
The findings also showed that among the global companies implementing IoT projects, 55 per cent utilise a professional services firm or system integrator.
When asked why they hired an IoT integrator, decision makers mentioned lack of internal experience, staff shortages and complex technologies.
IoT Analytics also identified four unique IoT system integration services: Strategy consulting, Solution design, Integration, and Operations/managed services. While many IoT integrators offer a holistic range of integration services, some provide a narrow set. Integration, which is the most offered service across all identified companies, was rated 71 per cent, followed by solution design 57 per cent, strategy consulting 53 per cent, and operations/managed services 46 per cent
Nearly all 93 per cent of the identified system integrators cover software integration. Those that focused on hardware integration were rated 51, while 42 per cent focused on IoT connectivity in various forms.
IoT Analytics published a list of over 700 system integration and services firms that are focusing on Internet of Things. From the findings, IoT integration is the most offered professional service and manufacturing the most targeted vertical by the over 700 companies surveyed.
Analysing the report, the CEO at IoT Analytics, Knud Lasse Lueth, said: “Since 92 per cent of surveyed senior information technology (IT) decision makers agree that “company-wide digitization” will be more important post-COVID-19, the role of the IoT integrator is critical. This importance is enhanced by the digital skills gap, which is the prime reason companies hire integrators.”
Senior Analyst at IoT Analytics, Philipp Wegner, said: “Different industries have different needs. A manufacturing company with a global network of plants has specific IoT system integration requirements that differ from an agricultural company or a healthcare company. Manufacturing clients are important to IoT integrators: 64 per cent of IoT system integration companies focus on manufacturing, including smart factories, industry 4.0, and connected products. Transportation, such as connected car, vehicle-to-everything, is the second most common industry at 37 per cent, followed by energy and utilities, such as smart metering and smart grid at 34 per cent.”
Citing the drivers of the $32 billion IoT system integration market, the report said several trends were driving demand for IoT professional services such as Cloud Computing, New Connectivity and Hardware Setups, Scaling of IoT Projects, and Data Streaming and Analytics.
For the cloud computing, the report said many companies, pushing existing workloads to the cloud is more complicated than anticipated.
For new connectivity and hardware setups, it said the IoT integrators support companies during changes or updates in IoT connectivity technology, such as transitioning to 5G or low-power wide-area networks (LPWAN)) and the continuous replacement and integration of more powerful edge computing devices as a part of hardware retrofits. It further said some IoT projects were scaling to thousands, sometimes millions of devices, which it said, could be complicated and often requires outsourcing operations to service providers. For the data streamlining and analytics, the report said system integrators were often called on to connect data streams and enable new software tools to leverage artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML).
“IoT integrators focus on different parts of the value chain, such as industries, regions, and technologies.
Finding the right IoT integrator for a project can be cumbersome given the myriad freelancers and small and medium companies focused on a local subset of the market. Many IoT integrators cater to specific needs and industries. The over 700 IoT system integration companies that were surveyed, employ a combined work force of nearly eight million professionals, even though not all of them are focused on IoT,” the report said.
Source: thisaday
