A new analyst report suggests that the use of the Internet of Things (IoT) is growing in the B2B world, with a number of firms starting to realise the business opportunities around these technologies.
Almost 20 percent of businesses around the world currently incorporate IoT technology, a global report commissioned by business and technology research firm Forrester has found. Another 28 percent have plans to do so in the near future, as companies around the world look to IoT solutions and services for drive innovation in business through their own new products and services.
Interestingly the survey, which was carried out with the help of 3,627 business and technology decision-makers from Australia, New Zealand, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, the UK and the US, highlighted the differences in worldwide IoT adoption via a heat map.
The Forrester study suggests that emerging markets in Asia lead the way in terms of future IoT plans, with 72 percent of respondents from China and India confirming the use of IoT or plans to do so.
The developed economies of Europe and North America are relying less on the IoT than dynamic markets in South America, with adoption rates and plans lower across the board. 52 percent of businesses in Latin America are looking to IoT right now, as organisations across industries look to transform and align with customer relationships which are becoming increasingly digital.
Internet of things report
Forrester analysts and authors of the report Michele Pelino and Frank E. Gillett, wrote that “IoT solutions help companies bridge the physical and digital worlds, ingesting information and context through sensors from the physical world into the digital, and taking actions in the physical world via actuators based on digital insights”.
Other insights to come from the report include the fact that smaller enterprises are more open to emerging IoT technology than medium and large businesses. Across the globe several industries lead the way in IoT adoption, including connected inventory and warehouse applications in the retail sector and smart products in healthcare and energy management.
This report comes just days after analysts at Gartner and Machina separately revealed their predictions for the IoT ecosystem in 2016.