Efficiency gains and cost reduction drive enterprise IoT uptake in APAC, says GlobalData

Digitally ambitious enterprises across all the industries in the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region are betting big on Internet of Things (IoT) solutions to achieve operational efficiencies and cost reduction, says leading data and analytics company GlobalData.

The company surveyed more than 300 small, mid-market and large enterprises, which are already using or planning to use IoT, in APAC across a range of vertical industries such as manufacturing, utilities, retail and healthcare.

In its report ‘Enterprise IoT in Asia Pacific: Scope of deployments, use cases and investment plans’, GlobalData gives an in-depth insights into the end-users’ perspectives on IoT, their investment plans, choice of connectivity technologies and vendors, key benefits enterprises are hoping to gain and the geographic scope of deployment.

In the survey, equipment process and management was the most common use case in APAC across all the industries covered in the survey due to the immediate financial benefits driven by operational efficiency. However, there are some differences in each country and for example, smart city is driving IoT deployment in Japan and infotainment systems/smart signage in Indonesia.

Deepa Dhingra, Senior Technology Analyst at GlobalData, comments: “Proving the value proposition of IoT projects to key stakeholders combined with security concerns and skills gap have come up as the top three challenges holding back the IoT deployments in the APAC region.”

Dhingra adds:  “APAC businesses generally expect a positive return on investment (ROI) within six months to two years from their current or planned IoT projects. In logistics, healthcare and manufacturing industries, the ROI timeline is longer than two years.”  

There are various connectivity technologies that can be used for IoT deployments, depending on the use cases. Most of the IoT deployments in APAC use long range wireless technologies for connectivity and specifically use 3G and LTE technologies for licensed connectivity and Wi-Fi for unlicensed connectivity.

Dhingra concludes: “As IoT makes headway in APAC, telcos are well-positioned to help enterprises with their IoT deployments. Telcos can go beyond the basic connectivity and there are greater opportunities from business consulting as well as solutions around device, connectivity and security management.”