Cost efficiency and sustainability focus drive IoT adoption

Greater cost efficiencies and improving environmental sustainability are the top drivers behind IoT adoption among today’s businesses, recent research by Inmarsat has revealed.

More than half (54 per cent) of respondents stated that cost efficiency is the top driver behind their adoption of IoT technologies, followed by improved environmental sustainability and greater supply chain insight (both 48 per cent). Despite these benefits, many organisations continue to face several key barriers when deploying IoT – with a lack of in-house skills and a lack of reliable connectivity in the deployment phase (37 per cent and 24 per cent, respectively) chief among them.

Despite the accelerating speed of IoT adoption over the course of the Covid-19 pandemic, improvements are still needed to draw the optimum benefits from the technology. Unreliable connectivity, inadequate data strategies, and a lack of skills are hampering many businesses’ ability to reap the rewards of IoT.

Around half of those seeking cost efficiencies or improved environmental sustainability (52 per cent and 53 per cent, respectively) felt their investments met or surpassed their expectations – yet for those with a formal IoT strategy in place, these figures were notably higher, at 73 per cent and 71 per cent respectively.

Equally, a higher proportion of organisations not struggling with connectivity challenges also achieved greater cost efficiencies and sustainability improvements (71 per cent and 72 per cent, respectively). Yet a quarter (25 per cent) of all organisations suffer from a lack of consistent and reliable connectivity post-deployment, hindering their ability to achieve the same.

The IoT skills barrier is also hampering organisations’ efforts to achieve their IoT ambitions. In those without a formal IoT strategy in place, this is particularly acute. A large proportion of this group continues to struggle due to a lack of in-house skills to support their IoT projects, particularly post-deployment (47 per cent). This is more than halved in organisations with a formal IoT strategy (21 per cent), showing they are better equipped with the skills needed to solve issues uncovered during IoT deployment.

Commenting on the findings, Mike Carter, President of Inmarsat Enterprise said: “The efficiency gains and cost savings IoT can deliver, in addition to the huge environmental benefits, paints a clear picture as to why most organisations are pursuing IoT. However, to get the optimum benefits from their IoT deployments, organisations must ensure they have all the right skillsets and connectivity requirements in place. The research shows that organisations struggling to implement the right connectivity strategies are lagging behind their peers, and those with a formal IoT strategy are better placed to reap the benefits of optimised and more sustainable operations.

“We can see that too many businesses still struggle to deploy IoT projects due to unreliable, insecure, or poor connectivity. This is where satellite IoT connectivity can play a key role. Some of the most valuable data often hails from the hardest to reach places, so investing in effective collection, storage and analysis of that data is crucial to successful IoT strategies.

“Inmarsat ELERA, our industry-leading narrowband network, is ideally suited to the rapidly evolving world of IoT. The billions of devices being connected every year are benefitting from global reach, extraordinary resilience, and the fastest speeds, along with the smallest, lowest-cost terminals in their class. ELERA is inspiring new possibilities and enabling organisations from all sectors to access IoT anywhere. It will be a catalyst for the next wave of world-changing technologies, so organisations looking to accelerate their IoT deployments need look no further than Inmarsat and our global partner ecosystem – the widest of any satellite provider – to solve their IoT connectivity needs.”