Growth of Internet of Things Ties to Sustainability

Global instability brought on by supply chain disruptions, global pandemics, and international conflict have been a catalyst for enterprise Internet of Things (IoT) adoption, with a 24% year-over-year (YOY) increase in number of IoT projects. Integration of IoT and 5G accelerated use cases including smart cities, smart buildings, intelligent workplaces, and other sustainability projects. However, despite the growth in adoption, security gaps in IoT environments have left many organizations vulnerable to new cybersecurity threats.

These trends, and others, are covered in our Internet of Things Services 2022 RadarView™. The report is a comprehensive study of IoT service providers, including top trends, analysis, and recommendations. It takes a close look at the market’s leaders, innovators, disruptors, and challengers.

We evaluated over 40 service providers across three dimensions: practice maturity, partner ecosystem, and investments and innovation. Of the over 40 providers, we recognized 25 that brought the most value to the market during the past 12 months.

The report recognizes service providers in four categories:

• • Leaders: Accenture, Capgemini, Cognizant, HCL, IBM, Infosys, TCS, and Wipro
  • Innovators: Atos, Harman Connected Services, LTI, L&T Technology Services, Mindtree, NTT DATA, and Tech Mahindra
  • Disruptors: Birlasoft, CGI, eInfochips, Innominds, and ITC Infotech
  • Challengers: Happiest Minds, Microland, Mphasis, UST, and Zensar

Figure 1 from the full report illustrates these categories:

“Today, organizations across industries are preparing to harness the power of IoT through a variety of use cases,” said Lynne Chernow, Avasant fellow. “Use of technologies like 5G, edge computing, and AI in conjunction with IoT can help enterprises generate greater value.”

“Although IoT has many benefits, it does increase the security attack surface,” said Kim Terry, Avasant fellow.” Organizations really need to start thinking about IoT security from the early stages of design and development to mitigate potential risks.”

The full report provides a number of findings and recommendations, including the following:

1. Enterprise IoT spending grew as IoT enabled new use cases.
2. Number of projects grew about 24% YOY, with IoT adoption increasing in three key segments: Industry 0, product IoT, and connected infrastructure. By connecting assets and infrastructure, enterprises can increase operational efficiency, improve top-line and bottom-line, and enhance safety.
3. In the connected infrastructure segment, use cases such as smart city, smart building, and intelligent workplace saw significant growth in the last 12 months.
4. The Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) is growing fastest while spending is highest for Industrial IoT (IIoT).
   • IoMT flourished during the pandemic. The number of active IoMT projects increased nearly 1.5x in the last 12 months. Remote patient monitoring, drug quality control, and supply chain monitoring were use cases that had significant traction.
   • Manufacturers continue to spend the most on IoT services, as they further expand smart manufacturing initiatives by using artificial intelligence, automation, edge computing, digital twins, and 5G.
5. Enterprises are increasingly using IoT to achieve sustainability goals.
   • IoT is helping government as well as private entities in achieving sustainability goals and improving environmental, social, and governance (ESG) metrics by optimizing resource usage and operations.
   • Smart city, energy management, waste management, and predictive maintenance, among other use cases, directly impact Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). According to the WEF, “75% of IoT projects concentrate on five SDGs.”
6. Private 5G is accelerating IIoT adoption.
   • Private 5G gives businesses complete control over data, security, and networks, allowing them to allocate bandwidth for ultrareliable, low-latency use cases like IIoT and robotics.
   • A growing list of industries from manufacturing to automotive are using 5G in conjunction with IoT to address use cases such as preventive maintenance, precision monitoring, video surveillance, smart city, smart grid automation, and vehicle-to-everything (V2X), among others.

“As sustainability becomes more of a goal for companies, IoT has a strong role to play as it can monitor office and factory environments as well as supply chains to eliminate waste. However, most companies are still not taking full advantage of cheaper and more sophisticated sensors,.” said Shwetank Saini, research leader at Avasant.

The full report also features detailed RadarView profiles of the 25 service providers, along with their solutions, offerings, and experience for enabling IoT-led digital transformation.

This Research Byte is a brief overview of the Internet of Things Services 2022 RadarView™ (click for pricing).