Inmarsat research has gained insight that investments in IoT are poised to overtake cloud computing and other digital transformational technologies. The IoT can barely be viewed at as an “emergent” technology any longer. Between 2017 and 2020, IoT investments make up an average 7% of organization’s IT budget. Over the upcoming three years, organizations expect to improve their IoT budgets by 10%. 

Here’s how that stacks up against planned investment in other Industry 4.0 technologies: 

• Cloud Computing (9%) 
• Next Generation security (7.5%) 
• Big data analytics (7.3%) 
• Robotics (5.3%) 
• Machine learning (4.8%) 

• VR (4.3%) 

Mike Carter, President of Inmarsat Enterprise, specified: 

“Our latest research reveals IoT is currently the main Industry 4.0 technology in which organizations are making investments over the upcoming three years. 

The emergence of IoT as an investment priority for organizations, and the appreciating level of cost-savings they expect IoT to provide in the year that are to come, illustrate how well-established a technology IoT has become across several industries.  

However, there are still considerable differences between sectors and several noteworthy areas for all enterprises on which to improve to draw optimal advantages from the technology, specifically: securing reliable connectivity, enhancing data management and addressing their IoT skills gaps and security-related concerns.” 

With regards to the above-specified variations amongst domains in planned IoT investments, oil and gas firms have intentions to make the majority investments in the technology in the upcoming three years (an average of $3.2 million). This is followed by electrical utilities organizations ($3.1 million), transport and logistics entities (3 million GBP) mining operators ($2.7 million), and agricultural businesses ($2 million) 

COVID-19 illustrated the requirement for enterprises to implement Industry 4.0 technologies such as Internet-of-things and cloud computing to guarantee not only everyday operational efficiency enhancements but additionally to assist business continuity in rapidly-evolving scenarios. 

“Regardless of already witnessing rapidly appreciating levels of IoT proliferation and adoption, COVID-19 has highlighted the criticality of Industry 4.0 technologies such as IoT for business continuity management.”, specified Carter. 

“With the planet’s production and supply chains become more and more interlinked and digitalised, those organizations generating digital twins of their supply chains and sharing data, are the organizations that are harvesting the advantages.