Infotech Lead Asia: 92 percent IT decision makers in India and 90 percent in China believe that M2M is the natural evolution of the consumerization of IT.
A combined average of 81 percent IT decision makers in Brazil, Germany, the U.K. and U.S. feel the same, according to a study conducted by Harris Interactive for SAP.
The six-nation survey says almost 30 percent of IT decision makers agree that smart cities would be the most beneficial outcome of deployment of M2M technologies.
SAP on Monday said this would include highly intelligent cities capable of collecting and analyzing large amounts of data from smart, connected devices and citizens’ social media activity in real time to vastly improve urban life.
Majority of respondents expect M2M to provide businesses and employees with greater insight, including the ability to respond to real world events, as well as increased efficiency, productivity and collaboration. The ability to increase mobility among the work force was identified as a big opportunity for M2M in the workplace.
When it comes to embracing BYOD, China emerged as the leader among the countries surveyed, with 56 percent stating their company embraces BYOD and provides productivity apps for one or more mobile platforms.
“The number of things connected to the internet is expected to reach 50 billion by 2020 and consumers are playing a central role in this transformation,” said Sanjay Poonen, president of Technology Solutions and Mobile Division, SAP.
The survey says smart cities would be the coolest possible outcome of M2M: China (35 percent), Brazil (35 percent), Germany (30 percent), India (27 percent), US (25 percent) and UK (21 percent).
Average of 70 percent of respondents in six countries agrees that companies that fail to implement M2M technologies will fall behind their competitors.
Obstacles to M2M
IT decision makers from all countries except China were most likely to see a lack of expertise needed to manage the adoption and security of M2M as presenting the biggest impediment to adoption: India (66 percent), Brazil (62 percent), US (57 percent), Germany (56 percent) and UK (50 percent). In China, while a substantial majority of IT decision makers still cited a lack of expertise as the biggest obstacle (63 percent), a slightly higher proportion said how to manage and analyze all the real time data resulting from M2M (65 percent).
The availability of broadband infrastructure, such as LTE/4G, will be instrumental in allowing M2M technologies to flourish in the future: US (91 percent), China (91 percent), India (91 percent), Germany (88 percent), UK (87 percent) and Brazil (85 percent).
Recently, Vodafone announced a M2M deal with Mahindra’s e-car. Hope India will invest in M2M.