IoT becomes critical part of the business for Aussie CIOs

The adoption of technology by Australian enterprises continues to grow as businesses attempt to stay relevant through the creation of new products and services.

According to Telsyte findings - surveying 302 Australian CIOs and IT decision makers - close to 90 per cent of customers believe that the Internet of Things (IoT) is becoming important or critical to their organisations within five years.

Delving deeper, research also revealed that 23 per cent of organisations are testing, developing or in the production phase of IoT.

This follows news that Australia, as well as New Zealand, has ranked among the top Asia Pacific (APAC) countries – excluding Japan (APeJ) – of the most capable and ready to generate efficiencies linked to IoT solutions.

According to IDC findings, New Zealand and Australia, which took the third and fourth place respectively, are only behind South Korea and Singapore in terms of adoption, but all four countries ranked well in all measures of stature, business readiness and technological preparedness.

Consequently, IDC predicts that the APeJ loT market will grow from US$335.6 billion in 2016 to US$565.5 billion in 2020.

IDC Asia Pacific associate vice president for IoT research, Hugh Ujhazy, said both trans-Tasman markets are attractive markets to vendors for the level of overall infrastructure maturity, size of the digitally-aware skills base and the level of innovation expressed in these markets.

“Knowing where a country stands in the loT index will help global and local IT vendors identify the opportunities that lie ahead of them as they line up their strategies at federal, local, and enterprise levels,” Ujhazy said.

IDC’s research also revealed that New Zealand scores exceptionally high on measures such as ease of doing business and startup procedures, government effectiveness, regulatory quality and innovation, all of which point to necessary components for a business environment that is ready for the growth of the IoT.

This is considering they have a relatively small GDP (gross domestic product) and population compared with G20 countries.

Meanwhile, Australia and New Zealand ranked in the second quartile in terms of country competitiveness, a combination of GDP and the Global Innovation Index.

In addition, New Zealand edged out Australia in infrastructure investment, having higher overall ICT spend per capita than Australia, while Australia had a higher ratio of secure server deployment.

Both countries were the same in terms of regulation and ease of doing business, falling slightly behind Hong Kong and Singapore in this respect.

In terms of the skills to support IoT deployments and the creation of intellectual capital through the number of local patents, both Australia and New Zealand were on par with each other, sitting slightly behind South Korea in this category.

“Governments in Australia and New Zealand are startup and business friendly in general, fostering an innovation market where there is fierce competition for venture capital funds," Ujhazy said.

"This aspect may lure IoT experimentalists to capital markets outside of ANZ as they seek funding to scale beyond early proof of concepts."

Furthermore, research firm Gartner, recently said that Australians are expected to spend $83.1 billion in IT in 2017, or 3.7 per cent increase from compared to the previous year.