IoT is here – now we need to drive adoption

Matthew Evans, techUK

Written by Matthew Evans, Executive Director of SmarterUK and IoT at techUK

techUK has launched its new paper, Top Actions to Accelerate IoT Implementation, making a series of recommendations to both Government and industry to help drive the adoption of an increasingly mature technology to increase business productivity and improve the lives of citizens.

The IoT market in the UK has made grown steadily over the past three years but it has not seen the explosion of devices, services and benefits that was predicted. Trust issues are still a barrier to adoption and more work is needed to demonstrate the business case for IoT. Large scale test demonstrators can help to remedy this but further action is needed to drive increased adoption throughout the public and private sectors. The report highlights four key areas of action:

  • Government, in conjunction with industry, should strive to be more active in sponsoring and supporting proof of concepts, test beds, and demonstrators and market development activities.
  • Government should leverage existing investment in innovative infrastructure, to maximise investment productivity and recognise the synergy benefits of funding that supports broader ecosystem and cross sector benefits.
  • Public sector procurement should increasingly adopt challenge-based, outcome focused approaches to innovative technologies.
  • Government, industry and financial markets need to work together to identify measures that will attract long-term investment for IoT infrastructure.

Julian David, CEO of techUK, commented on the report:

“Driving the adoption of the IoT in the UK is critical to improving productivity, supercharging the economy and creating a smarter state.

“The Made Smarter Review published last week outlined that industrial IoT alone could boost the economy by £352bn by 2030[1]. IoT can deliver incredible benefits to the UK; done right, it can help enable better health services, cleaner and safer public spaces, more efficient infrastructure and generate more innovative businesses and business models. Yet these aren’t the only benefits. The IoT is estimated to be a global market worth up to $15 trillion in 2030[2] and boosting support for our domestic suppliers will allow them to take advantage of this incredible export market, driving more growth and investment into the UK.

“The IoT market has not developed as quickly as we thought it would, but the benefits it could deliver are still real and very worthwhile. This report can act as a framework to drive greater adoption, bringing direct benefits to the UK and our involvement in the global market.”

Download the report here

Comments are closed.