Aussie businesses embracing emerging tech, IoT as change accelerates

The latest research from Telsyte, dubbed the Australian Emerging Enterprise Technology Study 2017 is available for relevant parties at relevant prices, and includes some interesting findings.

We’re told that “Australian enterprises are in the midst of a wave of technology adoption driven by the desire to stay relevant through creating new products and services.”

The study “reveals that more half of organisations are currently undergoing large scale IT transformation leading to widespread investigation, planning and roll out of emerging technologies.”

To back this up, Telsyte says it “undertook a detailed analysis of nine emerging technology areas to better understand the rapid growth in adoption of transformative technologies by Australian organisations.”

So, what else does the Telsyte Australian Emerging Enterprise Technology Study 2017 include coverage of?

• Internet of things (IoT)
• Artificial intelligence and automation
• Voice commands
• Advanced networks: From fibre to 5G
• Personal computing and collaboration
• High performance computing
• Virtual, augmented and mixed reality
• Blockchain and cryptocurrencies
• Mobile payments and NFC

Then we turn our attention to Enterprise IoT, which has “quickly become mainstream.”

Telsyte confidently states that “most IT leaders predict five to ten times as many connected devices in their organisation within five years. This boom in both end-user devices and industrial machines such as sensors and cameras is creating massive volumes of data which can be used to enhance productivity, modernise processes and help leaders make better strategic decisions.”

This is followed up by the fact that ‘nearly 90% of Australian CIOs see IoT becoming important or critical to their organisation within five years. Nearly a quarter (23%) of organisations are in the test, development or the production phase of IoT. Early adopters are showing positive ROI with 59% claiming costs saving from using IoT technologies, and 30% claiming increased customer satisfaction.

So, it appears that “the biggest barriers” do turn out to be “the costs of rolling out IoT solutions and legacy IT infrastructure requirements.”

And, while “more see a positive role for IoT in operations and IT,” there is also “a similar level of interest for customer service and marketing applications.”

Telsyte Managing Director, Foad Fadaghi said: “IoT gives organisations an opportunity to overhaul their systems and modernise processes, the challenge is doing this while maintaining legacy systems.

“A complete overhaul is often required with IoT creating barriers for organisations which are not yet at the right phase to make large scale investments.”

Here’s Telsyte’s chart from its 2017 Study showing “IoT maturity within Australian organisations”:

This is followed by “growing interest in using artificial intelligence, machine learning and automation.”

Here, Telsyte’s report shines a light on “the use of artificial intelligence and automation technology in the enterprise steadily increasing as options continue to grow for everything from physical robots to digital assistants and chatbots.”

Indeed, “nearly two-thirds of businesses are already dabbling with machine learning or deep learning to improve operations or influence business decision making.”

There is also the news that “finance is considered an important beachhead with 65% of CIOs seeing use cases for machine learning in financial modelling and fraud detection.”

However, we’re told, “many organisations are also seeing the customer as an important front for AI,” with nearly “two-thirds of organisations intending to use cognitive computing in some form, including customer-facing apps such as chatbots.”

Fadaghi concludes by stating that: “AI intentions are running at two speeds in the Australian market, with businesses much more bullish about using automation technology than consumers.

“There is an undercurrent of fear in the average consumer about the impact of AI on jobs and future prospects for later generations in a highly automated world.”

Other findings in the study include:

• 1 in 4 IT leaders see a place for industry application of drones (or autonomous flying vehicles).
• More than half are exploring or already developing augmented reality applications.
• 74% indicated they had use cases for voice recognition technology in their organisation.
• Over 60% see value in smart wearable devices such as smart watches and smart glasses in their organisation for internal operations, access control and customer facing applications.

• 59% are investigating the potential uses or disruption of blockchain technology in their industry.