By Werter Padilha
The beginning of the year is the time to identify trends, sectors with greater growth and investment prospects, whether by companies, governments and consumers. For these analyzes, we rely on information provided by different and renowned consultancies. According to IDC data, global spending on Internet of Things (IoT) is expected to reach US$ 772.5 billion in 2018, an increase of 14.6% over US$ 674 billion spent through the end of 2017.
Growth rates will remain high for years to come, as IoT technologies can be exploited in countless sectors and, in principle, there are no boundaries for them - from the smart home to industry 4.0. However, it is also necessary to analyze the dynamics of these markets to identify which of these sectors are more mature for large-scale IoT adoption, willing to invest in this digital transformation and to explore the data produced by the devices - a path towards the future that needs to have beginning and continuity.
IoT demands analysis, planning, strategy, investment and return on the contributed resources, as it is not enough to connect devices or people through a network, whether public or private. The continuous flow of information generated by IoT devices and technologies should help people, organizations and governments to achieve their goals, be it reducing waste and operating costs, increasing sales, offering new customer experiences, more quality of service. more efficiency in management, improved competitiveness or any other specific objective.
In view of this need to analyze the maturity of sectors and trends, I list below 5 sectors in which the adoption of IoT is expected to grow in 2018 in Brazil, exploring the potential of new technologies, the evolution of IoT platforms, the expansion of cloud, the increasing use of analytics and business intelligence and the good prospects opened up by the dissemination of the National IoT Plan and other projects and policies already underway in the country. Are they:
1. IoT hardware and software industry
According to IDC, the hardware will attract a significant volume of investments, considering the need to build the IoT infrastructure, with the acquisition and installation of sensors, beacons, RFID tags, gateways and solutions, among other equipment and programs, that provide intelligence, identification and traceability to things. These are investments to create the infrastructure capable of generating and supporting data traffic, as the installed base of connected devices expands exponentially.
2. Industry - general and basic manufactures
In the modernization of manufacturing processes, IoT is a fundamental part of the evolution from industrial automation to the concept of Industry 4.0 and Brazil is looking to catch up and lose international competitiveness. Connectivity starts to contribute to the creation of more flexible production processes and brings impacts that go far beyond the reduction of failures on the factory floor. The choice of industry as one of the priority verticals of the National IoT Plan, the FIESP and ABDI program in progress, called “Towards Industry 4.0”, among other initiatives to disseminate knowledge about digital technologies that must be incorporated into production, indicate that this is a priority and strategic theme for Brazil, as already happens in Germany, China and South Korea.
3. Agribusiness
Search carried out by a global information and communication technology services and solutions company, points out that agribusiness is one of the most advanced sectors in Brazil in the adoption of IoT, that is, it is already attuned to the use of technologies to improve the efficiency of both production, transportation, logistics and storage. Agribusiness is one of the most competitive national sectors internationally and to maintain this position, businessmen and the government are willing to expand investments in the adoption of new technologies for fleet management, for the collection of data from agricultural equipment, monitoring of climate data and soil, among other information, to make the country advance in the ranking of world food production.
4. Health and hospital management
Health is another sector prioritized by the National IoT Plan and has ongoing initiatives in doctors' offices, diagnostic centers and public and private hospitals. Nowadays, digital health technologies have contributed both to the diagnosis and treatment of patients and to hospital administration and asset management. One of the bets is telemedicine, a concept that involves the storage and remote monitoring of patients' vital signs by means of devices. We can also consider the popularization of wearables (such as watches, bracelets and sneakers), which monitor heart rate, sleep time and other vital signs.
5. Urban mobility and traffic
Within the different areas covered by the Smart Cities concept, IoT can be seen as a key to improving traffic and urban mobility in medium and large cities, helping to measure the size of the problem, quantify the number of cars on a street, propose routes and prioritize investments. Brazil already has an MCTIC Project, which intends to integrate monitoring systems with the National IoT Plan, which aims to create solutions in areas such as urban mobility, security and cargo transportation. Several states in the federation are investing in smart traffic lights and connected public transport.
Growth rates will remain high for years to come, as IoT technologies can be exploited in countless sectors and, in principle, there are no boundaries for them - from the smart home to industry 4.0. However, it is also necessary to analyze the dynamics of these markets to identify which of these sectors are more mature for large-scale IoT adoption, willing to invest in this digital transformation and to explore the data produced by the devices - a path towards the future that needs to have beginning and continuity.
IoT demands analysis, planning, strategy, investment and return on the contributed resources, as it is not enough to connect devices or people through a network, whether public or private. The continuous flow of information generated by IoT devices and technologies should help people, organizations and governments to achieve their goals, be it reducing waste and operating costs, increasing sales, offering new customer experiences, more quality of service. more efficiency in management, improved competitiveness or any other specific objective.
In view of this need to analyze the maturity of sectors and trends, I list below 5 sectors in which the adoption of IoT is expected to grow in 2018 in Brazil, exploring the potential of new technologies, the evolution of IoT platforms, the expansion of cloud, the increasing use of analytics and business intelligence and the good prospects opened up by the dissemination of the National IoT Plan and other projects and policies already underway in the country. Are they:
1. IoT hardware and software industry
According to IDC, the hardware will attract a significant volume of investments, considering the need to build the IoT infrastructure, with the acquisition and installation of sensors, beacons, RFID tags, gateways and solutions, among other equipment and programs, that provide intelligence, identification and traceability to things. These are investments to create the infrastructure capable of generating and supporting data traffic, as the installed base of connected devices expands exponentially.
2. Industry - general and basic manufactures
In the modernization of manufacturing processes, IoT is a fundamental part of the evolution from industrial automation to the concept of Industry 4.0 and Brazil is looking to catch up and lose international competitiveness. Connectivity starts to contribute to the creation of more flexible production processes and brings impacts that go far beyond the reduction of failures on the factory floor. The choice of industry as one of the priority verticals of the National IoT Plan, the FIESP and ABDI program in progress, called “Towards Industry 4.0”, among other initiatives to disseminate knowledge about digital technologies that must be incorporated into production, indicate that this is a priority and strategic theme for Brazil, as already happens in Germany, China and South Korea.
3. Agribusiness
Search carried out by a global information and communication technology services and solutions company, points out that agribusiness is one of the most advanced sectors in Brazil in the adoption of IoT, that is, it is already attuned to the use of technologies to improve the efficiency of both production, transportation, logistics and storage. Agribusiness is one of the most competitive national sectors internationally and to maintain this position, businessmen and the government are willing to expand investments in the adoption of new technologies for fleet management, for the collection of data from agricultural equipment, monitoring of climate data and soil, among other information, to make the country advance in the ranking of world food production.
4. Health and hospital management
Health is another sector prioritized by the National IoT Plan and has ongoing initiatives in doctors' offices, diagnostic centers and public and private hospitals. Nowadays, digital health technologies have contributed both to the diagnosis and treatment of patients and to hospital administration and asset management. One of the bets is telemedicine, a concept that involves the storage and remote monitoring of patients' vital signs by means of devices. We can also consider the popularization of wearables (such as watches, bracelets and sneakers), which monitor heart rate, sleep time and other vital signs.
5. Urban mobility and traffic
Within the different areas covered by the Smart Cities concept, IoT can be seen as a key to improving traffic and urban mobility in medium and large cities, helping to measure the size of the problem, quantify the number of cars on a street, propose routes and prioritize investments. Brazil already has an MCTIC Project, which intends to integrate monitoring systems with the National IoT Plan, which aims to create solutions in areas such as urban mobility, security and cargo transportation. Several states in the federation are investing in smart traffic lights and connected public transport.
We believe that companies, government, research institutions and consumers will remain mobilized in the adoption and dissemination of the use of equipment connected to the internet, as the synergy will allow the creation of an environment in Brazil capable of leveraging investment in IoT in the 5 mentioned sectors - hardware and software industry, agribusiness, health, industry and urban mobility - and in other attractive areas, such as retail and logistics.
* Werter Padilha is CEO of Taggen Soluções de IoT, coordinator of the ABES IoT Committee and member of the committee of the National Internet of Things Plan, a project developed by BNDES and the Ministry of Science, Technology, Innovation and Communications (MCTIC).
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