Organisations that have adopted the Internet of Things (IoT) are now spending 24 percent of their IT budget on IoT-related projects, a figure comparable to the amount spent on each of cloud and hosting, analytics, and mobility, according to Vodafone’s 2016 IoT Barometer.

Interest in IoT is at an all-time high, Vodafone says. “Seventy-six percent of businesses say that IoT will be ‘critical’ to future success, and 63 percent expect to have live projects within the next year … Sixty-three percent are seeing ‘significant’ return on investment, up from 59 percent in 2015 …

“Forty-eight percent of adopters say they’re using IoT to support large-scale business transformation and 29 percent say they’re using it to connect multiple organisations into ecosystems.”

To compile the barometer, Vodafone says it interviewed more than 1000 “qualified respondents” in organisations ranging in size from SMEs to the largest multinationals in 17 countries, including Australia. – Stuart Corner