Transport and logistics is expected to become a leader in the use of machine-to-machine (M2M) communications with over half saying they would be using the technology within two years, according to a study by Vodafone.
Of the 12 per cent of transport and logistics firms already using M2M, all said they’d seen some return on their investment — and 67 per cent said that return was “significant”.
Of those that don’t already use M2M, 90 per cent said it was relevant or very relevant today. 100 per cent said it will be relevant in three years — the only industry in our survey to give a unanimous vote.
And 76 per cent said that their M2M strategy was a key priority or their number-one priority, the highest of all the sectors surveyed. More than half say they’ll have implemented M2M within two years.
The figures are revealed in “The state of M2M in transport and logistics – key findings from the 2013 Vodafone M2M Adoption Barometer”.
More than half of companies surveyed in the sector saw benefits from M2M in terms of cost reduction (56 per cent) and customer service (53 per cent) – higher results than the average for all industries.
Transport and logistics companies were generally more positive on the potential to improve business agility (45 per cent) productivity (44 per cent) and consistency of delivery across markets (34 per cent).
The report pointed out that M2M applications in transport and logistics are very clearly defined: fleet management solutions and mobile asset tracking being the most obvious. These have a direct, immediate and measurable effect on the efficiency of core business processes.
Barriers to adopting the technology included security, cost and time to implement. None of these were cited by more than one-third of respondents.
