IoT Based Asset Tracking and Monitoring Market Trends

Growth Drivers

• Advancement in IoT technology: Advancement in IoT technology has been a foundation for the substantial growth in the market. For instance, LPWANs such as LoRaWAN, Sigfox, and NB-IoT have gained wide acceptance as they offer connectivity solutions over long distances with low cost and low bandwidth, thus allowing for an added million devices being connected, even into remote or unreachable locations. Sensor technology, such as GPS, RFID, and BLE has also been advanced significantly for increased accuracy and reliability in obtaining data. With the integration of edge computing and AI, data analysis and its processing into a decision may be done at the device level without latency, so that the response is timely improved. Furthermore, 5G networks will bring faster data transfer rates and even lower latency, with greater connectivity speeds, so it is expected further to accelerate the growth of IoT based asset tracking and monitoring. Such developments are driven by an increasing demand for productivity, real-time visibility, predictive maintenance, regulatory compliance, and improved utilization of assets.
• Increasing demand for operational efficiency: The need to achieve operational efficiency is driving the growth of the IoT based asset tracking and monitoring market. Companies across the globe strategize to streamline their operations and eliminate inefficiencies to remain competitive in the fast-paced business environment. IoT based asset tracking and monitoring solutions enable organizations to attain operational efficiency by opting for several measures such as automating inventory management and tracking, increasing supply chain transparency and predictability, reducing downtime and maximizing asset utilization, and enhancing schedule timing to reduce the effective cost of maintenance. Companies are initiating to improve their bottom line, reduce costs, and enhance customer satisfaction which is likely to increase demand in the foreseeable future.
• Need for real-time visibility: Many companies require real-time data related to an asset's location, status, and condition. These factors involve the growing complexity of worldwide supply chains, increasing demand for just-in-time delivery, and rising concerns for asset security. Advancements in IoT technology and data analytics, regulatory requirements to track and monitor, and high use of automation and robotics drive market growth. Thus, increasing numbers of organizations take up IoT based asset tracking and monitoring solutions to offer instant tracking and monitoring, transparency, improve stock management, reduce downtime, increase the utilization of an asset, and therefore respond promptly to change to outwit each other in business.

Challenges

• High initial costs: The initial investments in hardware and software, as well as the cost of implementation, can be very high. This creates a cost barrier for many firms to establish their businesses. Additionally, other running costs related to maintenance, support, and training add to the overall cost. Although effective long-term payoffs of efficiency improvement, cost-cutting, and better decision-making compensate for the one-time investment expense, it further makes it indispensable for an organization to critically look at what it needs and seek cheaper alternatives.
• Scalability of operations: Scalability is extremely challenging as the organizations cannot scale their solutions easily due to increased complexity and data overload as well as network constraints, integration limitations, and cost constraints. The more the number of additional assets and users added, the difficult it becomes to manage and maintain complex systems. Furthermore, the voluminous data can swamp the system and cause performance failures as well as slower response times. In such a case, the existing infrastructure for the network may not stay abreast of the increased traffic and demands of data transfer, thereby creating connectivity and data loss issues.