By: Andrew Morawski

The M2M market has changed dramatically in the past few years. It is no longer a niche technical term or delegated only to the IT department. It has evolved into a driving force for innovation in our cities, homes, cars and workplaces and its potential is being recognized by leaders in every industry – where it is being used to transform businesses as a whole.

To examine this new phase in the evolution of M2M, Vodafone recently published its third annual Vodafone M2M Barometer Report which revealed rapid, significant progress toward a truly connected world rich in transformative, sophisticated M2M applications. The report showed continued strong growth in the use of the technologies, networks and services that connect a wide variety of smart devices – from household products and cars to industrial applications – resulting in a growing “Internet of Things” (IoT) world.  In fact, more than a quarter of all businesses surveyed worldwide now use M2M technologies to enhance productivity, a 23 percent increase since last year.

As M2M spreads across business units and processes, organizations are experiencing better return on investment (ROI) than ever before such as measurable cost savings, and, ultimately, a significant level of organizational transformation. In fact, 59 percent of early adopters reported a significant ROI in M2M. Deployments are even driving business leaders as 83 percent of M2M adopters worldwide feel that they gained a competitive advantage since implementation. In addition, increasingly sophisticated, strategic and transformational applications of M2M are seeing significantly greater ROI.

The fact is, organizations are finding new ways to leverage the potential power of M2M technology. Businesses are now looking at M2M in a more strategic way – moving beyond one-way applications to sophisticated two-way communications, transformative projects, and expanded implementations that encompass the whole organization.

Sophistication Leads to Transformation

Once organizations start using M2M, they evolve and expand their use of it to support ongoing business transformation. Of those adopters who say they were using M2M a year ago, 81 percent say they’ve increased their use of M2M since implementation– validating to the benefits of adopting M2M. This sophisticated approach to M2M helps organizations achieve the greatest impact on their businesses. In fact, 69 percent of sophisticated users say M2M has fundamentally transformed their business. Due to this transformative nature, it is increasingly seen as supporting innovation – with more and more of businesses calling M2M projects “innovation projects” rather than “IT projects”.

Organizations are pursuing these more sophisticated M2M innovation projects in a number of ways. For example, by realizing the value of M2M beyond connectivity, businesses see the transformative value of the data produced by the M2M or IoT solutions. Utilizing analytics to glean insights from this data can support business decisions at the highest level.  In fact, the report found that 48 percent of M2M users overall are now applying analytics to their data, indicating that it is becoming a standard for M2M deployments.