Telecom Service Provider 5G Network Launch Plans

Mobile network service providers have been eagerly planning for the launch of 5G service deployment. Juniper Research anticipates that the first commercial network launches will occur in 2019 -- the initial networks to provide 5G services will be located within the Far East & China and North America regions.

Meanwhile, network operators in Europe have mostly adopted a wait-and-see approach, closely following the progress of operators in the two leading regions. Over the past two years, telecom service providers and network equipment vendors have been actively trialing 5G infrastructure components.

5G Services Market Development

According to the latest market study by Juniper Research, global annual network operator billed revenues from 5G connections will approach $300 billion by 2025, rising from $894 million in 2019. This represents an average annual growth of 163 percent in its first six years of operation.

Juniper believes that these substantial revenues will offer relief to the telecom service providers experiencing declining revenues and profitability. That said, Juniper analysts forecast that 5G service revenues will be 38 percent of total operator billed revenues by 2025, despite the anticipated 1.5 billion 5G connections accounting for 14 percent of all cellular connections in the same year.

According to the Juniper assessment, network operators must optimize pricing strategies and network configuration to secure a return on their 5G investment. Given the variety of internet of things (IoT) devices that will use 5G, pricing strategies must reflect data usage, device type and required network speeds to ensure profitability.

Juniper also forecasts that the total data traffic generated by 5G connections will reach 955 Exabytes annually by 2025. Network operators will likely need to implement technologies that minimize the cost-per-bit of 5G data -- including network virtualization -- to provide on-demand network agility for the data-intensive demands of 5G connections.

Outlook for 5G Network Investment

"5G for home broadband services will be the biggest driver in the growth of cellular traffic after initial launches," said Sam Barker, senior analyst at Juniper Research. "By 2025, the average 5G home broadband connection will generate over 430GB of data per month."

In addition, the researchers estimated that cumulative 5G research and development spending by network operators, hardware vendors and public bodies will approach $60 billion by the end of 2018. In 2018 alone, it is anticipated that telecom service providers will invest nearly $30 billion to deploy and test networks in preparation for commercial launches in 2019.

Robotic Exoskeleton Revenue will Reach $5.8 Billion

CIOs and CTOs are searching to find the information and guidance they need to increase opportunities and minimize risk when employing robotics technologies. Many now desire to create new markets and product categories, open additional lines of business, enhance existing product lines, invest in or acquire start-up companies, or create robotics innovation labs.

Across a range of applications, exoskeletons are increasingly being introduced to augment human capability -- for assistive purposes in the workplace, and for enabling or rehabilitative purposes in the healthcare market.

Exoskeleton Market Development

According to the latest worldwide market study by ABI Research, as of 2018, global shipments will reach 7 thousand units with a hardware revenue of $192 million.

However, total shipments are expected to reach over 91 thousand by 2023 and 301 thousand by 2028. As a result, global revenue for the suits is now forecast to reach $5.8 billion in 2028.

"The market gets healthier with each passing month. The culmination of start-up activity, an increasingly permissive regulatory environment, improving drive and materials technology, and partnerships with larger corporations suggest the exo-market is in the best position it has ever been,” said Rian Whitton, research analyst at ABI Research.

Until very recently, Exoskeletons have been something of a novelty, but now advancements in the technology have made numerous new applications viable within developed economies.

For example, power consumption has been a longstanding problem and now the efficiency of battery technology has extended the viable use-time for powered exo-suits.

Also, considering that the aging population and systemic skills shortage in developed countries is forcing companies to invest more in the workforce they already have, exoskeletons will become a force-multiplier in improving productivity, and in avoiding and mitigating against injuries.

In the long run, their adoption will save billions of dollars of waste every year accrued from lost hours due to physical injury. That said, the future value of exoskeletons is not limited to industrial apps. Rehabilitation-focused exoskeletons showcase their potential in the global healthcare market.

Now though, the momentum for exoskeletons is in the workspace. Sarcos Robotics, which plans to release its full-body exoskeleton in 2019, is targeting most industrial markets, from manufacturing and warehousing to construction and extraction.

So far, the distribution is tilted heavily towards industrial and commercial applications. The industrial market for exoskeletons -- including manufacturing, construction, utilities etc. -- is expected to reach revenues of $2.8 billion by 2028. Meanwhile, commercial use-cases (including health and warehouse logistics) will reach $2 billion.

But there are barriers to adoption. Exoskeletons are still expensive and the deployment of these complex systems requires further partnerships between OEM’s, distributors and service providers.

According to the ABI assessment, more work needs to be done in creating modular exoskeleton platforms that can be retrofitted with a range of capable end-effectors to widen market appeal.

Outlook for Exoskeleton Application Growth

Furthermore, there is likely to be increased emphasis on data collection and cognitive capabilities of exoskeletons -- as autonomous smart devices that provide valuable insights to managers regarding worker performance and health.

Even as the market continues to evolve and expand, exoskeletons have yet to gain the attention of other innovative robotic technology markets, such as collaborative robots and autonomous vehicles.

"As their value across a wide range of verticals becomes more apparent and services lower the barriers to adoption, this will change rapidly," Whitton concludes.

Digital Transformation Investment will Reach $5.5 Trillion

Senior executives that have already developed strategies for business technology adoption may believe that their organization is prepared for the next wave of disruption in the Global Networked Economy. However, a mindful assessment of the forward-looking digital environment will help to uncover the potential for emerging new challenges and opportunities.

International Data Corporation (IDC) unveiled their "FutureScape: Worldwide Digital Transformation (DX) 2019 Predictions." Within their predictions, IDC has identified two DX organization segments that are based on specific market trends and leadership attributes.

Digital Transformation Market Development

According to IDC, leaders in transformation (the digitally determined) are those organizations that have aligned the necessary elements of people, process, and technology for success.

In contrast, laggards (the digitally distressed) have not developed the enterprise strategy necessary to align the organization effectively for meaningful business transformation.

IDC analysts present ten predictions that will impact digital transformation efforts of enterprise CIOs and CTOs over the next one to five years. The latest IDC predictions are as follows:

By 2020, at least 55 percent of organizations will be digitally determined, transforming markets and reimagining the future through new business models and digitally enabled products and services.

By 2022, the Chief Digital Officer (CDO) title will be in decline, as digital will have become fully embedded, but more than 60 percent of CEOs will have spent part of their careers leading digital initiatives.

The paramount importance of customer advocacy will result in 60 percent of B2C brands embracing 'net promoter score' (NPS) as their leading success metric by the end of 2020.

By 2020, 80 percent of enterprises will create data management and monetization capabilities, thus enhancing enterprise functions, strengthening competitiveness, and creating new sources of revenue.

By 2020, 30 percent of G2000 companies will have implemented advanced digital twins of their operational processes, which will enable flatter organizations and one-third fewer knowledge workers.

By 2023, 35 percent of workers will start working with bots or other forms of artificial intelligence (AI), requiring company leaders to redesign operational processes, performance metrics, and recruitment strategies.

By 2020, 30 percent of G2000 companies will have allocated capital budget equal to at least 10 percent of revenue to fuel their digital strategies.

By 2021, prominent in-industry value chains, enabled by blockchains, will have extended their digital platforms to their entire omni-experience ecosystems, thus reducing transaction costs by 35 percent.

By 2021, about 30 percent of manufacturers and retailers globally will have built digital trust through blockchain services that enable collaborative supply chains and allow consumers to access product histories.

By 2023, 95 percent of entities will have incorporated new digital KPI sets -- focusing on product or service innovation rates, data capitalization, and employee experience -- to navigate the digital economy.

"With direct digital transformation investment spending of $5.5 trillion over the years 2018 to 2021, this topic continues to be a central area of business leadership thinking," said Shawn Fitzgerald, research director at IDC.

5G Network Infrastructure Revenue to Reach $26B

The deployment of new communications technology could disrupt parts of the traditional broadband marketplace. According to the latest study by International Data Corporation (IDC), that's a key finding from their assessment of the worldwide 5G wireless network infrastructure market.

It follows the release of IDC's initial forecasts for Telecom Virtual Network Functions (VNF) and Network Functions Virtualization Infrastructure (NFVI).

5G Wireless Market Development

With the first instances of 5G services rolling out in the fourth quarter of 2018, 2019 is set to be a seminal year in the mobile telecommunications industry. Moreover, 5G smartphones will begin to reach the market and end-users will be able to experience 5G technology benefits firsthand.

From an infrastructure standpoint, the mobile telecom industry continues to trial innovative solutions that leverage new spectrum, network virtualization, and machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI) to create new value from existing network services.

While these and other enhancements will play a critical role, 5G NR represents a key milestone in the next mobile generation, enabling faster speeds and enhanced capacity at a lower cost per bit.

However, even as select cities begin to experience 5G NR today, the full breadth of 5G's potential will take several years to arrive, which will require additional standards work and trials, particularly related to a 5G NG core.

In addition to 5G NR and 5G NG core, procurement patterns indicate communications service providers will need to invest in adjacent domains -- including backhaul and NFVI -- to support the continued push to cloud-native, software-led architectures.

Combined, IDC expects the total 5G and 5G-related network infrastructure market (5G RAN, 5G NG core, NFVI, routing and optical backhaul) to grow from approximately $528 million in 2018 to $26 billion in 2022 at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 118 percent.

According to the IDC analyst's latest view, 5G RAN will be the largest market sub-segment through the forecast period, which is in-line with prior mobile generations.

Outlook for 5G Wireless Applications

"Early 5G adopters are laying the groundwork for long-term success by investing in 5G RAN, NFVI, optical underlays, and next-generation routers and switches. Many are also in the process of experimenting with the 5G NG core," said Patrick Filkins, senior research analyst at IDC.

The long-term benefit of making these investments now will be when the standards-compliant SA 5G core is combined with a fully virtualized, cloud-ready RAN in the early 2020s.

This development will enable many communications network service providers to expand their value proposition and offer customized services across a diverse set of enterprise verticals through the use of network slicing.

Connected Cars Drive Mobile eCommerce Applications

Automobiles are getting smarter and more connected to the world around them. The term 'Connected Cars' refer to devices installed in the vehicle which allow Machine-to-Machine (M2M) communication or machine-to-human interaction.

M2M is communication between two single machines with no human interaction. Regarding vehicle telematics, M2M technology enables data to be sent from the vehicle to another location and used for vehicle conditioning or to monitor driver behavior.

Connected Cars Market Development

According to the latest worldwide market study by Juniper Research, 775 million consumer vehicles will be connected via telematics or by in-vehicle apps by 2023, rising from 330 million vehicles in 2018. This is an average annual growth of 18.7 percent over the next 5 years.

Juniper forecasts that automotive OEMs will enable in-vehicle infotainment systems to be accessible to third-party developers. In turn, this will accelerate the expansion of new technologies and services that will increase the value proposition for drivers.

In this context, Juniper anticipates the growth of in-vehicle 'voice assistant' use, as well as in-vehicle commerce transactions via mobile wireless communications.

The study found that the total spend over connected car eCommerce platforms will reach $265 billion by 2023. In order to cultivate a workable commerce ecosystem, Juniper urged stakeholder collaboration between automotive OEMs, network operators and payment solutions providers.

Juniper analysts recommend that the provision of application programming interfaces (APIs) and development platforms that enable third-party development of payment-capable in-vehicle apps is essential to the creation of new and innovative OEM services.

"Until the market gains new entrants from outside the automotive ecosystem, the increase in transactions will be driven by convenience for the user, rather than the creation of new services themselves. By 2023, we expect that in-vehicle commerce transactions will be less than 1 percent of mobile and online transactions globally," said Sam Barker, senior analyst at Juniper Research.

Outlook for Connected Car Applications

Juniper analysts also forecast that over 370 million in-vehicle digital voice assistants will be accessed by 2023. However, in-vehicle assistants must be given access to the vehicle’s basic functionality, such as climate control, to offer a differentiation point to smartphone-tethered options.

Juniper predicts that automotive OEMs will increase this access to vehicle systems, however mitigating risks, including security of data and driver distraction, will remain the highest priority.

Digital Native Enterprises Gain Traction in Asia-Pacific

IDC unveiled its top information and communications technology (ICT) predictions for Asia-Pacific excluding Japan (APeJ) region. IDC now predicts that many more organizations will be 'digitally determined' by 2020, transforming commercial markets and reimagining their future growth potential.

Digitally determined organizations demonstrate the ability to vision, plan, and operationalize their digital transformation (DX) through ambition, grit, discipline and commitment. Ultimately, all digital determined organizations aspire to become 'digital native enterprises'.

Digital Business Market Development

"To be one of the digitally determined, Asia-Pacific organizations requires more than tenacity; it requires a blueprint that consists of a single enterprise strategy, resoluteness to make required organizational and cultural changes, a long investment strategy based on the principle that digital is inherently valuable to the business; and should have a single digital platform to scale technology innovations," said Sandra Ng, group vice president at IDC.

According to Ng, the top predictions that will impact the overall ICT industry -- both technology buyers and their vendor suppliers -- in the Asia-Pacific region during the next 36 months are:

Digital determination: By 2020, at least 55 percent of organizations will be digitally determined, transforming markets and reimagining the future through new business models and digitally enabled products and services.

Data monetization: By 2020, 60 percent of large enterprises will create data management or monetization capabilities, thus enhancing enterprise functions, strengthening competitiveness, and creating new sources of revenue.

Digital KPIs: By 2023, 80 percent of entities will have incorporated new digital KPI sets – focusing on product or service innovation rates, data capitalization, and employee experience – to navigate the digital economy.

Digital twin: By 2020, 30 percent of leading companies will have implemented advanced digital twins of their operational processes which will enable flatter organizations and one third fewer knowledge workers.

Agile connectivity: By 2021, driven by LoB needs, 60 percent of CIOs will deliver agile connectivity via APIs and architectures that interconnect digital solutions from cloud vendors, system developers, startups, and others.

Blockchain-enabled DX platforms: By 2021, prominent in-industry value chains, enabled by blockchains, will have extended their digital platforms to their entire omni-experience ecosystems, thus reducing transaction costs by 35 percent.

BizOps: By 2021, 45 percent of CIOs will expand Agile or DevOps practices into the wider business to achieve the velocity necessary for innovation, execution, and transformative change.

AI-driven edge: By 2022, over 30 percent of organizations’ cloud deployments will include edge computing, and 25 percent of endpoint devices and systems will execute artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms.

Digital trust: By 2020, 55 percent of CIOs will initiate a digital trust framework that goes beyond preventing cyber attacks and enables organizations to resiliently rebound from adverse situations, events, and effects.

AI-based IT Operations: Compelled to curtail IT spending, improve enterprise IT agility, and accelerate innovation, 60 percent of CIOs will aggressively apply data and AI to IT operations, tools, and processed by 2021.

Outlook for Future Enterprise Applications

Ng concludes, "AI is creating a new paradigm for individuals, businesses, industries, economies and governments. It is shaping the future of intelligence in organizations and in workers. To this end, IDC predicts that by 2025, 60 percent of frontline connected devices will be voice-enabled, with a smart assistant, and able to control 80 percent of devices deployed in consumer and enterprise settings."

According to the IDC assessment, voice is increasingly influencing the way we work, live, learn and play. The race to the future enterprise has begun. No one and no entity will be spared of the need to at least reset or reboot, if not reinvent. Digital reinvention is the future, and the new normal for IT.

Strategic Foresight Will Enable CIOs to Reinvent IT

More C-level executives are positioning their enterprise for digital transformation, ahead of their competition. Moreover, the most effective CIOs are already reinventing IT capabilities by deploying new advanced service delivery platforms, while also modernizing their legacy systems.

As traditional IT organizations evolve, IDC has outlined key trends for CIO leadership. According to the IDC assessment, these important predictions provide a strategic context that will enable CIOs to lead their organizations through a period of rapid innovation and disruption over the next five years.

Ten Predictions for CIO Leadership

By 2021, driven by LOB needs, 70 percent of CIOs will deliver agile connectivity via APIs and architectures that interconnect digital solutions from cloud computing vendors, system developers, startups, and others.

Compelled to curtail IT spending, improve enterprise IT agility, and accelerate innovation, 70 percent of CIOs will aggressively apply data and Artificial Intelligence (AI) to IT operations, tools, and processes by 2021.

By 2022, 65 percent of enterprises will task CIOs to transform and modernize governance policies to seize the opportunities and confront new risks posed by AI, Machine Learning (ML), and data privacy or ethics.

Through 2022, 75 percent of successful digital strategies will be built by a transformed IT organization, with modernized and rationalized infrastructure, applications, and data architectures.

By 2020, 80 percent of IT executive leadership will be compensated based on business KPIs and metrics that measure IT's effectiveness in driving business performance and growth -- not merely IT operational measures.

By 2020, 60 percent of CIOs will initiate a 'digital trust' framework that goes beyond preventing cyber attacks and enables organizations to resiliently rebound from adverse situations, events, and effects.

By 2022, 75 percent of CIOs who do not shift their organizations to empowered IT product teams to enable digital innovation, disruption, and scale will fail in their roles.

Through 2022, the available talent pool for emerging technologies will be inadequate to fill at least 30 percent of global demand and effective skills development and retention will become differentiating strategies.

By 2021, 65 percent of CIOs will expand agile and DevOps practices into the wider business to achieve the velocity necessary for digital innovation, execution, and change.

By 2023, 70 percent of CIOs who cannot manage the IT governance, strategy, and operations divides between LOB-dominated edge computing, operational technology, and IT will fail professionally.

Outlook for Traditional IT Reinvention

"In a multiplied innovation economy built on emerging technologies, CIOs must reinvent the IT organization to enable their enterprise to take advantage of the most powerful wave of the digital transformation," said Serge Findling, vice president at IDC.

CIOs must also reinvent customer, employee, and partner experiences to strengthen trust and resilience while learning to live with and manage risks posed by AI and ML by reinventing IT governance. Furthermore, they need to reinvent IT leadership, by orchestrating armies of bots and automated processes in addition to leading people.

Telecom Service Providers Explore More AI Applications

Savvy CIOs and CTOs at communication service providers are busy developing comprehensive strategies for the application of cognitive systems that enable new types of automation. The market leaders are currently engaged in numerous pilot and production projects that are a catalyst for further innovation.

The use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning within the telecommunications domain is now an established practice and chatbots, customer services, and network management are areas where AI is part of everyday operations.

Cognitive Systems Market Development

According to the latest worldwide market study by ABI Research, the latest trend for AI development in telecom is all about cognitive platforms that focus on generic use rather than individual use cases.

"Despite the widespread use of AI and machine learning across many separated telecoms domains, AI platforms are now the top concern for leading mobile service providers globally, including AT&T, Deutsche Telecom, Telefonica, and Vodafone," said Dimitris Mavrakis, research director at ABI Research.

According to the ABI assessment, the promise of these platforms is encouraging, but there is still heavy development to be done and many mobile service providers are still not sure where to place their bets.

Initiatives such as the AT&T open-sourced 'Project Acumos' illustrate that open source hardware and software will likely be the most suitable development environment for these telecom AI platforms, potentially creating challenges for some IT vendors and hyperscale cloud service providers.

The application of these 'open innovation' AI platforms is a natural fit for telecom use cases, where mobile service providers can utilize the vast amounts of data they collect to improve their operations, enhance customer experience, and even provide value to their business partners.

For example, BT has saved tens of millions of British pounds by combining human input, data collected from its network, and its own developed AI algorithm, to be able to predict the implication of any business decision on its network and financial position.

Outlook for Telecom Applications for AI

"Most mobile service providers are currently assessing AI platforms and whether they should invest in a centralized approach or continue with the use case specific AI applications they currently operate," said Mavrakis.

Given that AI will be a critical technology for the future of any business, the right decision will translate to a significant competitive advantage with financial benefits. ABI analysts believe that tier-1 mobile service providers should embrace open source and get involved in the development of AI solutions -- perhaps the most important forward-looking technology in the 5G era.

IT Security-Related Revenues will Reach $133.7B

Cybersecurity solutions demand has remained strong during 2018, as more CIOs and CTOs need to ensure that their digital transformation projects have a high degree of digital trust built-in. Data privacy-related legislation has also fuelled the market for expert professional services that are skilled in IT security compliance.

According to the latest global market study by International Data Corporation (IDC), worldwide spending on security-related hardware, software, and services is forecast to reach $133.7 billion in 2022. Although spending growth is expected to gradually slow over the 2017-2022 forecast period, the market will still deliver a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 9.9 percent.

As a result, security spending in 2022 is anticipated to be 45 percent greater than the $92.1 billion forecast for 2018.

IT Security Market Development

"Privacy has grabbed the attention of Boards of Directors as regions look to implement privacy regulation and compliance standards similar to GDPR. Frankly, privacy is the new buzzword and the potential impact is very real. The result is that demand to comply with such standards will continue to buoy security spending for the foreseeable future," said Frank Dickson, vice president at IDC.

According to the IDC assessment, security-related services will be both the largest ($40.2 billion in 2018) and the fastest growing (11.9 percent CAGR) category of worldwide security spending.

Managed security services will be the largest segment within the services category, delivering nearly 50 percent of the category total in 2022. Integration services and consulting services will be responsible for most of the remainder.

Security software is the second-largest category with spending expected to total $34.4 billion in 2018. Endpoint security software will be the largest software segment throughout the forecast period, followed by identity and access management software and security and vulnerability management software.

The latter category will be the fastest growing software segment with a CAGR of 10.7 percent. Hardware spending will likely be led by unified threat management solutions, followed by internet firewall and content management.

IDC analysts believe that banking will be the industry making the largest investment in security solutions, growing from $10.5 billion in 2018 to $16 billion in 2022. Security-related services, led by managed security services, will account for more than half of the industry's spend throughout the forecast period.

The second and third largest industries, discrete manufacturing and federal or central government ($8.9 billion and $7.8 billion in 2018, respectively), will follow a similar pattern with services representing roughly half of each industry's total IT security spending.

The industries that will see the fastest growth in IT security spending will be telecommunications (13.1 percent CAGR), state or local government (12.3 percent CAGR), and the resource industry (11.8 percent CAGR).

The United States will be the largest geographic market for security solutions with total spending of $39.3 billion in 2018. The United Kingdom will be the second largest geographic market in 2018 at $6.1 billion, followed by China ($5.6 billion), Japan ($5.1 billion), and Germany ($4.6 billion).

The leading industries for security spending in the U.S. will be discrete manufacturing and the federal or central government. In the UK, banking and discrete manufacturing will deliver the largest security spending while telecommunications and banking will be the leading industries in China.

China will see the strongest IT security spending growth with a five-year CAGR of 26.6 percent. Malaysia and Singapore will be the second and third fastest growing regions with CAGRs of 21.1 percent and 18.2 percent, respectively.

Outlook for IT Security Applications Growth

From a company size perspective, large and very large businesses will be responsible for nearly two thirds of all security-related spending in 2018. Large and medium businesses will see the strongest spending growth over the forecast, with CAGRs of 11.8 percent and 10 percent respectively.

However, very large businesses will grow nearly as fast with a five-year CAGR of 10.1 percent. Small businesses will also experience solid growth (8.9 percent CAGR) with spending expected to be more than $8 billion in 2018.

Internet of Things will Enhance Retail ERP Solutions

The retail sector has undergone dramatic changes within developed markets, which the Internet of Things (IoT) technology adoption is accelerating. The widespread digitization of the market has given rise to an industry that's very much data- and demand-driven, as opposed to supply- and cash-driven.

It's important to understand, when analyzing the use of IoT in retail, that it requires more than a bunch of technologies in isolation. It's a transformation in retailer business processes, enabled by a tailored set of purpose-built systems.

Retail IoT Market Development

According to the latest market study by Juniper Research, revenues generated by IoT retail platforms will exceed $4.3 billion by 2023 -- that's up from an estimated $890 million in 2018.

According to the research findings, challenging retail conditions, exacerbated by strong competition in the retail sector, the rise of eCommerce and spiraling store rental costs are acting like a big motivation for retailers to adopt IoT platforms.

The analyst found that IoT platform implementation will allow retailers to unlock efficiencies, particularly in the supply chain, which will improve operating profit margins.

Juniper anticipates that this push for efficiency will drive the total number of IoT platform connected assets to almost 25 billion units by 2023 -- that's up from just over 5 billion in 2018.

Juniper stated that the rise of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems, leveraging IoT sensors to enhance resource utilization, will drive overall IoT retail software spend rapidly, with annual investment in these ERP solutions reaching over $13 billion by 2023.

"Retailers are facing a perfect storm of pressures and challenges, which IoT implementation can help them navigate successfully. ERP and retail platform providers are a compelling proposition in enabling successful IoT transformation," said Nick Maynard, research analyst at Juniper Research.

Outlook for Retail Technology Applications

Juniper also carried out an assessment of the extent to which retailers have implemented the various applications, based on factors such as technological clarity, cost barriers and existing deployments. This assessment found that RFID technology will continue to have the biggest impact on the retail space.

This is due to the positive impact RFID implementation can have in logistical and warehousing operations, and also as part of new shopping experiences such as Amazon Go. Resource optimization and heat sensor technologies were also found to be highly mature and disruptive in the retail sector.