Middle East organisations are adopting the latest Internet of Things (IoT) technology infrastructure to drive the wider region’s $8 billion market, global IoT enabler SAP has announced.
As the interconnected IoT era advances, Middle East organisations are forced to manage a vast network of connected devices, wearables and physical objects; from cars to oil drills. Using machine-to-machine technology, organisations can provide a secure, usable infrastructure that shares machine and sensor data for actionable information in real time.
In the Middle East and Africa, IoT spend is set to reach $8 billion in 2017. In particular, the highest-spending industry verticals include manufacturing and transportation, both at $1.3 billion, and utilities at $918 million.
“Every industry vertical in the Middle East is set to be transformed by IoT, from smart utilities predicting service outages, to healthcare providers predicting patient treatments,” said Gergi Abboud, Managing Director for the Gulf, Levant, North Africa, and Pakistan at SAP.
“The strength of an IoT use case improves exponentially when you unleash the connectivity between all of the ‘things’ inside and outside of an enterprise across its supply chain. Hence, a secure IoT platform on the cloud becomes vital for supporting next generation applications, which can scale up quickly and easily,” he added.
Showing the strong demand, 82 per cent of organisations see IoT as ‘strategic’ or ‘transformational’ to their business, according to a recent survey.
In the Middle East, SAP is seeing strong demand for the SAP Leonardo digital innovation system. SAP Leonardo provides breakthrough technologies and services that lets organisations take advantage of embedded IoT capabilities and other technology innovations on the cloud.
SAP is already working closely with Middle East organisations on IoT co-innovations, such as a remote inspection robot for the Dubai Electricity and Water Authority, and Emirates NBD bank on augmented reality housing loans.