Dive Brief:
- A new study of 218 manufacturing and distribution industry respondents conducted by SYSPRO in July reveals at least 45% of those surveyed had never heard of or were not familiar with breakthrough technologies like the Internet of Things, predictive analytics or bots.
- The same respondents also pointed to predictive analytics as the technology of highest interest to them, with 34% ranking it as their number one choice for a breakthrough technology, according to MFR Tech.
- Cloud deployment (32%) and Big Data (17%) also topped the first three spots, with less than 10% of respondents considering the Internet of Things, bots or facial recognition as most important.
Dive Insight:
The survey sample is relatively small but provides interesting insight as to the power of information to adopt technology, and what types of technology are considered highest priority.
Assuming none of the roughly 115 respondents that did not know of predictive analytics selected it as the most important breakthrough, the survey implies 74% of those that were aware of the technology selected it as most important.
SYSPRO does not provide many details about the demographics of its respondents, but the company is an ERP provider for manufacturers and distributors.
Notably, the sample they chose to survey also chose cloud deployment and Big Data as breakthrough technologies — perhaps due to a shared focus on system efficiency and management. Meanwhile, bots, facial recognition and the Internet of Things are typically geared towards operations managers looking to optimize their productivity.
A separate survey conducted by Supply Chain Digest suggests more than 50% of their respondents considered their companies "laggards" in adopting new technologies. Yet, in this survey, too, cloud-based solutions and systems promising macro-agility were highly favored.
