Industry organisation the Internet of Things (IoT) Industry Council of South Africa (IOTIC) says the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic has pushed businesses in South Africa towards IoT, artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), automation and the cloud.

This shift is accelerating digital transformation in the country and creating an increased focus on IoT projects that allows organisations to improve efficiencies, reduce costs and drive return on investment, says IOTIC executive member Jeremy Potgieter.

This year, the shift has reached a tipping point as more projects shift from pilot phase to full-scale deployments.

Local IoT device manufacturers need to take hold of the South African landscape with inventive ideas and smart innovation, the IOTIC recommends.

“There is a clear change in digital direction taking place and this is seeing an acceleration in IoT projects, as well as a commitment to ensuring these projects achieve their full potential.

“However, the local IoT manufacturer landscape is largely non-existent, which has resulted in a huge dependency on imports and parts. There are a few outliers in this field that have, owing to international funding, broken some ground, but not to the extent of making a notable impact,” he says.

There has to be a greater effort by both the private and public sectors to drive the local production of components, parts and solutions, owing to legacy systems that are starting to reach their end-of-life, which means the move to digital is inevitable and profitable.

Local manufacturing and sourcing could be immensely beneficial in terms of managing local availability and service delivery in the face of global shortages across silicon and hardware components.

With a thriving South African manufacturing sector in place, the country could support local solution development and bypass reliance on international supply chains, while also improving job creation, time to market and economic growth.

“As enterprises continue to focus on automation, AI and service optimisation to increase revenue and diversify market opportunities, they need IoT platforms and services that will make their, and their customers’ lives, easier. This means that the time for local manufacturers is now,” Potgieter says.

There are several market factors influencing this. E-commerce platforms are rapidly increasing owing to the ease of shopping and growing smartphone penetration in the market, which will have a knock-on impact on the IoT market.

“There is a growing need for data analysis and the integration of analytics as well, both set to drive the use of IoT in the country and business potential,” he highlights.

Further, the problems faced by South Africa make it the perfect breeding ground for new home-grown IoT solutions. South African IoT manufacturers are innovative in their approaches owing to the complex situation in the country. The challenge is to overcome some of the misconceptions that are impacting IoT development and innovation, he adds.

“We believe this is the right time to release a definitive handbook of best practices and standards as this will overcome misconceptions around what defines IoT success and drive greater adoption.

“We believe vendors, solution providers, service providers and the market as a whole need to come together to drive IoT adoption across multiple disciplines and to do so we need education and better information,” states Potgieter.