Tech Vendor Marketing of Blockchain, 5G, Indoor Location, and Autonomous Vehicle Solutions Not Resonating with U.S. Enterprises

Despite a huge push by technology vendors in 2016 and early 2017, several technological solutions that have been positioned as fundamental to the evolution of the enterprise landscape are not being widely noticed by the business community—most notably, blockchain, 5G, indoor location, and autonomous vehicles. In its 1Q 2017 survey of 455 U.S.-based companies in nine vertical markets (retail, healthcare, transportation, logistics, automotive, manufacturing, utilities, consumer packaged goods, and government), ABI Research finds that:

• 93% of organizations had no awareness of blockchain.
• 62% of companies had no familiarity with 5G, and only 37% were just beginning to embark on early investigation processes.
• Only 7% of companies were planning or had autonomous vehicle solutions in play.
• Despite indoor location being a key component of many IoT solutions in vertical markets, such as retail, only 22% of organizations surveyed were assessing or planning Indoor location solutions.

“The survey clearly shows that we are currently in the phase of adding connectivity to physical first products,” says Stuart Carlaw, Chief Research Officer at ABI Research. “The top three most significant technology segments identified by respondents all centered on connecting physical first products to digital domains. These were wired (Ethernet, PoE), short-range wireless (Bluetooth, Wi-Fi), and cellular technologies (4G/4.5G, LTE-M, NB-IoT, LPWA).”

Carlaw goes on to state that the “air gap” between technological evangelism and end user focus is something that the tech vendor community will need to address through significant education and awareness activities. “All initiatives must factor in company size and vertical market as key demographic indicators,” concludes Carlaw.

These findings are from ABI Research’s Industry Survey: Transformative Technology Adoption and Attitudes - Summary report.