Robots have long been a staple of the sci-fi scriptwriter’s playbook, and while we’re still a long way off the dystopian nightmare envisaged by some of Hollywood’s more imaginative minds, there’s no doubt that robots are indeed on the rise.
Sitting alongside game-changing technologies like augmented reality, artificial intelligence, and the internet of things (IoT), robotics is one of several pioneering innovation accelerators that are reshaping the world of business.
Robotics is at the forefront of the digital transformation movement and is proving invaluable in its ability to open up new revenue streams, create fully digitalised organisations, and revolutionise the way work is performed.
As a technology, the term “robotics” encompasses the design, building, implementation, and operation of robots for industry, government, and household applications. And from an application perspective, robots can be classified as industrial robots, commercial service robots, and consumer service robots.
Traditionally, robots have been predominantly used in the automotive and metal industries; however, they are increasingly being deployed in sectors such as electronics, health care, retail, hospitality, logistics, agriculture, utility, and government.
As a consequence, the continued development of robotics has undoubted potential to disrupt the business ecosystem for all industries and transform end-user IT functions.
If we dig a little deeper, the overall robotics market can be segmented into three main sub-categories: system hardware, software, and systems integration and related services. And the next few years will see significant business opportunities arise in each of them.
The robotics-driven system hardware market refers to the supply, installation, operations, and support of computing servers, data storage, connectivity, mobility, and security hardware needed to support the deployment and operations of robotics systems.
Somewhat intuitively, the robotics-driven software market refers to the supply, installation, operations, and support of packaged software needed to support the deployment and operations of robotics systems.
Such software provides the functionalities required by the specific robotics application in question. Examples include supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA), manufacturing execution systems (MES), warehouse control and management systems (WCS/WMS), simulation, offline programming, robot resource/fleet control and management, robot service management, remote monitoring, security, and analytics.
Meanwhile, robotics-driven systems integration and related services market refers to the supply, commissioning, operations, and support of integration services needed to support the deployment and operations of robotics systems.
Such services typically include consulting, feasibility study, systems integration, training, application management, facility modifications, network design and integration, and so on.
As new vendors continue to emerge in the robotics space, the level of competition will inevitably increase. At this point, the pressure will be on vendors to offer a more cost-effective and more scalable approach to deployment.
It is for this reason that robotics vendors will evolve their delivery models to include a “robot as a service” offering aimed at penetrating customers that may not have otherwise been able or willing to consider robotics within their business environment.
The robot as a service approach not only requires vendors to deliver devices to their customers, it also requires that vendors develop a robust service organisation through which to maintain and support robotics.
This model is becoming a reality because vendors are now able to communicate with the robotics network over the cloud, leveraging the IoT to monitor the performance of their devices.
Additionally, as robots increasingly become software-driven devices, vendors will be able to push out software updates to an entire fleet of devices that are deployed across their customer network.
Robot as a service is especially viable in the commercial services segment of robotics as these devices are typically mobile devices that perform a use case — specific task for their host organisation.
As businesses become increasingly accepting of robotics and seek out ways to boost their productivity and efficiency, the robot as a service delivery model is likely to flourish as it enables a low-risk approach to deploying robotics.
The strong growth of the robotics-driven ICT market over the coming years will not only attract new players to join the ecosystem, but also disrupt or displace those incumbent vendors that are not well prepared and hence unable to support and meet users’ changing demands.
Such market dynamics will present both opportunities and threats to end users in selecting the right vendors and in ensuring operational continuity and integration of disparate solutions from different providers.
The columnist is group vice-president and regional managing director for the Middle East, Africa and Turkey at global ICT market intelligence and advisory firm International Data Corporation (IDC). He can be contacted via Twitter @JyotiIDC. Content for this week’s feature leverages global, regional, and local research studies undertaken by IDC.
