Was bringt uns RFID in der Zukunft - Maximising RFID Returns

WHITE PAPER Maximising RFID Returns — RFID is Not Just a Barcode With an Antenna Sponsored by: Atos Origin Ivano Ortis November 2007 EXECUTIVE OVERVIEW This IDC White Paper supports IT and line-of-business executives in manufacturing, logistics and retail enterprises in making better-informed decisions on the implementation of radio frequency identification (RFID) strategies. RFID is neither a single nor a new technology. It essentially represents a new real- time data acquisition platform for enterprises, which aims to improve business visibility and business performance of asset, technology, engineering and brand- oriented value chains. RFID is still at the centre of an interesting industry debate, due to the fact that costs may still be perceived as potentially prohibitive, challenges like reading accuracy may hamper confidence in the technology and privacy concerns may lead to potentially unpredictable risks. Consequently, RFID adoption grew fairly slowly in the past few years, following over-hyped promises of immediate and pervasive deployments. However, more recently, tangible RFID benefits have been achieved in many different business areas across manufacturing, logistics and retail distribution to passenger transportation, tourism and healthcare industries. As a result, we find that the technology is now proven, along with its limitations. By carefully designing how business process efficiencies can benefit from RFID- P.39.02.28457.1 collected data in specific-use case scenarios, organisations can achieve a new level of excellence and competitiveness compared to barcode or manual data collection and operational execution mechanisms. IDC finds that RFID integration enables manufacturers, logistics service providers and retailers to: Viale Monza, 14 20127 Milan, Italy Improve supply chain execution and planning efficiencies Achieve improved overall asset management capabilities Enable less-costly, more effective regulatory and market-driven compliance Safeguard and strengthen brand reputation Materialise "customer first" services abilities The current mismatch between RFID adoption rates — fairly low — and opportunities for benefits — medium to high — is now driving a shift in enterprises' focus, from RFID technology assessments to business case formulations and long-term sustainability of RFID programmes. Market leaders that are among the early adopters of this technology suggest that by implementing RFID, enterprises will on average gain a competitive advantage of approximately 12 months. Understanding whether your company can achieve a concrete competitive advantage and whether RFID is the right solution to implement requires painstaking assessment. RFID ADOPTION: STATUS AND PERSPECTIVES Current Penetration of RFID in Europe — Industry Perspectives Till the end of 2006, RFID costs continued to fall but adoption continued to stall. The bottom line is that buyers were facing many difficulties in justifying broad deployment of RFID, and technology sellers were disappointed by actual market growth. IDC finds that in Western Europe, the penetration of RFID in the enterprise is as follows (Figure 1): Overall, looking at the manufacturing, transportation and retail sectors, we estimate that 17.7% of companies are now either implementing or piloting RFID. Manufacturing and logistics are currently the two industries with the highest adoption levels, at about 20%. Retail is clearly lagging behind, with only 13% of organisations that have already implemented or piloted RFID. FIGURE 1 Western Europe, Penetration of RFID (Percentage of Companies) Q. Is your organisation currently piloting or implementing RFID solutions or have short-term plans to pilot/implement RFID? Total Discrete manufacturing Process manufacturing Logistics Transport Retail/Wholesale 0 5 10 15 20 25 (%) Base: All sample Number of valid respondents: 819 Data weighted by enterprise size class Source: IDC European Vertical Market Survey, September 2007 2 #CG54P ©2007 IDC But this scenario is set to change rapidly, especially in Europe. In fact, during the course of this year, we registered a significant increase in the number of implementations, even in the midtier segment of the market: For example, preliminary 2007 survey results in the UK across manufacturing, transportation and retail indicate that 25% of respondents are currently piloting or implementing or have short-term plans to implement RFID. Last year, it was only 15% of respondents. As a result, we see growth of over 50% in RFID penetration in this market in 2007 compared to last year. The outlook for RFID adoption in the UK retail sector during the next year looks very promising, as indicated in a poll of 51 UK retail companies during September 2007. Over 35% of interviewed retailers in the UK revealed short-term plans to invest in RFID. Early this year, we assessed in a worldwide survey with over 100 enterprises that RFID spending projections are also on the rise (see Figure 2). Over 30% of respondents indicated plans to invest between $250,000 and $500,000 during 2008 (this figure nearly doubled when compared to 2006), 13% of respondents have plans to invest over $5 million in 2008 (up from 1.1% in 2006), and no respondent indicated zero spending on RFID by next year (down from 32% of companies spending nothing on RFID in 2006). FIGURE 2 RFID and Sensor Network Spending Share, 2006–2008 70 60 % of respondents 50 40 30 20 10 0 2006 2007 2008 $0 $1–249K $250K–499K $500K–999K $1M–4.99M $5M+ Source: IDC's Manufacturing Insights Worldwide RFID Survey, 2007 ©2007 IDC #CG54P 3 Challenges and Inhibitors Hampering RFID Penetration — IDC Advises on the Way Forward RFID adoption grew fairly slowly in the past few years, following over-hyped promises of immediate and pervasive deployments. However, as highlighted in the previous section, RFID expectations are now firmly on the rise, even in the short term and not only looking at the medium to long run. We find that this significant anticipated shift in RFID penetration is a direct consequence of the fact that inhibitors to RFID implementations used to represent real roadblocks, while now industry and technological advancements have essentially enabled greater confidence in RFID-driven business projects. In fact, we assessed that the great majority of companies that already worked on RFID implementations or pilot projects consider that the technology is now proven, along with its limitations. As a result, enterprises are approaching RFID as a business journey — not only a new and complex technology project to run because business performance improvements will result. For decision makers to overcome some key challenges to deploy RFID solutions successfully — whenever concrete opportunities for benefits are identified — IDC advises on the following key concerns: Privacy — RFID may be used to identify people or to associate a certain product or service purchase to its buyer. In this case, privacy concerns instantly emerge, despite the extremely short communication range available with passive UHF RFID tags. Disabling tags permanently is a viable option to safeguard consumers' privacy.