Machine to Machine (M2M) and the Internet of Things (IoT) space has boomed in 2015, but bigger things are ahead as the market continues to explode and reach into every aspect of our lives, even down to things like Internet-enabled light bulbs.

According to Vodafone Group Plc, more than a quarter of all companies worldwide are now using M2M technologies, with the concept now being identified as a vital business solution that touches everything from back-end operations to customer experience.

Joining the annual list of predictions for the year ahead is Vodafone’s Head of M2M for the Americas, Andrew Morawski, who has put together an interesting list of predictions for 2016 that will touch on various aspects of both enterprise and consumer-focused companies.

His predictions as follow.

1. M2M will move to the front office.
   

According to Morawski, M2M has mostly been used to automate internal business processes, but that trend is changing as companies evolve their M2M strategies to innovate, drive new customer experiences, and increase revenue through more sophisticated, customer-facing connected products and services.

According to data gathered by Vodafone, 66 percent of companies say that their M2M strategy focuses on external stakeholders.

“As M2M moves outside the IT department and plays a larger role in customer experience and competitive advantage … by 2016, more than a third of businesses will describe their M2M projects as innovation projects, rather than IT projects,” Morawski believes.

2. M2M deployments will increase ROI as they become more sophisticated.
   

Business who do things like linking their M2M with cloud platforms and Big Data analytics will see the greatest positive impact in 2016.

These types of solutions are said to be leading to significantly greater returns, with 83 percent of the most sophisticated organizations seeing significant return compared to 43 percent of the least sophisticated business; 69 percent of those most sophisticated organizations say that M2M has “fundamentally transformed” their businesses.

Those organizations who have not yet taken a sophisticated approach to M2M will do so in 2016 to keep up with their competitors, and vendors will be expected to deliver.

3. IoT will become essential to the customer experience.

Users are starting to innovate and use M2M to drive superior customer experiences.

Organizations are seeing increased revenue through customer-facing connected products and services through the use of M2M to drive superior customer experiences.

M2M adoption in the retail sector grew an astounding 88 percent in 2015 as retailers and marketers started to understand the value of IoT for customer experience, understanding that M2M can strengthen the shopping experience through personalization, smarter payment methods and digital signage.

Morawski believes that 2016 will see an increased use of M2M and IoT applications for customer experience going mainstream across all sorts of industries.

4. IoT focus will shift toward “things that matter.”

The early drive with companies in IoT has seen a rush to connect anything and everything, but according to Morawski that doesn’t always make sound business sense.

As the market matures in 2016, he predicts we’ll begin to see a weeding out of the solutions that don’t serve a true business or societal purpose, with M2M vendors and service providers focusing more on connecting the “things that matter,” such as utilities and smart meters, heart monitors, fleet management and chronic healthcare management solutions.

For more interesting predictions in the enterprise space, stay tuned to SiliconANGLE in the coming few weeks as we share insights from a range of industry leaders.

Image credit: Andrew Morawski/ Vodafone