Western European companies are still at the early stages
of implementing radio frequency identification (RFID) technology,
but the take-up is gradually going up.
A report from analyst IDC says 12.4% of companies in the Western
European manufacturing, retail/wholesale, and logistics sectors
were piloting or planning to pilot RFID in 2005.
In addition, said IDC, 5.1% were implementing RFID or planning
to. The study also looked at inhibitors to RFID adoption in Western
Europe.
A third of the companies surveyed said poor return on investment
was the main reason not to adopt RFID.
“RFID is still in its early stages,” said Giuliana Folco, an
analyst at IDC. “However, over 17.5% of companies in manufacturing,
retail/wholesale, and logistics are now piloting/implementing RFID
projects and more are to come, not only in these sectors, but also
in several other industries.”
The IDC report, based on interviews at companies, shows that
RFID-compliant applications and servers are the key IT areas that
require investment in more than 50% of companies, to enable RFID
use to take off.