Potentials of Tracking and Tracing Technologies – the Perspective of It Decision Makers in Germany

RFID-technologies have been described as major enabling technologies for automated, contactless data collection. We conveyed a quantitative survey of 463 executives across various industries in Germany to investigate about the perceived strategic importance of RFID among IT decision makers, current RFID usage, companies' intentions to invest in RFID and visions of RFID application. The survey results showed that: RFID is currently not very widespread. The importance of RFID will rise significantly over the next few years. However, RFID is neither considered a strategic issue, nor a topic of high priority. Companies’ RFID budgets will rise over the next 5 years and IT decision makers are willing to invest in the technology. Only a minority seems to consider RFID as a source for competitive advantage. Companies do not seem to worry much about issues such as data security, or integration of RFID systems into their IT landscape. The high-level concepts often associated with RFID, above all the “real time enterprise” or the “internet of things”, have not yet entered companies’ RFID visions. The greater part of them has not yet thought about RFID at all.