When it comes to 5G, what are businesses worried about?

Businesses across the world are keen on leveraging 5G to develop exciting products and solutions for customers and deepen their engagement level with the end user.

From agriculture to viticulture, and everything in between, every industry has several exciting use cases that are built on 5G’s theoretical capabilities.

Among all, the healthcare industry seems to be leading the charge with 5G, according to a recent Accenture survey, although others reported being keen and optimistic as well.

The average adoption rate among businesses using 5G at scale is currently only 10 percent. Keeping in mind the current state of commercialized 5G rollouts, however, the figure seems reasonable.

What’s interesting about Accenture’s study is that businesses didn’t seem to be sure about the impact some of 5G’s features will deliver. Only two in five said they believe real-time data transfer, high capacity, and a faster service will revolutionize their industry over the next five years.

More importantly, the study revealed a number of perceived barriers to adopting 5G applications and technology – although for the most part, these concerns have diminished from 2019 to 2020.

Last year, for example, 36 percent of respondents were worried that the upfront investment will be too great, 28 percent were worried that software developers won’t be ready, and 29 percent felt it would be a struggle to get employees to embrace the new ways of working.

Those figures have improved marginally in the 2020 study, falling to 31 percent, 24 percent, and 26 percent respectively.

Although there’s no direct indication of what caused the improvements, it seems as though networking companies, telcos, government bodies, and other entities, through participation in working committees and the creation of ecosystems, are spreading awareness and making 5G more accessible as an up and coming technology.

An important question asked in this year’s edition of the study found that 26 percent of respondents were also concerned about the potential health impact of 5G.

Obviously, that’s not good for business and will significantly and negatively impact the adoption of the technology if not addressed soon.

The only other issue that can cause severe adoption hiccups for businesses exploring 5G is the marginal rise in security concerns among businesses.

Security is something that most businesses are very serious about in today’s day and age, and 5G chip makers, networking companies, and cybersecurity vendors all need to come together to ensure that customers’ can be reassured when thinking about the cybersecurity risks of adopting 5G.

Truth be told, 5G is here and offers something to every business looking to delight its customers.

Those concerned about certain aspects of adopting 5G must find ways to ensure they can tackle the issues and get on with their roll-out rather than sit on the fence and lose customers to bold competitors.