Factors influencing the adoption of IoT among food and beverage SMEs in Malaysia

SMEs generate around RM512.8 billion in value added, or 38.2 percent of total Malaysian GDP. The performance of SMEs is primarily judged by the amount of production and employment they generate. Aside from productivity, the performance of SMEs in terms of innovative activities is also taken into account. The food and beverage sector are crucial to the Malaysian economy and makes major contributions to it. In 2018, Malaysia's food and beverage sector rose 7.6 percent year on year. The Internet of Things has greatly benefited the food supply chain. 35 percent of SMEs have deployed an IoT solution. However, these are largely standalone building security, surveillance, and fleet monitoring systems, rather than solutions that may be given as a service to the market. To attain the next level of efficiency and unleash company development through new business models, products, and services, SMEs must break free from the computerization trap and digitize their operations. The lack of research on the elements that may affect IoT adoption among Malaysian F&B SMEs would urge this study to concentrate on this topic. Thus, the main objective is to understand what are the factors that could influence these SMEs in F&B industries to adopt IoT. This study explores the relationship between factors such as competitive pressure, employee skills, customer expectation, management support and relative advantage to IOT adoption in F&B SMEs. The study hypothesized there are significant influence of these factors for F&B SMEs to adopt IoT. As a result, the major goal is to figure out what variables can encourage these SMEs in the food and beverage industry to use IoT. The relationship between elements including competitive pressure, employee skills, customer expectations, management support, and relative advantage and IOT adoption in F&B SMEs is investigated in this study. The study anticipated that these characteristics have a substantial impact on F&B SMEs' adoption of IoT. A total of 400 surveys on a five-point Likert scale (rangingfrom 1 strongly disagree to 5 strongly agree) were sent out through Google form link to various SMEs in the food and beverage industry, with 374 valid questionnaires returned. According to the findings, relative advantages, management support, employee skills, and customer expectations all have a major impact on IoT adoption among Malaysian F&B SMEs. As a result, in order to be more encouraged to use IoT, these SMEs need better comprehend the benefits of IoT in their business model and brush up on their workers' skills and knowledge with aid of management support to meet their high customer expectation in IoT adoptions. Finally, several of the study's shortcomings were identified, as well as many recommendations to assist future researchers in dealing with the constraints.