New research indicates that mid-size organisations without asset tracking face an average of £9.7 million in annual operational costs tied to equipment theft and loss.
The study, based on a survey of 1,500 financial executives across seven countries, focused on operations with annual revenue between £180 million and £740 million.
Most of the financial burden stems not from heavy machinery but from lower-value equipment such as generators, sensors, tools, and specialised parts.
According to the findings, 72% of the annual operational impact comes from missing assets valued under £7,400.
These smaller items are often inexpensive enough to escape rigorous tracking yet critical enough to halt work when they disappear.
The research found that 71% of operations without asset tracking experience equipment theft every quarter.
A quarter of new equipment budgets in such organisations are spent replacing stolen or lost assets.
Asset loss creates significant hidden labour costs. Ninety-eight percent of organisations report searching for assets daily or weekly.
At more than a quarter of organisations lacking real-time visibility, employees spend over 10 hours per week locating missing equipment.
The average time to find a missing asset is 25 days, and 77% of respondents said a missing critical asset caused a major shutdown or delay in the past year.
In the UK and Ireland, 71% reported such disruptions, while 37% said theft and loss led to higher insurance premiums.
The data points to a failure mode common in industrial operations: costs accumulate in the gap between physical assets and digital workflows.
Missing components trigger manual searches, emergency rentals, idle labour, delayed jobs, and contract penalties.
The findings suggest tracking strategies should prioritise operationally critical assets, not only high-value machinery.
For technology providers, the research reinforces demand for scalable visibility across mixed-value equipment and mobile workforces.
System integrators face the challenge of linking location data with maintenance, dispatch, and inventory systems where indirect savings are realised.
The report was commissioned by a vendor with commercial interests, so operators should treat its figures as diagnostic rather than definitive.
The key question for decision makers is whether asset controls cover only what is expensive to buy or also what is expensive to lose in daily operations.
