A new independent survey from VansonBourne, sponsored by Software AG, found that one in four Global Fortune 2000 enterprises rank Internet of Things (IoT) deployment as the most important initiative in their organization, but 90 percent of responding companies experience barriers to effective implementation and expansion due to lack of IoT expertise and skills in-house.
The survey reportedly queried 800 senior IT and business decision makers at organizations with a global annual revenue of $500 million and higher across 13 different countries in North America, Europe and Asia Pacific. The respondents came from organizations that were deploying IoT platforms and the respondents themselves had some level of involvement and responsibility for selecting and maintaining those solutions.
The survey said that 98 percent of respondents stated that they are already generating some level of return from their IoT investments yet 89 percent still believe that they must improve their approach to IoT to further improve ROI. Most respondents report achieving specific business benefits from their early IoT implementations with almost 40 percent citing production capacity increases and higher customer satisfaction. Respondents with the highest rate of satisfaction with their IoT deployments used a hybrid implementation approach – namely buying an IoT platform from an external vendor and then building upon it with customization done in-house, giving them the flexibility, they require within the framework of a reliable platform.
According to the survey, the biggest barrier to effective IoT implementation is lack of internal expertise and skills. Other barriers include the inability to manage and process large volumes of data, integration issues, too many legacy systems, inability to scale the network to meet IoT demands, and cybersecurity challenges.
The majority of respondents employed some level of hybrid approach to IoT implementation – both buying an IoT platform from an external vendor and then adding customization internally. When evaluating IoT platform vendors, respondents stated that they are looking for an innovative partner, with a solution that can be easily integrated across an entire organization, with customization that suits their specific needs.
“Organizations know they cannot deliver IoT with off-the-shelf packaged applications or with ground-up in-house builds,” said Raj Datta, President and COO, Software AG North America. “They need to rapidly deploy IoT in way that is easy to customize, open enough to seamlessly integrate with their existing landscape while remaining proven, secure and robust. This points to the need for a platform with rich functionality out-of-the-box that still gives customers the ability to quickly create business solutions to suit their unique needs.”
Ken Briodagh is a writer and editor with more than a decade of experience under his belt. He is in love with technology and if he had his druthers would beta test everything from shoe phones to flying cars.Edited by
Ken Briodagh
