Organizations struggling to understand, realize potential IoT benefits

Organizations—even those that have already implemented Internet of Things (IoT) projects—are still struggling to understand the concrete business benefits of the IoT, according to a new study released by Longview IoT and Informa Engage. The IoT Implementation Trends Survey indicates that enterprise organizations across all vertical industries and of all sizes require significant education to understand the more specific business outcomes that the IoT can bring.

The results indicate that connecting the dots between IoT technologies and the problems they solve remains a challenge. For example, when asked about the benefits of IoT, organizations tend to cite nonspecific results such as cost savings, increased productivity and better operational efficiency. Instead, they should be tracking precise goals such as improving worker safety, conducting predict­ive maintenance, solving billing issues, avoiding cost overruns, and tracking valuable equipment.

The IoT is all about the data collected, and what organizations do with that data to improve their processes, the report said. “The desire to control costs and boost productivity and efficiency is understandable, but that doesn’t just happen,” according to the survey. “It’s through the capture and use of data that organizations can real­ize those benefits.”

Selecting IoT solutions also remains a challenge for most organizations, the survey found. Overall, it indicated 84% of organizations have already implemented IoT technologies or are planning to within three years. However, among those who have already implemented IoT solutions, 54% say they could use “a lot more research and guid­ance” and 15% indicated they “wouldn’t know where to start” when it comes to select­ing IoT solutions. Only about one-third (37%) of respondents who have already implemented IoT feel confident they would know which solutions to choose if they started planning a new IoT project today.

“The IoT remains complex for enterprise organizations,” said Brad Bush, managing director of Longview IoT. “Companies want to move quickly to deploy IoT solutions and see real business benefit but are stymied by the lack of solutions that can help them quickly accomplish these goals. The survey results indicate that market needs the right partners with comprehensive solutions that take away much of the guessing, and just work, right out of the box, for the specific application they have in mind.”

Other findings from the story include:

• The top four implementation barriers for organizations overall are cost (37%), security (37%), lack of expertise (36%) and poor understanding of benefits (35%).
• Half of respondents handle their IoT projects in house. Forty percent use a system integrator, 35% mul­tiple vendors, and 34% an IoT solutions provider.
• Fewer than half (39%) of respondents—both those planning IoT implementations and those who have already implemented solutions—say they need to collect data in real time. However, if those who need data “every few minutes” (19%) are added, the total jumps to 58%.
• Companies are seeing IoT as less hype and more real—just 3% of the companies believe the IoT is hype, while nearly half (47%) say it will substantially improve their competitiveness.

The complete survey can be downloaded here.

– Edited from a Longview IoT press release by CFE Media. See more Control Engineering IIoT and Industrie 4.0 stories.

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