Recommendations

• IoT providers need to link 5G and AI to desired IoT benefits and appropriate use cases, while letting enterprises know the timelines for deployment and commercialization are medium-term rather than short-term. Enterprises are looking for 5G to bring benefit through massive device deployment and ultra-low latency, and for AI-enabled IoT to bring increased business and operational agility, a broader goal which may be harder to demonstrate direct returns from. Providers need to spend time to deeply understand customers’ goals and business models, helping to find the most effective ways to integrate not only IoT but 5G and AI into the technology mix, while ensuring solutions can be upgraded over time as technologies mature.
• Enterprises and providers must work together to prioritize and support IoT security requirements. Providers need to make sure IoT security solutions are simple and can be easily understood and integrated. Given how high a priority this is for enterprise end users, providers also need to do more to educate customers as well as providing technology solutions, to help ensure IoT security is not a barrier for adoption.
• Enterprises and providers say that lack of IoT skills is the most significant challenge to growth and scalability for IoT. Providers have a clear opportunity to help here, both by providing training, and by working alongside of customers in collaborative teams to develop IoT solutions that fit specific business requirements.
• With 2/3 of respondents identifying sustainability as a top IoT driver over the coming five years, providers and enterprises need to work together to highlight sustainability benefits from their IoT projects. Sustainability will become increasingly important in making new technology deployment decisions, and IoT has a significant role to play in delivering sustainable solutions for businesses. Providers can help make the case for IoT by placing sustainability front-and-center in KPIs, alongside of standard RoI and productivity measures.
• Providers can help boost the IoT market by ensuring more examples of successful real-life deployment and business cases are shared. The IoT market is still early-stage, and deployments are typically highly-customized. Enterprises we work with at Omdia often say that seeing examples of success in their own industries is the biggest driver for future adoption, and the survey confirms this.