IoT challenges center on limited IoT skillsets

Lack of IoT skills is a clear roadblock for both IoT providers and end customers. 49% of IoT providers see their customers’ lack of IoT skills as one of the top 3 challenges in deploying or scaling IoT projects. Echoing this, 59% of IoT end customers we surveyed said lack of internal IoT expertise was their main challenge. There’s a clear opportunity here for providers to help drive IoT scale by supporting enterprise customers better in this area.

Other key challenges for scaling IoT include lack of technology maturity, which was identified as the top challenge by 22% of overall respondents. Security concerns and a need for clearer IoT business cases also came up most often in the top-3 challenges.

Biggest challenges for enterprises in deploying or scaling IoT projects

Note: n=170. Chart shows % of respondent companies ranking the option shown as one of the top 3 challenges. Source: Omdia/IoT World Today.

When asked about IoT-related staffing and talent priorities, IoT providers and their enterprise customers agree priorities need to focus on data and analytics capabilities, and building (or helping customers build) capabilities around IoT integration with OT and business processes.

Top talent/staffing priorities for IoT providers

Note: n=140. Chart shows % of respondent IoT providers selecting the option shown as their ‘top’ priority for IoT-related staffing. Source: Omdia/IoT World Today.

Top talent/staffing priorities for enterprise IoT customers

Note: n=29. Chart shows % of respondent enterprise end users selecting the option shown as their ‘top’ priority for IoT-related staffing. Source: Omdia/IoT World Today.

Notably, IoT providers are much likelier than enterprise IoT customers to choose 'hiring or developing talent to deliver IoT data analytics and solutions' as a top priority – 38% say this is most important; while only 21% of enterprise customers say hiring data analysts is a top IoT priority right now. This may indicate a perception gap – customers may still be getting to grips with the use and deployment of IoT applications at this point, and may not be fully ready to leverage IoT data (or may simply expect to outsource this function).

Conversely, enterprise end users place much higher priority on getting their staff trained up on IoT solutions (top priority for 28% of enterprise respondents), while only 13% of IoT providers identify helping deliver relevant training to customers as a top priority.