Dealing with the IoT Means Dealing with Change

The deluge of data that the Internet of Things (IoT) will generate will have far-reaching effects on how organizations operate. The good news is that two recent surveys suggest that this reality is understood.

451 Research released survey results that found that companies are reacting proactively to the great changes that are occurring as the new platform wends its way into the enterprise. The firm found that during the next year, 32.4 percent of 364 participating organizations surveyed plan increases in storage capacity, 30.2 percent in network edge equipment, 29.4 percent in server infrastructure, and 27.2 percent in off-premises cloud infrastructure.

Other findings are that 26.1 percent foresee no change in spending, 23.1 percent will invest more in on-premises private clouds, 22.5 percent will invest more in company-owned or leased data center and facilities, 17.9 percent in third-party managed service provider facilities, and 10.2 percent in third party co-location facilities.

Now IT-centric tasks are first on the list. These include data center management, surveillance and security monitoring. In a couple of years, automation will take over as the highest priority.

A couple of interesting points emerge from the research. One is that the seven areas of change are separated by less than 10 percent. This suggests that companies are starting from different points and have different investment priorities. The other is that only 2.7 percent of respondents plan reductions.

Change generally involves growing pains. A second survey suggests that in the case of the IoT, a major challenge is finding people able to do the job. In a survey for Inmarsat, Vanson Bourne found that only 20 percent of 500 IT pros felt that they had all the skills necessary to put the organization’s IoT plans into action. The other 80 percent claim to have some level of skills.

The result of all this is good news to service-based companies:

Just 15% of respondents said that they planned to develop and deploy their IoT solutions completely in-house, while 74% said that they had definite plans to work with external partners to handle some part of their IoT workload.

Mapping goals is a key to IoT success. A piece by Maciej Kranz, the vice president of Cisco’s Corporate Strategy and Innovation Group, at The Harvard Business Review looked at the same basic issue from the perspective of how to succeed. The key question is simple: What strategies enable an IoT deployment to work?

There are three main elements. Successful organizations develop a partner ecosystem; update their “talent management strategies” and focus on the business challenges instead of the technology. He goes into some detail about each.

The bottom line is that the IoT brings great and fundamental changes and only organizations that take appropriate steps will thrive. The good news is that results of the two surveys suggest, in different ways, that the message is getting through.

Carl Weinschenk covers telecom for IT Business Edge. He writes about wireless technology, disaster recovery/business continuity, cellular services, the Internet of Things, machine-to-machine communications and other emerging technologies and platforms. He also covers net neutrality and related regulatory issues. Weinschenk has written about the phone companies, cable operators and related companies for decades and is senior editor of Broadband Technology Report. He can be reached at cweinsch@optonline.net and via twitter at @DailyMusicBrk.