IoT to gain momentum in 2016: Gartner

NEW DELHI: The Internet of Things (IoT) will move towards mainstream adoption in 2016 for many industries, Gartner claims in its recent survey.

"2016 will be a very big year for IoT adoption. We are starting to see a wide range of IoT use cases across virtually all industries. But, the big challenge now is demonstrating return on investment. Executives need to validate the contribution that IoT can make in order to justify large-scale rollouts," said Chet Geschickter, research director, Gartner.

According to the survey findings, 29% of responding organizations are currently using IoT and 14% are planning to implement IoT in the coming 12 months, with an additional 21% planning to implement after 2016.


The survey was conducted among Gartner Research Circle Members and included responses from 465 IT and business professionals spanning 18 business sectors in North America, EMEA, Asia/Pacific and Latin America

In aggregate, the majority of organizations (64%) plan to eventually implement IoT. However, the study also revealed that 38% of the respondents have no plans to implement IoT, including 9% that see no relevance whatsoever in the technologies.

"While there is near universal acceptance of the importance of the IoT, less than a third of organizations surveyed were actively exploiting it," added Geschickter.

Explaining the cause, Geschickter said, "This is largely because of two reasons. The first set of hurdles are business-related. Many organizations have yet to establish a clear picture of what benefits the IoT can deliver, or have not yet invested the time to develop ideas for how to apply IoT to their business. The second set of hurdles are the organizations themselves. Many of the survey participants have insufficient expertise and staffing for IoT and lack clear leadership."

The survey also found that the biggest IoT technology challenges for those that have already implemented IoT are cybersecurity, integration and managing business requirements.

However, orchestration of workflows and processes looms as a major concern for those planning to implement IoT.