IoT to Have Growing Impact on Businesses, Industries, Survey Finds

A QuinStreet Enterprise survey shows that many business professionals believe IoT will play a significant role in their industries over the next five years.

Forty-nine percent of respondents said the IoT will be critical or important to their companies’ growth, and another 26 percent said it is worth exploring. Only 3 percent said it wasn’t relevant, and 6 percent said they don’t understand the concept.

When asked about the IoT’s impact on their industries over the next five years, 70 percent it will be huge or considerable, 19 percent said it will be small, 10 percent said five years was too soon for an impact, and 2 percent said there would be none. The numbers were fairly consistent among a range of industries, including financial services, technology, manufacturing, education and health care.

Fifteen percent of respondents said their companies are early adopters, using IoT technologies now. Another 39 percent are a year or two away, and 26 percent more are exploring their options. Nineteen percent have no plans to adopt IoT.

Top among them is innovation, with 20 percent of respondents pointing to it. That was followed by such aspects as curiosity, revenue growth, competitiveness, new business discovery and operational efficiency coming in at between 11 percent and 15 percent. Only 3 percent pointed to cost efficiencies.

IoT initiatives are being driven by a wide range of groups within companies, respondents said. That includes IT and tech ops working together (26 percent), IT (25 percent) and corporate (24 percent). Engineering and tech ops accounted for 19 percent.

To a great extent, executives are leading the charge into IoT, particularly at early adopters. When asked about the primary driver of their IoT initiatives, 43 percent of respondents in early-adopter organizations said corporate is leading. In addition, 75 percent of all respondents said that at their companies, executives know the IoT either very or pretty well.

Among IT people, 64 percent know the IoT very or pretty well, while those numbers were 62 percent for business people and 55 percent for app developers.

When asked about the most critical business goals for IoT initiatives, enhancing the customer experience was the highest priority for 56 percent of respondents.

Fifty-three percent of respondents said increasing operational efficiencies were of high importance, while 49 percent pegged cost efficiencies. Improved employee productivity came in at 47 percent.

Asked to list obstacles to IoT initiatives, 44 percent said security while 43 percent pointed to higher priorities. There also were cost concerns (38 percent) and complexity (36 percent). A lack of skills (30 percent) and understanding of the IoT (29 percent) also ranked high.