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Connectivity, proving ROI biggest challenges in IoT projects

IoT projects face a number of technical and business challenges. Connectivity and proving ROI are ranked as the biggest challenges by European IT professionals.

Enterprises face a number of technical and business challenges when it comes to planning and deploying “Internet of Things” projects. A survey conducted by IoT platform provider Plat.One of European IT professionals found connectivity and protocols were seen as the biggest technological challenges.

“There are lots of cool use cases in loT, but before we get there, there are fundamental problems that need to be solved first: how to connect to machines, monitor them, bring the data from heterogeneous machines; taking different machine protocols together to allow complex analytics and decisions to be made. In all my experience in IoT this often comes up as issue No. 1: the machine integration/interoperability issue,” said John Bates, CEO of Plat.One, to Industrial IoT 5G Insights.

The second biggest technical challenge with IoT projects is the analysis of IoT data, followed by sourcing hardware sensors and edge processing. Surprisingly, security did not make it to the list of top IoT challenges.

“Yes, it is surprising security wasn’t mentioned more strongly. Clearly it is key. And it must be part of IoT communications; end-to-end security is vital,” said Bates. 

Biggest technical challenges in planning and deploying IoT projects

IoT projects
Source: PLAT.ONE

An unrelated survey of 1,000 IT professionals conducted by Neustar gives a mitigated picture of how enterprises look at IoT security. Among companies that have deployed IoT devices, 81% said they suffered distributed denial of service attacks in 2015. Yet, only 34% stated they were focused on keeping IoT devices secure, the survey found. Additionally, 42% did not realize they were suffering a DDoS attack until after being notified by a third party. On the positive side, 84% of IoT adopters stated they were increasing their investment in DDoS defenses. In total, 81% of surveyed companies intend to roll out IoT devices by 2017.

Biggest business challenge in planning and deploying IoT projects

IoT projects
Source: PLAT.ONE

Connected products, and transport and logistics are the two most common areas within which European IT professionals are planning to deploy IoT over the next two years, according to the survey, if projects get funded, that is. Only 9.1% of respondents stated IoT projects were funded, and an additional 18.2% noting projects were partly funded. Looking at the business side of the equation, the survey found the biggest business challenge in planning and deploying IoT projects was proving return on investment.

“Yes, everyone is excited by IoT, but getting business budget to do projects needs proof of ROI: increased profit, cost reduction, etc,” said Bates. Convincing key internal stakeholders this is the right time was found to be the second biggest business challenge.

IIoT News Recap: Visa, Research and Markets, Canada’s Privacy Commissioner, Celsius Project

IoT projects

Visa to launch NFC-based payment wristband ahead of Eurovision Song Contest

Eurovision Song contest visitors will be able to use a limited edition of Visa’s NFC-based contactless payment wristband to shop at all merchants accepting contactless payments through October 31. The wristband is a prepaid wearable that can be loaded from a debit or credit card before use.

Global IoT chip market to reach $9.32 billion in value by 2022

Due to increased investments in research and development, North America is expected to emerge as the leader in the global IoT chip market, according to new data from Research and Markets. The value of the global IoT chip market is forecast to reach $9.32 billion by 2022, up from $4.71 billion in 2015, growing at a 10.27% compound annual growth rate over the forecast period. Major market drivers include the growing popularity of IoT, increasing adoption of smartwatches and government support for IoT projects.

Canada’s privacy commissioner seeks public input on personal data consent

“The time has come to seriously address the practical challenges with the current consent model under Canada’s federal private sector privacy law and how it might be better supported or enhanced,” said Canada Privacy Commissioner Daniel Therrien, in announcing the launch of a public discussion on the country’s personal data consent model. 

It would take 33 working days per year for an average Internet users to go through all the privacy policies encountered online, new research suggests. No wonder users simply click “I agree” without bothering to read through all the legal details. The public has until July 13 to share their views on the issue.

53 European cities now involved in Celsius smart city project

Celsius Project, member of the European Commission’s “The European Innovation Partnership on Smart Cities and Communities” project, announced 53 cities are now involved in the project. The project, which aims to help European Union cities become more energy efficient, is set to run until 2017.

ABOUT AUTHOR

Marlène Sellebråten
Marlène Sellebråten
Lead Contributor Industrial IoT 5G An experienced business and technology journalist with an analyst background, Marlène runs Close to Market, which provides editorial and analysis services to organisations in the telecoms and mobile innovation space. Marlène has worked at leading tech publications including Mobile World Live, Sweden’s leading publications on B2C and B2B mobile Mobil and Mobilbusiness as well as for Communications World International (now Totaltelecom). She started our her carrier in telecoms as a research analyst at Gartner and has since then worked for a number of leading analyst firms, including VisionMobile. She is a judge at leading industry awards, among which the GSMA Glomo Awards and the EIT Digital Idea Challenge IOT. Marlène is based in Stockholm, Sweden.