Only 26% of IoT projects are regarded as a complete success

Published: 14 June, 2017

A survey by Cisco has revealed that 60% of IoT (Internet of Things) initiatives stall at the proof-of-concept stage, with only 26% of companies having had an IoT initiative that they considered a complete success, and a third of all completed projects regarded as failures.

The survey quizzed 1,845 IT and business decision-makers in a variety of industries in the US, UK and India. The majority (60%) reported that IoT projects often look good on paper but prove much more difficult to implement than expected. The top five challenges were: time to completion; limited internal expertise; quality of data; integration across teams; and budget overruns.

But, of those who have completed IoT projects, 73% are using data from the projects to improve their business, with the top three benefits cited being improved customer satisfaction (70%), operational efficiencies (67%) and improved product / service quality (66%).

Key factors for successful IoT projects include: collaboration between the IT and business sides (cited by 54 % of respondents); a technology-focused culture (49%); and IoT expertise, whether internal or through external partnerships (48%).

Almost two-thirds (64%) feel that lessons learned from stalled or failed IoT initiatives have helped to accelerate their organisation’s investment in IoT, and 61% believe that they have barely begun to scratch the surface of what IoT technologies could do for their businesses.