Internet of Things to Reach USD 520 Billion by 2021: A Research by Bain and Company
Research by Bain & Company recently revealed that the Internet of Things market is expected to double by the year 2021. This means that the valuation of this industry will grow to USD 520 billion in just two years.
However, since the last time the company released its extensive Internet of Things research, progress in IoT has remained limited. There are several issues that customers still face such as integration to IT structure, operational technology (OT), and security.
Despite these impending issues, IoT is expected to achieve success in the coming years. Many leading enterprises are executing a greater number of proofs of concept than what they were executed in 2016. Currently, 60% of the users are willing to explore new verticals of this technology compared to 40% in 2016.
Below we have explained the findings of the report in detail. Dive in and explore fascinating facts about the IoT industry.
Planning
While the growth across IoT sectors including telecom and data services, system, software, and hardware integrations would double by 2021, it would take longer than anticipated to achieve expected ROI.
As a response, enterprises are willing to implement less extensive adoptions of IoT by 2020. Although customers want to keep pace, planned and calculated IoT implementations could eventually address demands related to consumable solutions, adoption barriers, and IT and OT integration concerns.
Cloud Service Providers
The cloud service providers such as Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services are the influential and prominent vendors of the IoT landscape. These CSPs are constantly working towards reducing the complexity of adoption, simplifying scaling, use-case adoption and implementation. This is due to the fact that CSPs have the ability to draw upon their expertise in the area of analytics to expand effective IoT implementations.
However, the horizontal services offered by CSPs reduce the scope for the optimization of industry-specific applications. This ends up creating an opportunity for application developers, system integrators, IoT specialists, telcos, and device makers. These technology providers can bridge the gap in customer needs and lack of optimization in industry solutions.
Barriers
- Security is a major issue. The survey says that customers are willing to pay extra for secure services.
- Currently, IoT solutions are hard to integrate with the existing OT and IT system. If vendors move towards addressing these challenges, end-to-end IoT solutions can be offered.
- One of the concerns is the return on investment. The customers have to invest too many resources and high amounts of money to customize the solution. This reduces the final return on investment. Better integrations and security infrastructure can solve this issue.
Three Important Universal Themes
There are three universal themes which can be adopted by IoT providers to streamline gains for customers.
Focus
Most of the IoT vendors focus on several industries at once – 4-6 on average. This reduces the ability to offer dedicated, in-depth, and valuable use cases to specific industries. It also allows the focus to remain on fewer industries and valuable use cases.
Comprehensive Solution
Focusing on fewer industries will allow the vendors to offer comprehensive solutions. Right now, most of the IoT solutions require extensive customizations. With specific, useful use-cases, well integrated, and secure solutions, customizations can be reduced.
Remove Barriers
As already discussed, vendors should focus on removing security, integration, and ROI barriers.
Conclusion
The coming years will be crucial for IoT vendors and customers. With the increase in market valuation, the ease of implementing these solutions should also improve. From security to integrations, every aspect of IoT solutions should be streamlined to ensure fewer customizations and simpler adoption.