IoT weakens security with uncertain cost savings, says Strategy Analytics

by Laura DiDio, Andrew Brown | Jul 19, 2016

Big Data Analytics Primary Driver but Users Need Integration Support

Boston, MA - July 14, 2016 - The Strategy Analytics IoT Strategies (IoT) Report, "IoT 2016 Deployment Trends and Usage Survey," found huge concerns on security and that over half of businesses are uncertain of cost savings benefits. Big Data Analytics is the primary driver propelling IoT deployments according to 56 percent of respondents. 

The Strategy Analytics IoT 2016 Deployment Trends and Usage survey polled over 350 global businesses from 23 vertical markets including Academic, Banking/Finance, Government, Healthcare, Industrial IoT, Manufacturing, Retail and Smart Buildings.

70 percent of firms are now using IoT in some capacity. However, organizations acknowledge they are grappling with daunting challenges, according to Laura DiDio, Director of IoT Systems Research and Consulting.

"Integration with legacy systems (41 percent) and Security are the biggest impediment to IoT deployments. Only 13 percent of respondents said that IoT will strengthen security and 56 percent said security is their top technical challenge," DiDio observed. "Another concern is that nearly half of businesses have not completed a detailed cost analysis which is crucial," she added.

"While Data Analytics emerged as the top reason for an IoT deployment, a significant percentage of companies struggle with how to analyze that data to benefit their business," noted Andrew Brown, Strategy Analytics Executive Director of Enterprise and IoT Research.  "The data deluge is problematic; over 50 percent report that they have too much data to be able to analyze it efficiently," Brown added. "We also found that 44 percent of respondents currently perform some data analytics but admit they could do a better job and 31 percent of organizations do not currently store IoT data at all," Brown said.

Other survey highlights include:

• 80 percent currently use or plan to deploy IoT within the next 3 to 12 months. However, only 25 percent have a full scale end-to-end IoT deployment.

• The top IoT services deployed by users are: Office security/video surveillance; Smart Building Controls; Financial Analytics & Healthcare Analytics/Diagnostics. 

Overall, the report concludes that while IoT adoption will continue to surge, users will need to engage vendors, systems integrators and third party consultants to provide training, deployment and ongoing maintenance to realize IoT's full technical potential, cost savings and drive top line revenue.