The Challenge of IoT and How Managed Services Can Help

The Internet of Things (IoT) can be extremely complex and the path to deploy, as well as the complexities with management and scaling, can be too much for an organisation to handle alone. Early projections of IoT have fallen flat as nearly three-quarters of deployed IoT solutions were deemed unsuccessful. 

According to research conducted by analyst firm James Brehm and Associates, there are a multitude of reasons why IoT growth has been hindered. The firm surveyed 564 people across enterprises, municipalities, service providers, hardware and software providers, integrators, cloud service providers, investors and more¹.

Personnel

For the second year in a row, the results revealed that nearly half – 48 percent exactly¹ – of the respondents indicated lack of people with IoT expertise. The full scale of tying together an IoT project – hardware, configuration, network operations, data storage, compliance, device activation and provisioning, development, and so on – requires technical skill devoted to deploying, managing, and scaling IoT. Seeing success and growth in IoT takes more than simply an extension of an organisation’s IT department.

Typically in IoT solutions deployments, organisations are not making IoT their core business but instead using IoT to enhance an element of the core business. Take for instance a biotech organisation that is deploying connected health devices, such as connected blood pressure cuffs.

The blood pressure cuffs are intended for outpatient, at-home use, where a patient can take readings, which are then automatically sent to a healthcare provider for review. That is this organisation’s core business – creating this device. What the organisation is not equipped for is the logistics – both forward and reverse – for these devices to make sure they arrive at whatever hospital or direct-to-patient location.

This organisation’s core business is not ensuring the secure, encrypted data telemetry that meets heavy regulatory requirements, or the compliant-required handling and packaging of these devices, or managing the connectivity, configuration, or Mobile Device Management needed to provide that those devices work out of the box.

Adding in the necessary personnel to manage these responsibilities can quickly increase the total cost of ownership, lag time to market, and impact the overall bottom line. Those firms that use third-party vendors or suppliers to support internal IoT operations can find that those current partners are not repeatable, which overall fragments processes and drives down quality.

Security

Just below the top reason for barriers cited by the survey respondents is security – with 41 percent of those surveyed noting this as a difficulty¹. For good reason – IoT security has long been a top concern for those considering IoT.

McKinsey and Company conducted a multinational expert survey of 400 managers and only 16 percent of those surveyed reported their company as well prepared for the security challenges associated with IoT.

With millions of endpoints communicating and a lack of standardisation in the technology realm, security is a very large portion of any IoT deployment.

Cost

Coming in third as a barrier to IoT growth as reported by James Brehm and Associates is the inability to prove return on investment, as cited by 35 percent of those surveyed¹.

An investment in any technology project in an organisation is going to be a risk and proving ROI is an essential part of even beginning a deployment. Adding in the fact that an infrastructure that can support IoT might not already be in place can multiply the cost of launching IoT solutions.

Take manufacturing, for example, using legacy SCADA systems on wired connectivity. Building solutions that require new hardware, software, and network connectivity can be monumental. Cost played a significant factor in the James Brehm and Associates survey, with 26 percent reporting cost as a barrier to IoT growth.

Interoperability

The infrastructure of IoT is complex and is not a perfectly straight line with neatly aligned endpoints on a singular path. But for the solution to work, the components have to communicate. This is particularly a hindrance when it comes to scaling and adding in new software, hardware, and networks.

Managing the Challenges of IoT

With IoT managed services, organisations have a simplified, more direct path to success in IoT. At KORE, we handle the 7 key components necessary for IoT success, which are:

• IoT strategy and holistic security
• Technology evaluation, selection, and development
• Connectivity, device, and data management
• Deployment
• Operations management and support
• Sustainment
• Analytics and AIoT

Whether it is logistics, connectivity management, globalisation, hardware procurement, or regulatory compliance – among many other areas – KORE can help. Reach out to learn more about our full-scale IoT managed services.

¹ James Brehm and Associates, 7th Annual State of the Industry Report