Gartner: IoT adoption set for 50 per cent growth in 2016

Global study claims number of organisations planning to adopt an IoT strategy shows increased acceptance of the concept

The Internet of Things (IoT) will move towards more mainstream adoption this year for many industries, analyst Gartner has predicted.

According to its latest study, which included responses from 465 IT and business professionals spanning 18 business sectors across the US, EMEA, Asia-Pacific and Latin America, less than a third of respondents are currently using IoT.

But it predicted that an additional 14 per cent are planning to implement it in the coming 12 months, with an additional 21 per cent planning to put in place a strategy after 2016.

In aggregate, Gartner claimed, the majority of organisations (64 per cent) plan to eventually implement IoT.

Importantly, the analyst stressed, 38 per cent have no plans to implement IoT, which includes nine per cent that see no relevance in the technologies.

Chet Geschickter, research director at Gartner, said: "While there is near-universal acceptance of the importance of the IoT, less than a third of organisations surveyed were actively exploiting it. This is largely because of two reasons. The first set of hurdles are business-related. Many organisations have yet to establish a clear picture of what benefits the IoT can deliver, or have not yet invested the time to develop ideas for how to apply IoT to their business.

"The second set of hurdles are the organisations themselves. Many of the survey participants have insufficient expertise and staffing for IoT and lack clear leadership."

Gartner claimed that industry adoption varies widely, with heavy industries such as oil and gas, utilities, and manufacturing leading adoption, and service-oriented industries lagging behind.

Some of the biggest challenges for those that have already adopted an IoT strategy include cybersecurity, integration and managing business requirements, and the major concerns for those considering IoT include orchestration of workflows and processes.

"2016 will be a very big year for IoT adoption. We are starting to see a wide range of IoT use cases across virtually all industries. But the big challenge now is demonstrating return on investment. Executives need to validate the contribution that IoT can make in order to justify large-scale rollouts," Geschickter added.