IoT solutions: What customers want

Companies that want to install IoT solutions want to do it the easy way. This is shown by a survey conducted by Oracle together with market researcher Transforma Insights, in which 800 IoT decision-makers from Australia, France, Germany, Mexico, Spain, Switzerland, the UK and the USA were questioned. Nearly two-thirds (64 %) of respondents would choose a standard IoT solution over a custom offering. This indicates a market shift in the purchase of IoT offerings by enterprises. 75 % of respondents also want connectivity to be included or bundled by the solution provider, and 70 % want providers to include data and analytics tools as part of a comprehensive solution. Together, the results show a growing need for a simple route to IoT capabilities that bypasses customization and offers a faster payback time.

Pan-ready IoT solutions are in demand

The survey results suggest that IoT platform providers have established themselves as the go-to companies for deploying IoT. In this regard, 56 % of respondents said they would rather turn to one of these vendors than to systems integrators (42 %). "Custom solutions in deploying IoT solutions add cost and complexity. Enterprises are now looking for one of the fastest ways to generate value in the form of readymade IoT solutions with integrated connectivity and analytics capabilities," commented Andrew Morawski, senior vice president and general manager, Oracle Communications, Networks, on these findings. "5G is critical to deploying this next generation of IoT, especially when it is deployed as a true cloud-native application and takes full advantage of cloud technology."

Internet of Things with strong market growth

According to Transforma Insights market research, by 2030 the total number of IoT connections will reach 28 billion, and the GSMA Mobile Economy report predicts that the IoT market will exceed 1 trillion $ by 2025.

Key survey findings also include:

• Commercial off-the-shelf products accelerate deployment: Deployment times for commercial solutions average 8.5 months, compared with an industry average of around 11 months. This indicates that the increasing use of standardized solutions is accelerating go-live times. Public Safety/Government (51 %) and Utilities (45 %) have the fastest accelerating timelines with a goal of deploying IoT within six months.
• IoT projects are moving from internal and non-core to critical and customer-facing: Nearly 90 % of projects were described by respondents as "fundamental" or "very important" to their core business, and only slightly more than half of all projects are visible to their customers. This is reflected in cost, which was ranked as the most important aspect of management. Solution delivery was most important for utilities (61 %) and public safety and government (60 %). For other industries, such as healthcare (58 %) and enterprise IT (59 %), the cost of running the solution was the biggest priority.
• Buyers are looking for complete solutions: Three-quarters (75 %) of respondents want connectivity to be integrated in the bundle by the IoT solution provider. 25 % are happy that it is not a visible component for them. This trend is even more pronounced for projects in the planning phase, which means that bundled IoT offerings are likely to become more common in the near future.
• Industry standards drive solution design: Almost all (85 %) of the respondents have specific requirements (either regulatory or based on a desire to follow standard operating procedures) for compliance with standard data formats. This is especially critical for industries such as healthcare (71 %) and utilities (61 %), which reported strict regulatory compliance requirements. Even for projects where standards are less rigid, such as enterprise IT, 45 % still anticipate strict regulatory compliance requirements.
• Increased need for analytics integrated with IoT platforms: IoT use cases based on simple data collection are becoming obsolete faster. Survey respondents indicated that over 80 % of their projects involve bidirectional data flows, rather than simple device-to-application data collection. This leads to a higher requirement for an analytics-driven control loop within the IoT solution.

IoT solutions are becoming increasingly business-critical

"It's clear from this survey that IoT adopters have moved from so-called "low-hanging fruit" to mission-critical systems," said Matt Hatton, founding partner Transforma Insights. "As maturation filters into the mass market, we will increasingly see widespread transformative impact from enterprise IoT."

Source: Oracle. Those interested in learning best practices from leading IoT adopters can here download a report (in English).