Gartner: IoT Adoption To Rise By Half In 2016

The number of businesses adopting Internet of Things (IoT) technology will rise by half in 2016, when 43 percent of all organisations will have some kind of connected technology in place, according to a new survey from Gartner.

The research firm found 29 percent of organisations are IoT adopters at present, although an additional 14 percent said that they planned to do so in the coming 12 months, with another 21 percent planning to do so after 2016.

Heavy industries such as utilities, oil and gas, and manufacturing have been among those more receptive to the IoT thus far.

Heavyweight

Gartner estimates 56 percent of businesses in asset-intensive heavy”industries will have implemented IoT by the end of 2016, and 36 percent of “light” or “weightless” sectors such as retail and education will also have done so.

Experts also believe there have been two major barriers to IoT adoption. The first is business-related, as many organisations have yet to be convinced of the benefits or have not taken the time to develop ideas of how to apply the technology.

The second perceived issue is with the organisations themselves. Gartner claims many companies lack the skills and staff to effectively implement IoT technologies, and are without clear leadership when it comes to developing a related strategy.

Overall, the survey found that the biggest technology challenges for those that have already implemented IoT included cybersecurity, integration and managing business requirements.

“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,” said Chet Geschickter, research director at Gartner.

Previous figures from Gartner have suggested that as many as 5.5 million devices will be connected every day in 2016 as the total number of ‘things’ comprising the IoT reaches 6.4 billion this year.

A further report from analyst house Juniper predicted that consumer spending on smart homes and their associated products is set to skyrocket and reach $100bn (£65bn) within the next five years, as this growth will push the number of connected appliances in smart homes to over 20 million by 2020.

Among TechWeekEurope readers, 80 percent have either adopted IoT applications or plan to, but home use is outpacing that of the office.

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