Looking at the tangible results being realized today, 78% say the introduction of IoT in the workplace has improved the effectiveness of their IT team, and 75% find it has increased profitability.
More than six in ten (62%) respondents in the industrial sector have already implemented IoT. Using IoT to monitor and maintain essential industrial functions was identified as the most
impactful use case in the sector. Today, the use of IP-based surveillance cameras for physical security within industrial organizations is still in its infancy, with only 6% having implemented it. However, when asked about future implementations, surveillance jumped five-fold to 32%.
Across the sector, 83% report increased business efficiency and another 80% have found improved visibility across the organization.
Healthcare introduces IoT to improve patient monitoring, reduce cost, and foster innovation:
*Coming in as the third most advanced in its implementation of IoT, 60% of healthcare
organisations globally have introduced IoT devices into their facilities.
*Across the sector, 42% of executives rank monitoring and maintenance as the number one use of
IoT—higher than all other sectors. This underscores the importance of IoT-enabled patient
monitoring in the modern healthcare industry.
*Eight in ten report an increase in innovation and another 73% report cost savings.
Retailers engage with customers and boost sales using indoor location technology:
*Just 49% of retailers are using IoT technology, but 81% of these report improved customer
experiences. An improved customer experience is likely to have a significant impact on customer
loyalty and ultimately, revenue.
*In-store location services delivering personalized offers and product information to shoppers was
touted as the number one implementation for IoT, alongside monitoring and maintenance. Four in
ten retailers ranked surveillance in their top three key use cases.
Governments lag in IoT adoption, struggle with legacy technology but still reduce costs:
* The slowest sector to adopt IoT, only 42% of municipalities have deployed IoT devices and sensors. A third (35%) of IT decision makers claim their executives have little to no understanding
of IoT, double the global average, suggesting that lack of education is the biggest barrier to mass adoption in this sector.
* While nearly half (49%) of government IT departments are struggling with legacy technology, seven in ten IoT adopters in the public sector report cost savings and improved organisational
visibility as the major benefits.
The Data Context and Security Challenge
Alongside these positive returns, the study also uncovers a number of obstacles that IT leaders feel are preventing IoT from delivering greater business impact. Organizations in this region cited the cost of implementation (53%), cost of maintenance (52%), and difficulty integrating with legacy technologies (47%) as key issues, a sentiment echoed across the world.
Most notably, security flaws were found across many IoT deployments. The study found that 88% of
organizations in Asia Pacific have experienced at least one IoT-related security breach, the highest in the world. More than half of respondents declared that external attacks are a key barrier to embracing and adopting an IoT strategy. This confirms that a holistic IoT security strategy, built on a strong network access control and policy management, will not only protect enterprises but also simplify the security approach for IT.
Ashton describes IoT as the ability to capture and effectively use data, but this appears to be another clear challenge for Asia Pacific’s organizations. While nearly all (98%) of organizations that have adopted IoT claim to be able to analyze data, the same majority admitted to challenges in creating value from this data.
More than a third (35%) of organizations in Asia Pacific are not extracting or analyzing data within corporate networks, missing on insights that could improve business decisions. Kozup comments, “While IoT grows in deployment, scale and complexity, proper security methodologies to protect the network and devices, and more importantly, the data and insights they extract, must also keep pace. If businesses do not take immediate steps to gain visibility and profile the IoT activities within their offices, they run the risk of exposure to potentially malicious activities. Aruba is enabling customers to rapidly assess IoT deployments within their facilities and determine any potential threats that may be present.”
Ashton concludes: “Since its inception in 1999, the Internet of Things has been ridiculed, criticized, and misunderstood. And yet here we are, less than two decades later, in a world where tens of thousands of organizations are saving and making hundreds of millions of dollars from the Internet of Things, using cars that drive themselves, subway stations that sense passengers, algorithms that diagnose deadly diseases using phones, and many other once apparently-impossible technologies. The future promises far more amazing things. The most important decision you can make now is how to be a part of it.”