Enterprises expect IoT results in less than three years

Internet of Things (IoT) technology has reached early mainstream according to a new Fujitsu survey that revealed that business and IT leaders now expect tangible results from their projects in three years or less.

Of those surveyed, almost three quarters (73%) confirmed that IoT deployments have advanced past the testing and market education stages, with almost half of these delivering results. Fujitsu also found that 31 per cent of businesses expect a return from investments in IoT projects within one to two years and 56 per cent expect profitability within three years.

Fujitsu says that the results confirm that IoT is no longer an emerging technology and that enterprises are increasingly impatient when it comes to IoT providing a boost to their bottom line.

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IoT collaboration

The complex nature of IoT is also leading enterprises to turn to services and equipment providers to assist with deployments. However, the survey also revealed that suppliers are failing to deliver.

Businesses have a number of major concerns including the need for better support (24%), closer collaboration so that vendors understand their customer's unique needs (23%), a call for lower pricing (20%), greater contractual flexibility (17%) and more readily available as-a-service options (15%).

Additional use cases for IoT

Fujitsu also found that businesses are using IoT for a wide range of purposes beyond the delivery of process efficiencies. Respondents cited improving health and safety (47%), enhancing security (47%), using new data to create smarter strategies (47%) and improving maintenance (46%) as some of the other reasons for deploying IoT projects.

Additionally, 45 per cent of businesses are already using IoT to generate new revenue-making opportunities. A quarter of respondents consider the biggest opportunity to be the ability to charge premium prices for valuable additions to products, data or services.

“IoT technologies are entering the early mainstream across a wide range of vertical industries, as our survey confirms," said Head of Digital Business Solutions at Fujitsu in EMEIA, Yves de Beauregard.

"It’s clear from the survey results that enterprises are already enjoying solid return on investment from IoT projects. This should be a compelling incentive to dip a toe in the water for any organisation that’s still skeptical about getting any business value from the IoT.”