Nearly three-fourth of Internet of Things projects are failing: Cisco

IDC predicts that worldwide installed base of IoT endpoints will grow to more than 82 bn in 2025

While Internet of Things (IoT) ecosystem is gaining momentum globally, a new survey has found that enterprises did not consider nearly a third of all the completed projects a success and plenty of things can be done to get more projects out of pilot.

The study, conducted by Global networking giant Cisco, shows that 60 per cent of IoT initiatives stall at the Proof of Concept (PoC) stage and only 26 per cent of companies have had an IoT initiative that they considered a complete success.

"It's not for lack of trying. But there are plenty of things we can do to get more projects out of pilot and to complete success and that's what we're here in London to do," Rowan Trollope, Senior Vice President and General Manager, IoT and Applications, Cisco.

IDC predicts that the worldwide installed base of IoT endpoints will grow from 14.9 billion at the end of 2016 to more than 82 billion in 2025. At this rate, the IoT may soon be as indispensable as the internet itself.

According to the findings released at the IoT World Forum (IoTWF) here, even if IoT sounds like it is all about technology, human factors like culture, organisation and leadership are critical.

"Nearly 54 per cent of the surveyed IT and business decision-makers said that collaboration between IT and the business side was the top factor that affects the success of a project and for 49 per cent of the sample a technology-focused culture, stemming from top-down leadership and executive sponsorship is a key to success," the report said.

According to 48 per cent of them, IoT expertise, whether internal or through external partnership also affects the success of an IoT project.

Sixty per cent of respondents stressed that IoT initiatives often look good on paper but prove much more difficult than anyone expected.

Top five challenges across all stages of implementation were: time to completion, limited internal expertise, quality of data, integration across teams, and budget overruns, the report said.