Dive Brief:

• Nearly 60% of IoT initiatives stall at the Proof of Concept stage and only 26% of companies have had an IoT initiative that they considered a complete success, according to a study revealed by Cisco during the company's IoT World Forum on Monday.

• Cisco surveyed 1,845 IT and business decision-makers globally across a range of industries including manufacturing, local government, retail/hospitality/sports, energy, transportation and health care. The study also found a third of all completed projects were not considered a success.

• The top five challenges across all stages of an IoT implementation included time to completion, limited internal expertise, quality of data, integration across teams, and budget overruns.

Dive Insight:

Technology may be ready for the enterprise, but is the enterprise ready for technology?

The Cisco survey revealed that companies often focus on technology and ignore critical human factors like culture, organization and leadership to the detriment of the project. Emphasis on the human component is becoming more of a warning cry. Just this month, Apple CEO Tim Cook espoused on the value of considering long-term consequences.

So, it is not surprise that ignoring human elements is reaching critical. When examining successful IoT projects, 75% of the top factors came down to "people and relationships," the study found. 

Gartner recently predicted 21 billion IoT devices will be used globally by 2020, outnumbering laptops, smartphone and tablets. Central to meeting that demand is not just streamlining processes, but also building relationships and relying on human qualities and concepts.