Dive Brief:
- About 40% of IoT professionals say business intelligence platforms are still their primary means of analyzing data, according to a recent survey from GlobalData and reported by ZD Net.
- Experts say enterprises should focus on business optimization based on real-time data, which BI is too reactionary and static to allow for. Using AI in the IoT would offer this real-time insight and better optimize business processes.
- The study of 1,000 IoT professionals noted an increase in IoT post-deployment failures, up from zero in 2016 to 12% in 2017, but also found 70% of enterprises that implemented IoT solutions had met their return on investment.
Dive Insight:
Although enterprises want to improve operational efficiencies, many IoT professionals are unlikely to turn to AI, perhaps because AI is still fairly new and untested in many industries.
The study found AI can help IoT engineers find anomalies and predict desired outcomes to prevent early failure of projects, but it is unclear why IoT engineers prefer to stick with BI.
This is significant because the IoT is projected to be one of the fastest growing areas of IT. Close to one-third of organizations have launched IoT solutions and another 43% were looking to deploy in the next year, an International Data Corporation 2016 global IoT survey found.
Business leaders need to ensure IoT investments are thought through carefully, as implementing the IoT without a strategy in place is a recipe for waste. According to a Cisco study, nearly 60% of IoT initiatives stall at the Proof of Concept stage and only 26% of companies have had an IoT initiative they considered a complete success.
