M2M Connectivity Featured Article

The IoT is not just a trend, it is a crucial way to get business done, according to a new survey from Aeris (News - Alert) about the impact of M2M Connectivity technology. IoT’s true value has yet to be fully realized, but executives consider IoT initiatives to be increasingly valuable and important to their organizations, particularly when it comes to achieving greater operational efficiencies and gaining competitive advantages.

Illustrating the positive impact of IoT, almost 75 percent of all respondents said the IoT provides their organizations with the opportunity to better meet key business objectives, and 71 percent agree that M2M will help them achieve a competitive edge. In the U.S., 86 percent of executives were more optimistic about how the IoT will help meet their objectives, while only half of U.K. execs agreed.

Aeris discovered that 72 percent of respondents agree that managing M2M Connectivity to reduce costs is a major priority, and nearly 80 percent said connectivity, provisioning, and device management will be a challenge in the next year.

“While the research uncovered some intriguing differences across geographies and industries, the generally held consensus is that the opportunities will be met with challenges,” said Janet Jaiswal, VP, enterprise marketing, Aeris. “As the number of connected devices grows, organizations will not only be under increased pressures to better manage their devices and obtain data-generated insights to improve operational efficiencies, but they will also need a deeper understanding of how best to address the complexities associated with connectivity and data consumption to lower operational costs.”

Big data and application development are other significant concerns within the enterprise. More than 70 percent reported difficulty with analysis of sensor and M2M connectivity data to obtain useful insights, and that collecting, managing and storing device sensor data is a major worry. The survey also revealed that 65 percent are building IoT and M2M apps in-house.

The survey was conducted in partnership with research firm Vanson Bourne, polling 300 enterprise-IT decision makers from the United States and the United Kingdom in order to examine IoT’s perceived impact on the business in the year ahead, as well as to determine how perspectives on IoT have evolved since 2013 which, generally, represents an increase in the importance of IoT.