Top 3 Challenges for IoT Adaptation

Achieving Business Transformation by leveraging IoT may be a buzzword, but it has its own issues.

As the world gets increasingly dependent on IoT for automation, enterprises have a very little option not to integrate it into their innovation plans. However, this move is not without its challenges. It becomes important to address these issues before the transformation roadmap is put to execution.

The IoT market is developing in leaps and bounds. Estimates say that by 2020, over 30 billion devices will be connected by IOT. This includes both consumer and enterprise devices. The report ‘Unlocking Opportunities in the Internet of Things’ by Bain and Company predicts that the market of Internet of Things (IoT) will grow to $520 billion in 2021, more than double of $235 billion which was spent on IoT usage and adoption in 2017.

Despite these positive projections, experts have identified three major challenges that the companies have to face during the adoption of IoT in their processes and workflows.

While data security and storage are major challenges for IoT, a general lack of regular applications updates and refresh of software and platforms can also create problems for its smooth adoption. This is, however, a strategic issue and can be taken care of with the right update calendars and ensuring it is adhered to.

The real issues that IoT adoption may present include:

1. The huge volume of data that could be redundant more than useful: Every device that is connected to the IoT systems creates data for further processing, but a lot of this data is not useful. According to Cisco’s Global Cloud Index by 2021, the data generated by all people and machines will be nearly 850 ZB, but only 10 percent of this data will be useful, and much of it will not need to be saved. Companies need to identify which data is useful and can be leveraged. In a manufacturing company, there are multiple machines in one production line, which are often on an IoT platform, the processes generate massive To process and analyze this enormous volume, it needs to be uploaded to the cloud, but even that could be too much to handle. Edge computing could offer a solution, but data redundancy needs to be avoided.
2. Cybersecurity: As IoT is dependent on many devices; there are very high chances of security being compromised in a number of these nodes. For instance, in a manufacturing operation, multiple nodes are on the same IoT platform, any point may be a vulnerability for hackers to enter the system, access data and reach through it to the entire network. Enterprises need to work on investing in the security of each node in the IoT platform, to the same degree as they do their IT systems.
3. Lack of timely, regular and sufficient updates: IoT adaptation is an ongoing process which can take more than a year to be complete. It becomes challenging for enterprises to keep up with the pace of growth of devices and IoT based connected technologies and tools. Many updates to these tools demand a change and replacement in the physical device too. While the hardware and software updates become important for better production, it also becomes important to update them for security reasons. As mentioned above, it could be a matter of simple policy and compliance, but the team needs to follow it up diligently.

Taking care of these challenges will ensure a smooth path for the adoption of technology that will make an enterprise future ready- in all aspects.