Cisco Survey: Partnerships Critical to IoT Projects

A new study from Cisco reports that barely a quarter of Internet-of-Things initiatives are fully succeeding.

Cisco on Tuesday announced the results of a survey of 1,845 business and IT decision-makers about their IoT projects. The majority of respondents (60 percent) said their IoT initiatives “stalled” in the proof of concept phase of development. Only 26 percent of initiatives were called “a complete success.”

Cisco made the announcement at the Internet of Things World Forum in London. The conference’s attendees intend to advance IoT across a variety of verticals and businesses. But although IDC expects the number of IoT endpoints to hit 82 billion in 2025, Cisco’s survey indicates that many organizations are unsuccessfully trying to implement the technology.

“It’s not for lack of trying,” said Rowan Trollope, senior vice president and general manager of IoT and applications for Cisco. “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.”

Even when organizations managed to complete their IoT projects, a third of them were not considered successful.{ad}

Cisco made multiple conclusions about the study. First, “human factors” like company culture and the interaction between IT and business departments can complicate the process. Cisco says that partnerships typically fuel successful IoT projects.

“We are connecting things that we never thought would be connected, creating incredible new value to industries,” said Inbar Lasser-Raab, vice president of Cisco Enterprise Solutions marketing. “But where we see most of the opportunity, is where we partner with other vendors and create solutions that are not only connected but also share data. That shared data is the basis of a network of industries – sharing of insights to make tremendous gains for business and society, because no one company can solve this alone.”

Cisco also noted that 64 percent of stalled IoT projects lead to an increased IoT investment – meaning that failure often serves as one of the best IoT educational tools.