Enterprise IoT – A strategic step towards the data-driven enterprise

Through the last decade, many organizations cutting industries and market segments in India have invested in digital transformation initiatives in some form or the other. The current crisis has only furthered the ongoing transformation initiatives. IoT solutions are transforming businesses with their smart capabilities to provide insights through connected devices. Enterprises are adopting IoT technology and platforms to drive efficiency and achieve better operating outcomes.

The rise in the availability of robust networks and coverage combined with various connectivity protocols such as narrow-band IoT, LPWAN across the subcontinent presents a hotbed of opportunities for IoT solutions.

Enterprise priority: Data-driven intelligent enterprise
As enterprises become increasingly digitized in the new normal, vast amounts of data are being generated by people, processes, and technology and now devices. Enterprises aim to become data-driven to realize the value of data and treat it as a strategic advantage with clear goals and measurable outcomes. They are embedding internal & external data and Big Data Analytics (BDA) as important elements of their business growth charter. This data-driven strategy offers them a unique competitive differentiation in their market.

As per a recent Frost & Sullivan study, the Indian Enterprise IoT market, despite extremely uncertain times due to the pandemic, is expected to witness a year-over-year (YoY) growth of 5 percent in CY2021 moving from CY2020. The market is likely to show a healthy growth from CY2022 and to close CY2023 with double-digit YoY growth of around 15 percent. Further, the IoT Data Management (Software & Services market) segment is expected to accelerate in 2021, growing in double digits. The Enterprise IoT market is likely to continue its growth story on the back of strong connectivity & coverage, increase in internet penetration, upsurge in adoption of smart applications & analytics, government’s smart city projects and the emergence of new data-driven business models.

Due to the uncertain eventualities, every business decision that involves capital is impacted in the short term as every sector is going through a rough patch. For the Enterprises, cost and return on investment (ROI) co-relation is a crucial aspect before embarking their journey on investment intensive IoT initiatives. From a technology vendors standpoint, IoT vendors will have to drive the conversations around the end-to-end digital transformation capabilities, and have to go beyond the conventional benefits of IoT to a strong focus on high-ROI opportunities associated with AI enabled IoT solutions. Finally, the vendor must help the enterprises to develop a strategic framework to enable data as a strategic asset. Owning the technology expertise and leveraging their vertical experience, will offer the vendors headway in the race to innovate and provide new vertical-specific IoT solutions with new features, capabilities and customizations, tailored for industry needs.

As far as India organization goes, Retail including E-commerce, Automotive, Logistics, Government and Banking enterprises will continue to drive IoT investments around Point of Sale (PoS), Asset Tracking System (ATS) and Energy & Utility use cases. 2022 will witness a rise in connected smart manufacturing as there is a demand surge for industrial IoT & digital twin technology. With the increasing rate of adoption, IoT providers are offering product lines of Industrial IoT (IIoT) with embedded Big Data Analytics (BDA) features and functionalities. The rising adoption trend is poised to continue as the manufacturing sector is likely to harness the power of IoT in making the shop floor more efficient and more productive generating measurable business outcomes. Growing use cases of IIoT will make this shift even more pronounced, according to our analysis.

Apart from the positive outlook of IoT adoption, Enter­prises have security and interoperability concerns with the IoT technology. However, going forward, these are short term issues that are expected to recede as IoT deployments are also maturing within organizations. To counter these bumps, the vendor should communicate the security aspects of the IoT solutions along with the required security certifications. With the growing value of zero-trust security, security wrapped around the IoT solution must be a prime focus area of technology vendors.