Lately, two interesting insights into IoT projects have been emerging from my conversations and research.
The first is IT’s role in IoT planning and implementation process. What I have been hearing is that IT is not the IoT decision-maker. However, IT plays a crucial supporting role to control and shape the decision process. IoT security, vendor selection, standards, data policies and other components benefit from an IT skill-set. The question I have is how much resistance and negative influence IT could apply to line-of-business decision-makers trying to push towards IoT deployments.
The second is that small IoT deployments supported through a clear business case with reasonable success metrics is the best approach to achieve early wins. The IoT is in the innovator and early adopter stage and it cuts across departments including IT, OT and line of business. Biting too much off early on simply places a project in the midst of greater change necessary to prove the IoT advantage. So far, it looks like the best cases are ones where organizations have proven that IoT works in small projects and then expands out whether in greater function, depth or accessibility. As such, vendors should push for small, early wins and then help lead the organization in expanding out to encompass more of the opportunity. Tackling too much may trigger greater resistance from IT and place the decision-maker at risk of not achieving an early win.
Wraltechwire.com has a nice article on how IT organizations will act as helmsmen as businesses navigate the new IoT waters. It shares a similar view to the two insights I have been seeing and hearing recently.
