#3 More IoT-specific skills are needed for the next stage of development

A lack of IoT skills and knowledge among employees and management is viewed as the biggest obstacle to using the IoT more extensively. To address these gaps, organizations are training staff and recruiting IoT talent, raising the potential for IoT talent wars. Others are hiring consultants and third-party experts, seeking to build knowledge and identify successful IoT business models. Moving executives and employees up the IoT learning curve should also help to ease the difficulty many firms experience in identifying IoT applications for existing products and services.

#4 Companies must learn to co-operate with players across industries, including competitors

National and supranational governments are taking an active interest in the commercial development of the IoT, encouraging common standards and sponsoring IoT projects that promote interoperability between organizations. For their part, businesses must be willing to adopt a different mindset. Successful IoT rollouts require interconnected networks of products and services, but few senior executives currently expect their business to become more co-operative with competitors as a result of the IoT. With 30-50bn so-called smart objects projected to exist by 2020, the IoT risks becoming heavy on “things” and light on interconnectivity.

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