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A new global study by MIT Sloan Management Review suggests that associating and exchanging device data with other businesses strengthens existing relationships between organizations and forges new ties.
The study was released as a report, titled “Data Sharing and Analytics Drive Success With IoT”, involving survey data of more than 1,400 executives and managers from different industries and organisations of all sizes. Two-thirds (66%) of the respondents who are actively working on IoT projects gather data from and/or send data to their customers, suppliers, or competitors.
The report showed that businesses with analytical capabilities that are good or excellent are three times more likely to report having no trouble getting business value from IoT, compared to those who rated their analytical capabilities as worse than good. It found 45% of those with good or excellent analytical capabilities can measure the return on their IoT investments, while only 19% of those without good analytical capabilities can do so.
One of the key findings in the study shows that many businesses still lack technical knowledge on managing IoT projects. 49% of the respondents indicated that, in order to take advantage of IoT, they needed to improve their IoT talent base.
Organisations are building relationships to find this talent. More than half (56%) of survey respondents whose organisations actively use IoT gain IoT expertise by hiring new talent.
For some companies, IoT activity involves depending on other organisations: 39% engage consultants to access IoT expertise, and 43% obtain IoT talent by partnering with an organisation that has the talent it needs.
"There's a surprisingly social aspect to managing connected devices," said David Kiron, executive editor of MIT SMR and report co-author. "The Internet of Things is not just about connecting things. It is also about the connections that IoT creates between an organisation and its customers, suppliers, and competitors."
You can find the full study here.
Interested in hearing industry leaders discuss subjects like this and sharing their IoT use-cases? Attend the IoT Tech Expo World Series events with upcoming shows in Silicon Valley, London and Amsterdam to learn more.
The show is co-located with the AI & Big Data Expo, Cyber Security & Cloud Expo and Blockchain Expo so you can explore the entire ecosystem in one place.
