Why IoT Projects Succeed

There are so many articles on “Why IoT Projects Fail?”. But oddly, at IoT83, we are really not seeing this high level of IoT project risk. So, we compared the market trends and research with our own IoT Application Creation experience to answer a different question: “Why do IoT Project Succeed?”

The main reasons cited by the industry as to “Why IoT Projects Fail” include:

1. Clear IoT project goals are not defined & validated from a business value perspective
2. The project has insufficient company support or backing from company leadership
3. Unplanned technical issues arise adding to the project cost and risk
4. A gap in skills needed to successfully complete the IoT program.

Each of these issues certainly contributes to the sum of IoT project failures, but we believe that the unidentified real culprit is that - up to now – IoT deployments have been just “too hard”. The reason for this is actually pretty easy to see:

1. IoT projects cover so much ground – from edge devices, to cloud aggregation, to analytics
2. The real focus of the project – to lower costs or improve operations – get lost in the technical complexity of just getting all of the technology and systems to work together.
3. As a result, IoT projects become slow and expensive, and executed this way, very risky.

But, this “Old Way” of executing IoT programs is now obsolete. Taking into account the dramatic reduction to cost, risk and time to market now possible with IoT Application Enablement Platforms, the real reason most IoT projects fail boils down to: Bad Tools.

Application Enablement Platforms (AEP) – done right – hugely simplify the task of connecting devices, aggregating disparate data, transforming that data into useful formats, creating custom business logic and analytics, and finally creating useful dashboards and analytics – which is the real goal of the program. By using IoT Application Creation & Deployment frameworks streamline all of this and provide the means to secure, operate, and scale the application once created, the cost, risk, and time for IoT projects is completely transformed.

The work that remains is what you really set out to do in the first place. The real work - the work to identify underlying business logic improvements, useful analytics, preventative maintenance workflows, service optimization insights, and other operational improvements are all still there. But the underlying technology risks and integrations that drive the lion’s share of program cost and risk are removed. Moreover, your team is likely extremely good at the challenges that remain. These are exactly the issues that they have been dealing with manually for years. Now with an “end-user friendly” IoT Application Creation workflow, your team’s industry know-how and experience is catalyzed into immediate impact and a successful IoT project .

With a lower-cost and fast paced IoT project, even “bad ideas” and “failed experiments” are not particularly costly, and companies can quickly evolve their programs into positive directions and realize the value that IoT truly can provide.

When using a Powerful AEP solution such as our Flex83, prototyping the creation of MVP applications, and even customer validation is fast. Integrated tools to interwork legacy and new devices allow simplify device on-boarding and connectivity. No-code / Click-to-Configure enable creation of powerful dashboards and visualizations simply. Intuitive Low-Code customization and innovation tools accelerate creation of analytics and automation. And finally, a quality AEP is inherently secure, reliable, and ready to scale when you are. Finally, a full-featured AEP, makes it easy to connect your IoT solution to different aspects of your business greatly extending the value of the program (see below).

With all of this, when we ask “Why Many IoT Projects Fail”, to a great extent, it really is "Bad Tools". The “Old Way” to build IoT Applications is obsolete - expensive, slow and from a pragmatic point of view, dangerous. There is no reason for customers to accept this level of cost, risk, lack of agility, and time to market delay.

Summarizing then, “Why do IoT Projects Succeed?” - Certainly IoT programs do need a clear business purpose and mission, and also need appropriate levels of company support. But mainly, the IoT programs need to be unencumbered from the start from obsolete tools and instead have a solid foundation. A solid foundation from a best-in-class Application Enablement Platform, such as our Flex83 platform, dramatically reduces cost, risk, and time to market – and sets the stage for your IoT Program to Succeed!