IoT solicits top dollar in IT budgets, and why not

The blue-eyed boy of enterprise tech—IoT—has been the favorite talk point of IT thought leaders for quite some time now. Exhaustive deliberation has split the IT community into two major factions—the IoT optimists and the naysayers.

But ready or not, the one fact that has been unanimously agreed upon is that the network of connected devices and IT spending earmarked for IoT has been steadily increasing over the years.

At the 11th edition of IDG’s CIO Year Ahead, IoT is one of the five important themes, which will be instrumental in deciding the IT roadmap of the future.

There are big bucks riding on IoT

In 2016, global spending on IoT was USD 737 billion. IDC predicts that by 2020, this number will skyrocket to USD 1.29 trillion, at a CAGR of 15.6 percent.

The report also pointed out that IoT investments were spearheaded by the manufacturing, transportation and utilities verticals, with manufacturing leading the charge with an investment of USD 178 billion. Given manufacturing’s position as the flag-bearer of IoT proliferation, it comes as no surprise that manufacturing operations is the IoT use case that will see the highest investment.

The industries that have been predicted to witness the fastest growth in IoT spending are insurance, consumer, healthcare, and retail. The IDC report also shed light on how investments in smart homes – a comparatively new entrant, will double, reaching USD 63 billion by 2020.

Coming to the healthcare and insurance verticals, telematics is touted to be the leading use case, while remote health monitoring will see the highest investment in the healthcare industry.

With omni-channel operations and digital signatures, retail companies have already marked their arrival in the IoT space.

However, a major concern that stems from rapid IoT proliferation is around cybersecurity. Forrester’s 2018 cybersecurity predictions foresees money-oriented IoT attacks on the rise. IoT-targeted ransomware targeting connected vehicles, Point-of-Sale terminals, and medical equipment is a foreseeable threat.