IoT Survival Guide for CIOs
- Details
- Written by Jeff Ishii
Fifteen senior IT leaders representing a dozen industries gathered at a roundtable in Toronto to tackle the thorny issues associated with the Internet of Things (IoT). The event was produced by the IT Media Group and the sponsor was Salesforce. The conversations uncovered high interest in the topic, yet most companies are not adequately preparing for IoT. This article will describe why IoT should be on your corporate agenda, the barriers preventing companies from embarking on the IoT journey, and strategies CIOs can use to thrive in the new IoT world.
The IoT Imperative
Analysts generally agree that within a few short years there will be more than 20 billion connected IoT devices. This trend will have a profound impact to businesses as more than 200,000 new applications and services are developed and deployed. Surprisingly, less then 20% of attendees had mature IoT offerings under development and only a few others had begun testing the IoT waters.
CIO’s need to have solid plans to build foundational elements required to support these new applications and services. Failure to provide a stable, secure, and flexible IoT infrastructure could drive a new wave of shadow IT as well as increase the risk that you and your company will be displaced.
Show Me the Money
All participants acknowledged the criticality of embracing IoT, but CIOs are already busy securing data and applications, executing their digital transformation strategies, and trying to win the IT talent wars. After taking care of operations, there is little time left to pay attention to IoT. CIOs are faced with the following challenges:
- It is hard to define a sustainable business model. Company leaders expect IT to come to the table with technology solutions that deliver business value. CIOs must wade through the myriad of IoT offerings to create a value proposition that the business can understand and embrace.
- IoT introduces significant privacy and security considerations. Technical solutions are required to ensure that devices can’t be compromised and data is kept safe. The sheer volume and variety of devices can leave CIOs wondering where to start. If left unaddressed, the business can introduce IoT technology themselves, leading to a sub-optimal IoT strategy.
- It is difficult to add IoT innovation onto the radar of the IT department. CIOs are tasked with keeping the lights on, while IoT requires new investment in a climate where IT budgets are shrinking.
- There are high costs to retrofit the environment to support IoT instrumentation and control. New entrants into the marketplace aren’t encumbered by a legacy organization because they can build from scratch. CIOs must consider the cost and effort required to IoT enable the existing infrastructure as new applications and services are introduced.
IoT Survival Guide
CIOs need a strategy to address the risks and opportunities introduced by the IoT. Without such a plan, the threats from competitors and new marketplace entrants could prove disastrous to your company. The following guide is provided to help you accelerate your journey to the IoT.
- IoT requires a Chief Digital Officer or Chief Data Officer (CDO). You can leverage this role with your digital transformation initiatives. If you don’t have a CDO yet, then now is a good a time to add one to your team. This role is responsible for owning and delivering the IoT agenda, as well as liaising with the business to define IoT value and priorities. In addition, the vast amount of IoT data being generated can provide tremendous competitive advantage to a company that can analyze and classify it effectively.
- Uncover potential business opportunities by tasking your CDO to seek out sources who can help you to understand how IoT is affecting your industry.
- Identify vendors who are delivering IoT solutions and plan to participate in user conferences and advisory groups. Don’t be shy about engaging vendors for workshops to help you uncover opportunities that will appeal to your customers.
- Tap into the start-up community to find out what leading edge developments are being planned for a few years down the road.
- Engage industry analysts and attend relevant conferences to better understand the changes that IoT is expected to introduce.
- Generate ideas from your existing workforce by adding IoT to your company innovation program. If you don’t have such a program yet, then IoT could be a good starting point. Look at formalized innovation frameworks that incent, reward, and deliver the best ideas. This will ensure that your innovation agenda becomes an ongoing source of ideas instead of a one-time event.
- Leave the heavy lifting of securing IoT applications and data to your CISO. The following checklist should be added to your security team’s mandate:
- Ensure that data ownership and privacy governance is communicated to developers and end-users as new applications are created. Be aware that personal views about privacy will continue to evolve. A generation that is used to sharing everything will have vastly different attitudes about privacy than previous generations.
- Sift through the emerging IoT security standards and continuously define your organization’s guidelines for their use.
- Work with the network team to secure the IoT environment and/or create a dedicated network to segregate the IoT traffic.
- Ensure that there are procedures to secure and clear data stored on the various sensors, collectors, and servers that are part of the IoT processing chain.
- To avoid the legacy barriers, consider creating a separate team that is responsible for designing and implementing IoT unique solutions. This will require you to implement a budget and develop measurement criteria to evaluate the return on your IoT investments. This is a good way to build your IoT lab environment, as well as to fund the implementation of frameworks and infrastructure that will be used to develop and operate your IoT services.
CIOs shouldn’t ignore the fundamental changes that are being introduced as the volume of IoT devices rapidly grows. Companies can’t afford to sit on the sidelines while new entrants and competitors take advantage of the wealth of data and new opportunities that billions of interconnected devices create. Savvy CIOs will somehow find the time and budget to capitalize on the IoT imperative.
Jeff Ishii is a senior technology executive with a wealth of experience in management consulting, professional services and IT operations delivery for Fortune 500 companies. He has been at the forefront of technology for the last 30 years by implementing creative solutions that have produced sustained business value.
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