Money-making opportunities associated with the Internet of Things (IoT) are coming into focus for companies across the information technology (IT) channel, new research from the technology industry trade association CompTIA reveals.
CompTIA’s ‘Internet of Things Trends and Opportunities’ report finds that 23 per cent of channel companies surveyed say they’ve already made money from IoT offerings, compared to just 8 per cent in 2015. Looking forward, one-third of channel firms expect to make money from IoT in the next 12 months.
“The channel is making significant progress with monetizing the IoT opportunity and, unlike past years, view themselves as strong profitability candidates,” said Seth Robinson, senior director, technology analysis, CompTIA.
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Stumbling blocks to widespread IoT deployments remain in play and will likely be there for the foreseeable future. Concerns about costs and return on investment; technical hurdles; and liability, privacy, security and other regulatory matters are some of the major inhibitors.
Still, three-quarters of channel firms in the CompTIA survey said they have a more positive view of IoT today than they did a year ago. Another 21 per cent have not changed their opinion over the past 12 months, a group that certainly includes firms that were bullish on IoT to begin with.
Robinson said there are good reasons for channel companies to look favorably on IoT.
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“First, the complexity of IoT projects is beyond what many companies can handle internally, especially on the SMB end of the spectrum,” he explained. “Second, many areas of IoT are essentially extensions of the skills and lines of business that solution providers already have.”
Consulting is currently the most popular IoT channel offering, with 40 per cent of companies offering something in this space. The next most popular offering is security, provided by 36 per cent of firms. Analytics, managed services, custom app development, reselling, and infrastructure services are offered by between 30 per cent and 35 per cent of companies.