Internet of Things: why projects fail

by Helen Johnson | April 12, 2018 11:02 am

In 1988, the article published in New York Times said that in future people would be able to put the light on, switch on / off radio and television, even start washing clothes and baking a cake simply by using a car phone. Now this concept is already implemented, and we know it as Internet of Things[1] (IoT).

In many ways, IoT devices simplify people’s lives and enable them to manageq and control a number of things in convenient and easy way. The IoT market continues to develop fast. According to Gartner, the number of global IoT solutions will reach 21 billion devices by 2020. Nevertheless, the rate of IoT failures is also very high.

According to the survey conducted by Cisco, 75% of IoT projects fail. Besides, 60% of IoT initiatives stall even at the stage of Proof of Concept (PoC). Projects may fail because of the following reasons:

• long time to completion
• large price for solutions
• quality of collected data
• IoT integration
• unclear use cases
• security[2] issues

What factors to pay attention to?

In order to guarantee success of your IoT project, you should analyze several parameters before project launching. The most wide-spread reason for failure is the absence of a clear vision of your solution use cases. For example, Eggminder reminds to buy more eggs; a smart tumbler tells the temperature of your drink and so one. Probably, your idea is good, but it may never hit the market. Your solution should solve a problem people often face.
If you find such a problem, then analyze how big your market niche and pool of potential customers are. It is very important to have objective review of the necessity of your future solution. On the basis of analyzed market trends and end users’ needs and expectations, you can forecast costs and revenue.

But initial stages of IoT products development are not the only thing you should consider. In recent years, software security becomes a key objection to software success. Users of IoT devices may get a message that they should pay money to regain access to their devices. Sometimes even hard reset won’t help. This marvelous attack is called hijacking or ransomware.

So, to ensure success of your IoT solution, you should have your concept verified, market segment analyzed and users’ needs defined. Only after that you can proceed to software development taking into account system integrability, performance[3], and security.

Related Posts:

• Top Challenges of Testing IoT Software[4]
• How Internet of Things Products Became our Reality[5]
• Decoding the Science of Software Testing for Hardware[6]

Source URL: https://blog.qatestlab.com/2018/04/12/iot-projects-fail/

---