Conclusion: Mind The Gaps

When it comes to IT and OT, IoT is not a competition. As the data shows, IT and OT are working to collaborate and drive overall business value. But the data also reveals imbalances and gaps between these two groups—gaps that may be serving as hidden barriers to the success of IoT initiatives in many organizations. Overcoming these gaps is an important step in realizing the potential of IoT from both operational and customer-focused perspectives.

IoT holds the promise of creating an informed supply chain, bringing together both operational and customer data to drive operational insights and resource efficiency, and increase overall business value. It also holds the promise of better serving both internal and external customers, helping to uncover and leverage data that can be used to develop innovative products, services, and support programs that are focused on customer experiences and outcomes. But to get there, IT and OT must move beyond traditional silos of responsibility and functions and collaborate closer than ever before.

How important is collaboration? Successful IoT implementations require the balancing of the OT operational systems that generate the data and the IT infrastructure necessary to gather and process the data. It is a partnership, one that should be designed to not only improve operational efficiencies but to connect the customer to the supplier and enable the collection of data that leads to insights, improved customer experience and core business value. When one team has a real or perceived edge over the other, the result is an imbalance that limits success. And we see such an imbalance in the survey results. This leads to the 6 critical gaps that Futurum Research identified in this study.

1.

The Value Gap: The strategic importance of IoT is perceived differently by IT and OT focused teams, as well as between individual industries.

2.

The Impact Gap: Over a third of IT respondents believe that the failure of IoT initiatives impacts their internal success, rather than that of the customer.

3.

The Leadership Gap: OT perceives itself as being in less of an IoT leadership position than IT, potentially leading to an environment where OT initiatives become more IT-focused and less operationally driven.

4.

The Success Gap: Over half of IT respondents believe that IT/OT coordination of IoT initiatives is Very Good while over half of OT respondents disagree.

5.

The Challenge Gap: Despite feeling optimistic about IT/OT coordination, the two teams perceive IoT challenges differently, as IT respondents are more likely to list a lack of IT/OT coordination as a leading barrier to IoT success, while OT respondents are crippled by budgetary issues.

6.

The Budget Gap: While IT overwhelmingly expects IoT-related budgets to increase slightly or dramatically over the coming 12 to 24 months, OT overwhelmingly anticipates steady or slightly declining budgets.