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Review of IoT Adoption Barriers

IoT is a world-wide communication network, integrating different intelligent andautonomous devices and enabling the connection of people with things through any service, any time and anywhere [1, 2]. The key dimensions of IoT are big data and predictive analytics, which benefitenterprises by increasing their efficiency, productivity and profitability [3]. The adoption of IoT in industries contributes to more agile operations and efficient collaboration betweenstakeholders. On a large scale, IOT is believed to have an enormous impact on the global economy [4, 5]. Productivity gains will potentially contribute to the real GDP (adjusted for inflation) for20 major economies. For the UK, IoT is predicted to increase GDP by $303 billion by 2030 [6]. The transformation of the global economy will  depend on the adoption of IoT devices, their affordability, and durability [7]. However, developing and introducing new IoT systems or technology, or updating and expanding existing ones, can comewith a number of complex challenges. These often cross a number of disciplines, involving a variety of stakeholders and impact on existing processes,structures and staff roles. There may be a level of education and partnership development required to tackle them, alongside reassurances regarding theinnovation risk versus the final impact and value. The barriers identified in the literature fall into seven broad categories. They are legal, technological,financial, human, management, organisational barriers and lack of evidence.

Legal Barriers

Security regulation: There has been a debate going on about whether the security standards of IoT are developed enough. Theregulatory framework in Europe cannot ensure cybersecurity as IoT grows in complexity and size [8, 9]. First steps towards higher protection using IoT systems have been made by the USA, UK andJapan. The UK, in particular, launched the Code of Practice for IoT security in 2018. The principle of that Code of Practice is to impose the requirements sothat the providers of IoT devices will implement security components in the design of the device to ensure faultless integration and higher security. However,due to the complexity of IoT, these regulatory initiatives can be inefficient. Instead of focusing on an embedded security feature in a single device, theremust be a closer look at the  implementation of security measures in the entire chain starting fromthe endpoint, through the cloud and up until the enterprise management layer [9]. The lack of a pervasive approach in regulating IoT security throughout the step of the production of IoT devices,implementation and management in organisational settings may be a barrier to the adoption of IoT. There must be legal obligations to realise securitymeasures (communications, access) and liability for security (e.g. regulatory enforcement) and data management failings (e.g. legal implications for databreaches) [10]. In addition, there is a significant variance in legislative mechanisms in relation to privacy amongcountries. The fragmented implementations of IoT-related initiatives and policies exacerbate this issue and drive organisations away from IoT adoption [11].

Technological Barriers

Lack of standardisation and interoperability: Lack of unified standards for IoT devices is a common barrier to IoT adoption by organisations [12]. Unified standards ensure seamless integration of all devices across an entire IoTnetwork. The global standards in terms of identification, security and communication make it possible to handle all devices, cloud networks andend-user platforms smoothly and efficiently [13]. In contrast, the lack of standardisation entails complexities with theimplementation of IoT solutions. The standardisation issues include the deviation in data formats, interfaces, service platforms, protocols andarchitecture. Those challenges undermine the effectiveness of an IoT ecosystem, which leads to the reduction of value propositions and returns on IoTinvestments [14]. The lack of unified data format and standards inhibits the capturing of benefits. According to thereport by McKinsey, around 40 per cent of potential values of IoT systems are not realised due to the lack of interoperability [15].

Interoperability is “the ability of two or more systems or components to exchange information and to use the information that has beenexchanged” [16]. Interoperability issues are manifested at five levels. The first one is deviceinteroperability, which mostly concerns the capacity of IoT devices and the communication protocols they are built upon. Device interoperability implies difficultieswith the exchange of information and integration of heterogeneous communication protocols and devices. The second is network interoperability, which concernsthe heterogeneity of networks, through which different IoT devices communicate. It ensures the seamless exchange of messages (i.e. emf-to-end communication)between systems working on various types of networks. The third is syntactic interoperability. This refers to the data structure and format that can beeasily encoded and decoded irrespective of the heterogeneity of IoT systems due to unified syntactic rules. Fourth, the lack of unified data formats createssemantic interoperability issues. Put simply, semantic interoperability makes the data gathered from the environment be defined and presented in a unifiedformat. The last type is platform interoperability, which concerns the diversity of operating systems. This causes issues for the development ofapplications that can be used across diverse platforms [17, 18]. The lack of interoperability means that organisations may not be able to adopt different  IoT devices or software, as the switch to another provider may entail financiallosses and bring about product functionality and stability issues [19]. To overcome interoperability challenges at any level, there is a need to develop and employ unified industry standardsto ensure common communication protocols, which will make possible the connectivity and interoperability of all devices. However, vendors mostly adoptdifferent standards, which can have a negative effect on the functionality of technologies in organisational settings [20-23]

Various Architectures: Architecture “is defined as a framework for the specification of a network's physical components and theirfunctional organization and configuration, its operational principles and procedures, as well as data formats used in its operation” [24]. In order to achieve efficiency, there is a need to align the IoT network across the organisation and with differentstakeholders (e.g. suppliers). As the Internet of Things encompasses a wide range of technologies, the likelihood that all technologies would share asingle reference architecture is low. The variance of reference architectures inflicts various utilisation costs (e.g. security, operability etc.) [25] and undermines the effectiveness of the use. The variance of architectures involved in the IoT network poses achallenge for  IoT adoption, while constant changes in the IoT architecture makes it difficult for organisationsto continue using it [26, 27].

Service quality:  One of the challenges that IoT devices pose is the insufficient quality of service,which is rooted in the intermittent connectivity of devices to a network. Most IoT devices are not connected constantly. Periodical connectivity is designedto save bandwidth (the amount of transmitted data) or power [28]. Also, although IoT is designed to improve the efficiency of data management, the use of cloud infrastructure often makesdata monitoring more challenging. With organisations placing data in external cloud services, the visibility of network edges is dramatically increasing. Thelack of insight into cloud performance causes not only challenges with packet (unit of transmitted data) monitoring, but deprives companies of tools to solveissues if they occur [29].

Interdependence: The deployment of IoT technology entails interdependence, which causes two potential problems. The first is that theefficient utilisation of IoT technology might require the replacement of existing technology by ones that will be better integrated with new technology.The architectures of all devices needs to be modified to work smoothly with each other. The implementation of more advanced devices requires additionalinvestments and might hold back organisations from adopting IoT. Secondly, the interdependence of all IoT devices means that the quality of the functions/servicesof one device might be dependent on the quality of the functions and services of another one. The failure of one application, object or one of the nodes(internet connection, electric supply, component of the device) might cause an interruption in services of the entire system of interconnected devices [30].

Infrastructure: The main barriers to IoT adoption in a large context is general and information systems infrastructures. The quality and speed of the internet, aswell as the electricity supply infrastructure, are the biggest inhibitors of IoT adoption [31]. In organisational settings, to ensure the IoT connectivity and gain benefits from the use, bothorganisation and the supply partners should have a stable internet and electricity supply. However, due to the decentralised infrastructure, theadoption of IoT devices becomes very challenging. In addition, when there are multiple IoT devices adopted in enterprises, the energy consumption may go up,which reinforces the reluctance of organisations to adopt IoT (e.g. smart cities, towns and organisations) [32].

Security and privacy: Security and privacy are the biggest inhibitors to IoT adoption, especially in organisational settings [33, 34]. Privacy concerns are related to the fear that cyber criminals will have easy access to sensitive data. Securityissues concern numerous threats related to the use of IoT, such as the overwriting of false data, exposure and easy access to sensitive data, whichcan paralyse the entire network in organisations. Issues,such as difficulty in large data encryption, internet connectivity, software and system protectionand authorisation make IoT devices vulnerable to unauthorised activities in organisational settings [26, 35, 36]. Security concerns about IoT devices are rooted in the underlying network [37, 38]. For example, it is considered that Wi-Fi, LoRaWAN and Sigfox are networks vulnerable to cyberattacks and securitybreaches [39]. Insecure networks  provide an opportunity for cyber criminals to interrupt the infrastructure and even take physicalcontrol of IoT devices in the case of close proximity [35, 40]. These concerns affect decision-making and undermine the deployment of IoT services.

Scalability Issues: The number of IoT devices has dramatically increased, pushing the boundaries of IoT networks. This poses a significant challenge for organisations in terms ofscalability [33]. Scalability is defined as “the ability of a device to adapt to the changes in the environment and meet the changing needs in the future”. Scalability can be horizontal, which deals with the expansion of the network soit could accommodate a higher number of devices and software solutions (e.g. adding new machines, nodes and servers into the system to work as a singleunit). Another type is vertical scalability, which refers to the flexibility and capability to increase the efficiency of already existing technology (e.g.increasing the capacity of existing software and hardware, adding power to a server, expanding memory, storage or enhancing network inetrfaces) [41]. An example of scalability issues is the potential and readiness of IoT devices and the network to manage theovergrowing inflow of data. Organisations need to manage data collection, processing, storing and analysing the data coming from a huge number of IoTdevices [42, 43]. However, system infrastructures in organisations could be unprepared for dealing with anoverwhelming flow of data [44, 45] and devices may be fixed/static in terms of scalability features and capabilities.

Financial Barriers and Time

Power Consumption: The main source of the functionality of IoT devices is electrical supply. Initiallythe aim of IoT devices was to promote energy efficiency, which in the long term can contribute to environmental sustainability. Although IoT devices areenergy-efficient, especially in commercial settings [44], the increasing number of IoT devices makes it difficult for organisations to follow the initial sustainability objectives, as the energyusage dramatically increases. High demand for electricity for IoT devices to work raises financial issues. In addition, for the efficient operation of IoTdevices in organisations there should be connectivity between the organisation and different stakeholders (e.g. suppliers). The need for connectivityincreases the number of required IoT devices, which increases electricity consumption [46].

Operation/Adoption Costs: Organisations should advance information communication infrastructure to adopt IoT solutions. This requires the implementation ofhigh-end technologies and systems [26]. This scale of investments has a great potential to turn into financial loss ifnot implemented properly [13, 35, 47]. IoT devices and technologies/systems supporting the operation of IoT solutionsneed constant monitoring, maintenance and repair [48]. The organisations adopting IoT solutions need to implement a wide range of advanced devices, thus increasing the margin of requiredinvestments. For example, the investments in IoT solutions in organisational settings can increase due to the need to accommodate the increasing volume ofdata. The seamless integration and maintenance of IoT solutions require more skilled workers. If the company does not have intellectual resources, the firmneeds to undergo organisational restructuring, hire workers with a high-level of skills and knowledge. These, in turn, require additional financial resources[49]. In addition, the survey revealed that 25 per cent of companies that face difficulties with IoT adoption reported that financial losses resultingfrom security breaches hold them back from a full switch to the IoT-based system [50].

Long Payback Period: The decision on the utilisation of IoT is based on the proposal which clearly defines potential implementation risks andpayback periods. The long payback period might lead to investment losses and difficulties with managing investors’ expectations. For asuccessful IoT project implementation, the suggested payback period is twelve months [51]. For example,  Royal Dutch Shell received 1 mln US dollars for the initial investment in 87 thousand US dollars [52]. However, not all IoT projects give positive results. Depending on the scale and number of IoT devices that need to be installed, thereturn on investment might take longer [31]. In case the project has not broken even within five years, it might implyfailure and signify the need for termination [51].

Time of implementation: The change to any technology takes time. However, the deployment of IoT is believedto take at least twice more than the implementation of traditional technology. According to the report, 75 per cent of projects implemented in 2018 took 50per cent longer than originally planned. The example from the supply chain industry demonstrates that the full implementation of sensors takes from two tofive years. The long implementation period causes operational inconvenience and is not financially attractive. It is especially challenging during the initialstages of the project implementation, when a limited amount of implemented technology brings limited benefits [53].

Human Factors

Lack of specialised IT workforce: The issues associated with IoT installation in organisational settings hinders the acceptance andadoption of it. The installation of IoT devices in organisations requires the involvement of highly trained professionals. Those professionals need todevelop practical applications that organisations can use [54]. It is required that both IoT devices and the applications through which employees access data be user-friendly and easyto use [55]. In addition, organisations should have a constant support team for the maintenance of IoT devices. Thiscan be challenging for organisations, as in most cases there is a need to ensure connectivity with different partners. Due to the geographical locationof some partners (e.g. suppliers), it might be difficult to install and develop IoT applications and provide constant support.

Lack of employee expertise: Apart from a specialised team that conducts the implementation of IoT and support, there is a need for a commonunderstanding and awareness of technology use among all employees. The skills in operating technology make the technology accessible for all employees forthey could reap the benefits of its use. For instance, the proficiency of technology operationalisation is required to filter the unnecessary informationand extract useable data. However, the current literature found that there is a shortage of employees in organisations that can work with IoT devices. The lackof internal expertise poses a great risk to IoT acceptance in organisational settings [23, 50]. Companies may need to invest additional resources into the training employees in new skills, to be able to generate data-driven solutions [21, 27, 56]. In addition, the acquisition of technical skills can be slowed down due to thenegative attitude of employees to IoT and reluctance to embrace new knowledge [21]. The reluctance can be rooted in the lack of awareness of the benefits that IoT use can bring [56-58].

Given the extra hurdle implied by the IoT adoption, the IoT implementation can be abandoned due to the inability of a company to objectivelyanalyse the long-term benefits of the IoT adoption. The lack of analytical skills and resources may result in a heightened perception of risks associatedwith the implementation of the IoT-aligned business model [26]. In a nutshell, the adoption of the IoT may be hindered by the inefficient use of IoT-based systems in daily operations,deficient strategic orientation or the shortage of analytical resources to develop a real profit model [20, 21].

Lack of efficient workforce structure and workflow: Employees’ willingness to leverage IoT to benefit business practices and sufficient technical skills are not enough to ensure the efficientoperationalisation of the technology. First, the adoption of IoT requires to align and link the processes of the main units oforganisations, which traditionally worked independently, such as IT, operations and management. The diversity of technical, management and operational backgrounds will make the objectives and plan clear and helpdevelop feasible solutions. It is suggested that the success of the IoT project implementation can be achieved if the team comprises an equal proportion of ITand operation/management specialist. Therefore, for the collaboration of the two types of experts, organisations might need the restructuring of the workforce,which creates an additional obstacle or might be impossible due to the lack of resources [59].

Second, organisations should establish a clear workflow, which implies orchestratedpractices and activity pattern that enable systematic, efficient and smooth implementation of IoT projects. The difficulty to establish workflow has beenreported as one of the existing challenges that companies face when adopting IoT. This challenge is fuelled by the lack of experience with technologies dueto their rapid development. Organisations cannot keep up with the advancements of technology due to constantly changing features and the variability of datathat technologies produce. The alignment of workflows to IoT is also challenging due to difficulty to switch from time-tested experiences to newprocesses [60].

Evidence & Knowledge

Lack of Validation and Value Uncertainty: The research on IoT in organisational settings is still in its infancy. The overwhelming majority of studies in the literature focus on thetechnical side of IoT devices (Talaver et al. 2017, Ryan and Watson 2017). However, the research on the utilisation of IoT lacks insight from theorganisational perspective. This identifies the need for more practical rather than theoretical and technical knowledge about IoT. Particularly, there is aneed for understanding the interaction between humans and IoT devices in organisational settings and the benefits that the interaction may bring.Providing the full picture of benefits that the adoption of IoT can bring for both organisations and employees might motivate big, small and medium enterprisesto embark on the installation of IoT devices. The lack of the validation of benefits that IoT may bring to organisations makes the business value uncertainand increases business risks. In addition, enterprises lack the models on practices with IoT, which may help capture benefits and return on investments [49]. Consequently, the inability to forecast the payback period and the degree of benefits received from the IoT act asbarriers, slowing down the investments into the IoT implementations [21].

Lack of information on operational solutions and consequences: There is a lack of practical information when it comes to IoT implementation in organisational settings. Different pieces of information areavailable about the technology in general, but little knowledge is available on the consequences of the adoption of IoT, based on real-world business cases. Asa result, organisations are unaware of the ways to deal with IoT issues. Findings the solutions without comprehensive information and guidelines mightbe time-consuming [61]. This may restrain organisations from IoT adoption.

Security concerns are exaggerated given the lack of evidence and knowledge about networksecurity arrangements that are in place. A general viewpoint exists that the ubiquitous connectivity through networks entails security issues [26, 35, 36], although this viewpoint is hardly based on facts. Networks underpinning IoT can be classified into licensed andunlicensed. Security issues are usually associated with Low Power WAN (LPWAN) platforms (e.g. LoRaWAN and Sigfox). They use an unlicensed spectrum and do nothave traditional security mechanisms. In contrast, cellular networks are safer because the network traffic is controllable by the respective carrier. Thatmeans that some networks can be considered absolutely safe. However, this argument is less widespread and accessible for organisations. Therefore, thelack of knowledge about potential security threats poses obstacles in the IoT adoption [39].

Organisational Barriers

Data management and platform maintenance: Another factor that hinders the acceptance of IoT devices in organisational settings is related to data management [32, 62, 63]. It is difficult for organisations to manage multiple platforms supporting IoT devices and the data collected by those devices,especially when it comes to filtering irrelevant data [64]. The filtration process can be challenging and time-consuming. In addition, the employees’ lack of expertise in dealing with data intensifiesthat challenge [65]. Those issues are becoming more dominant as the number of IoT devices is rapidly increasing,which contributes to the increasing amount of data to be filtered and analysed by employees. Data management issues are associated with overhead costsrequired for a) the storage of data, b) hiring data scientists to analyse and filter data, and c) IT specialists to advance platforms and mining tools fordata management. In addition, the increasing sources of data lead to employees’ distrust towards the collected data and algorithms, which can automaticallyfilter not relevant data [3]. Given that, there is a need for manual intervention, which is time-consuming.

Organisational Support and Culture: IoT adoption in organizations is the result of the decisions made at the management-level.Senior managers may have a lack of knowledge, support, commitment and adequate awareness of security and privacy concerns to capture the benefits that IoT canmake possible [66, 67]. Organisations may face challenges in adopting technologies due to the resistance to changemanifested at the overall organisational level. The resistance to change is fuelled by the reluctance to undergo structural changes concerning the labourforce, the changes in work practices [45], as well as the management strategy practices in the company. As the adoption ofIoT is a long-term strategy of any company aimed at the development of dynamic capabilities, the companies that follow the ‘short-term management culture’ arereluctant to embark on a change of management [49].

Inability to Build a Business Case: To be able to evaluate the success of IoT implementation and benefits, it isimportant to have clear goals and objectives that drive the decision to adopt IoT. A clearly defined strategy and target helps measure the progress andidentify what needs to be done differently and what is working [59]. The ability to develop a plan and strategy is contingent on people (intellectual resources of the organisation).The lack of a strategic insight can be the result of the insufficient analysis of the long-term benefits of IoT adoption and a heightened perception of risks [26]. The companies who already use IoT in business practices might not be able to discern the value of the technology dueto insufficient technical infrastructure and assets [59]. For multinational enterprises, the quality of local infrastructure and the provision of technical support indifferent time zones may cause additional challenges [58]. The availability of a comprehensive platform connecting devices enables better intelligent data processing and helpsbusiness leaders to determine the value of the data and IoT technology, accordingly. Therefore the success of the implementation of an IoT initiativeis conditioned by a clear understanding of the goal, the engagement of the right people and technical resources [59].

Organisational Beliefs:  One of the beliefs that affect the decision of business leaders towards sticking to traditional technology is that thetechnology is immature. According to a recent report, about 15 per cent of the surveyed representatives of enterprises admitted that they believe that the IoTtechnology is at its development stage and not ready to solve a number of issues that may occur in practice [60]. Another belief is that technology entails adverse consequences. It is believed that the complexity of IoT impacts a company’s performance in terms ofbusiness operations and revenues [68]. Also, there is a fear that by adopting IoT organisations may lose control overuser experience [69].

 

Table 3: Barriers to IoT Adoption

Need

Barrier

Detailed example

 

Legal Barriers

Derisking IoT Adoption

Insufficient regulatory initiatives

lack of security standards

lack of legal obligations to realise security measures (communications, access)

lack of a pervasive approach to regulating IoT security throughout the entire chain starting from the endpoint, through the cloud and up to the enterprise management layer

liability for security failures (e.g. regulatory enforcement)

liability for data management failings (e.g. legal implications for data breaches)

Derisking IoT Adoption

Variance in legislative mechanisms

Variance in legislative mechanisms in relation to privacy among countries

variance of standards and policies

partial implementation of IoT-related policies

 

Technological Barriers

Developing IoT and Ensuring Fitness for Purpose

 

Lack of standardization and interoperability issues

lack of unified security standards

inconvenience due to deviation in data formats

inconvenience due to deviations in interfaces

inconvenience due to deviations in service platforms

inconvenience due to deviations in protocols

inconvenience due to deviations in architectures

lack of device interoperability  (e.g. capacity of IoT devices and communication protocols)

lack of network interoperability (heterogeneity of networks)

lack of syntactic interoperability (unified data coding or easily encoded/decoded data formats and structures)

lack of semantic interoperability (unified representation of data structure and format)

lack of  platform interoperability (unified standard of operating system)

Developing IoT and Ensuring Fitness for Purpose

 

Service quality issues

intermittent connectivity of devices to a network

challenges with data monitoring and visibility of network edges when it comes to cloud computing

lack of access and tools to solve issues when it comes to cloud computing

Developing IoT and Ensuring Fitness for Purpose

 

Interdependence

need for the replacement of existing technology by ones that are better integrated with IoT devices

quality and functions depend on other devices in the system

quality and functions depend on different nodes in the IoT networks (e.g. component of the device)

Developing IoT and Ensuring Fitness for Purpose

Infrastructure

dependence on the internet infrastructure

dependence on electricity supply

Derisking IoT Adoption

Security and Privacy

exposure and easy access to sensitive data

overwriting of false data

issues with software and system protection and authorisation

insecure networks

Developing IoT and Ensuring Fitness for Purpose

 

Scalability issues

difficulty to scale up IoT horizontally (e.g. adding new machines, nodes and servers into the system to work as a single unit)

difficulty to scale up IoT vertically (e.g. increasing the capacity of existing software and hardware, adding power to a server, expanding memory, storage or enhance network interfaces)

inability of IoT devices and network to manage the overgrowing inflow of data

unprepared system infrastructure to accommodate the growing flow of data

Developing IoT and Ensuring Fitness for Purpose

 

Variance in architectures

operationalisation issues (difficulty to align the IoT network across the organisation’s divisions and stakeholders)

potential security breaches  due to variance in architectures within the organisational IS network

potential decrease of IoT use performance

constant need for upgrade IoT devices and systems

 

Financial Barriers and Implementation Costs

Financing IoT adoption

Power consumption

Increase in energy usage due to the increase of deployed IoT devices

Financing IoT adoption

Operation/Adoption costs

financial losses due to wrong implementation

financial losses due to long implementation

constant monitoring, maintenance and repair costs

increased investment to scale up IoT (e.g. install additional devices or upgrade existing ones)

installation costs due to variance in architectures

costs for the replacement of existing technology due to high interdependence of IoT devices

investments into hiring more skilled workers or training existing ones

potential financial losses due to security breaches

Financing IoT adoption

Long payment period

delayed return on investments

potential failure of IoT projects

Financing IoT adoption

Long implementation costs

the deployment of IoT takes longer than traditional technology

long implementation causes operational inconvenience or disruptions in enterprise operations

limited benefits during long implementation period

 

Human Factors

Building IoT Capacity and Collaborations

 

Lack of specialized IT workforce

Need to recruit installation specialists

need to recruit support and maintenance specialists

difficulty in installation and maintenance of IoT across borders (for multinational organisations)

Building IoT Capacity and Collaborations

 

Lack of employee expertise

lack of technical skills (understanding and awareness of technology use)

negative attitude of employees to IoT, hindering the adoption and skills acquisition

reluctance to embrace new knowledge

lack of analytical skills to embrace the benefits of IoT

Building IoT Capacity and Collaborations

 

Lack of efficient workforce structure and workflow

need for restructuring collaboration units of organisations

lack of clear workflow (i.e. systematised practices and activity patterns)

difficulty to switch from time-tested experiences to new processes

need to collaborate with external agencies and companies to deliver an IoT vision

 

Evidence and Knowledge

Trust and Uncertainty

Lack of Validation and Value Uncertainty

insufficient empirical evidence about IoT benefits and value for organisations

insufficient information about models on practices with IoT

Trust and Uncertainty

Lack of information on operational solutions

lack of practical information on the utilization of IoT and solutions

lack of information about security threats

Wider Commercial Exploitation

Lack of knowledge about wider IoT exploitation

Lack of domain knowledge outside immediate deployment area.

 

Organisational Barriers

Developing IoT and Ensuring Fitness for Purpose

 

 

Data management and platform maintenance

difficulty to manage multiple platforms

challenges concerning data processing and filtrations

potential need for manual intervention to process/monitor a large amount of data

Trust and Uncertainty

Organisational Support and Culture

reluctance to undergo structural changes (e.g. workforce and practices)

reluctance to change management strategy

Lack of support and commitment towards IoT implementation at the management level

Derisking IoT Adoption

Inability to Build a Business Case

lack of clear goals and objectives in terms of IoT implementation

shortage of analytical and strategic insights to develop a real profit model

abandoned IoT implementation due to insufficient technical infrastructure

Trust and Uncertainty

Organisational Beliefs

Belief that the technology is immature

belief that the complexity of IoT impacts a company’s performance

Belief that IoT leads to the loss of control over user experience

Resource Access

Organisational Resources

Lack of appropriate mechanisms to facilitate collaboration (e.g. regarding sharing data and building wider collaborations between institutions)

Restricted access to company and collaborators’ data

 

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