In March 2017, we conducted a survey of IoT leaders in India to learn their views and plans with respect to their companies, and their outlook for growth of IoT industry. Based on that survey, we bring to you the annual IoT India Leaders Outlook study for this year.

The 2017 IoT India Leaders outlook survey, which is the focus of this study, conducted a total of 33 online interviews in the month of March 2017, among key decision makers in IoT industry in India. The purpose of the study is to gain clearer insight into the confidence level of business leaders from Indian IoT industry and to provide these executives with information regarding the perspectives and actions of their peers.

Overall, the responses have been extremely optimistic and sentiment looked positive. As IoT move even further past the just being a buzz towards real adoption by enterprises, their leaders’ optimism about the growth and demand continues to climb for the second year in a row. Looking out over 2016, these leaders are significantly more optimistic about the IoT in India.

Business Confidence

97% respondents expect the demand of IoT at their organization to increase over the next 12 months. Thus, there is extremely high level of confidence in the industry currently.

Next, we asked the leaders to rate on a scale of 1-10, if they are confident on IoT being a key focus area for organizations globally over next 12 months –

• 33% respondent gave a perfect 10/10 score.
• 33% respondent gave a score of 7 or lesser out of 10
• Average Confidence score was 3/10.

Also, we calculated the Net Sentiment Score (Calculated as difference of % with score of 10s & 9s and Score from 0 through 6s), at 27%.

27%

• IoT leaders in India exhibit a fairly positive outlook towards the industry.
• 82% of decision makers plan to increase their IoT workforce in next 12 months.
• Just 18% say that they have no hiring plan for the coming year.

Key Challenges

• The biggest challenge faced by IoT leaders in India is around Procedures and processes. 67% leaders quote “Procedures/ Processes not standardized” as one of their key challenge.
• 45% decision makers believe that ‘Unavailability of IoT Talent’ is the major challenge that they face.
  • This is in line with our earlier findings and is widely documented and spoken about. There is a huge demand for IoT professionals across levels. The pool of resources is not sufficient to fulfill the current requirements. While the industry is collaborating with several institutes and organizations to fulfill these demands, the quality of professionals and experience still remains challenge.
• 64% of leaders believe that ‘Little knowledge of IoT among customers’ is a major challenge for them.
  • Obviously, we have not done enough to propagate IoT understanding to a wider audience in the market. While IoT has been a buzzword around the network, very few understand how they can in-cash on it. And even fewer can identify the key areas within their business to apply it to.
• Few leaders are wary of competition; just 15% believe it’s a challenge for them.
• Only 3% believe that IoT demand has peaked. It’s evident that the current optimism is due to an increased demand for IoT.

Growth Area

We asked our respondent on what according to them are the biggest growth industries for IoT in next 12 months.

• ‘Energy & Utilities’ is considered as a top area of growth in IoT by 70% of respondent.
• ‘Government/ Smart Cities’ comes at a close second at 67%.

Key strategic decisions

We asked our respondents on the key strategy decisions that they plan for the coming year in order to grow their business.

• 88% IoT leaders plan to collaborate with external partners.
• 64% are planning to grow their existing offerings.
• Just 33% plan to look for external financing in the coming year.

Respondents’ Profiles

Here’s the profile of our respondents.