The Internet of Things Is a Boon for B2B: Report

Businesses have been focusing on the Internet of Things as an enabler of growth and increased operational efficiency, as well as the means to provide a better experience to customers and partners, according to the State of the Market: Internet of Things 2017 report Verizon released this week.

Seventy-three percent of executives surveyed said they either were researching or currently deploying IoT, according to the report.

"Few industry sectors, business people or ordinary people will not be impacted by this, as augmented intelligence and machine learning use the data from IoT to transform markets," Constellation Research Principal Analyst Andy Mulholland told the E-Commerce Times.

However, a variety of factors have dampened IoT momentum:

• Long capital cycles;
• Organizational inertia;
• Lack of suitably skilled staff;
• Lack of industry-wide IoT standards; and
• Concerns about security, interoperability and cost.