Disruptive technologies converge as businesses fully integrate IT systems. |
3. Disruptive technologies are converging
Technologies like IoT, blockchain, artificial intelligence (AI) and robotic process automation (RPA) are increasingly converging under a single digital disruption umbrella. The EY IoT Competence Center anticipates that in the first half of 2018, suppliers will begin to move toward full integration of IT systems supporting business processes and automation solutions in order to build fully integrated “Intelligent Automation” solutions.
From a business perspective, digital disruption technologies are complementary and perform unique functions within various parts of the organization. We expect that, after a period of initial fascination with pilot implementations of individual disruptive technologies, industry leaders will expect a much more integrated approach to the adoption of digital technologies, and with measurable return on investment.
4. A battle for standards – IoT connectivity wars
So far, IoT interconnectivity has been difficult as players adopt their unique approaches and solutions for different applications. Each promotes their own proprietary standards and protocols, which has led to a multiplicity of closed systems that do not communicate with other devices.
IoT cannot thrive without effective and affordable wireless connectivity, interoperability and common standards. We believe 5G has the potential to make a ground-breaking impact on the way in which future IoT ecosystems are designed, especially in the areas of scalability, latency, reliability, security and the level of individual control on connectivity parameters.
5. From cybersecurity to resilience by design
EY IoT Competence Center analysis reveals that security and privacy concerns are the top factors preventing decision-makers from committing to IoT development and implementation. Increasingly, companies are recognizing that the solutions required to secure centralized IT systems are not sufficient to secure distributed IoT systems, especially in applications requiring high levels of reliability.
How EY can help
Security and privacy are top issues preventing internet of things (IoT) adoption.
IoT solutions require simultaneous fulfillment of security, privacy, safety, reliability and resilience that cannot be achieved through securing individual elements of a multipurpose environment. Therefore, current approaches must consider changing direction from simply seeking to achieve security, toward a resilience-by-design approach that incorporates redundancy into architectural and organizational design and separates data processing.
Summary
Monetization of data collected from networked IoT devices, convergence of multiple disruptive technologies and standards, and network edge processing are among the key trends for 2018 according to the EY IoT Competence Center, a global team of IoT professionals.
