4 New Roles That I&O Plays in IoT

Organizations are rapidly increasing the number of their Internet of Things (IoT) initiatives, yet many infrastructure and operations (I&O) teams have little to no knowledge of or involvement with them.

Our research shows that 59% of IoT initiatives are being planned without IT’s direct involvement, or that IT is only involved after crucial I&O decisions have already been made .

The most successful IoT projects require a holistic organizational approach from three distinctive groups:

• I&O — Provides integration, communications, analytics and the underlying infrastructure
• Lines of business (LOBs) — Focus on goal setting and resource allocation
• Operations teams — Focus on product design and functionality

Tasks such as project management and security often fall within all three groups.

Many IoT initiatives will require I&O involvement at some level. The first steps for I&O are to identify and track all IoT initiatives by surveying business/leadership, cataloging current and planned IoT activities, and creating processes.

I&O leaders must take a more active leadership role

Each IoT initiative represents a different potential role for I&O. Each one also has a different level of influence, responsibility and ownership. Once current or planned IoT initiatives are discovered, or are found to be lacking and I&O support requirements determined, I&O leaders must identify opportunities to take a more active role. Their goal should be to: (1) assess what programs and initiatives exist and what their role is; (2) identify areas where they can assert increased strategic ownership.

Gartner estimates that by 2020, 40% of I&O teams will have driver, implementer or operator responsibility over their organizations’ IoT initiatives, up from 5% in 2018. I&O leaders should take heed and move from a bystander role, wherever practicable, to a more driver-oriented role.

Nearly 60% of IoT projects may never involve I&O, nor should they. However, I&O must be aware of such activities because, in the future, it may be asked to play a nonbystander role.

Here are four roles I&O leaders may find themselves in.

Gartner clients can also read more about the role of I&O leaders in IoT projects in the report “I&O Leaders Must Get Involved With Current or Planned IoT Initiatives,” by Sanjit Ganguli et al.