Survey: Lack of IT skills and security concerns hamper IoT adoption
This is according to a new survey, released by IT management software vendor, SolarWinds, which looked into the current level of preparedness for Australian IT departments to meet challenges and opportunities created by IoT.
About 60 percent of respondents said that more or different IT skills will be required as devices and robots become more intelligent, and 73 percent felt the workforce is currently ill-equipped.
Insufficient skills was also pipped as the top barrier in the take up of IoT technologies (30 percent), while 44 percent of respondents agreeing that staying current with technology is the number one challenge impacting their work in the next three to five years.
Maintaining security (42 percent) and growing network complexity (38 percent) were also among the challenges that will mostly impact their work in the next three to five years.
SolarWinds CIO, Joel Dolisy, said IT professionals required both skills and tools to help maximise opportunities created by IoT.
"Network monitoring and management is a critical component of a successful IoT environment and as a result, a necessity for organisations looking to harness the potential of new, smart and interconnected technologies or to manage the new IT reality," Dolisy said.
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"Businesses need to arm IT professionals with the skills and capability needed not only to maintain visibility over the growing number of connected devices, but also to pinpoint potential IT infrastructure issues in order to minimise impact to the networks and application performance and keep up with the growing expectations of their company workforce."
IT decision makers also highlighted several opportunities driven by the IoT including, improved capabilities for remote maintenance (39 percent), security management (32 percent) and the ability to offer high-margin personalised services (27 percent) to stakeholders.
The survey results were drawn from 200 Australian IT decision makers across small, mid-size and enterprise companies.
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