ITP Techblog

New Zealand organisations are investing in the Internet of Things in order to improve business productivity, improve product quality, and reduce operational costs, says research firm IDC.

In an announcement following the release of its 2019/2020 Global IoT Decision Maker Survey, Associate Market Analyst Liam Landon makes the point: "New Zealand organisations deploy IoT to improve their internal productivity and efficiencies. Vendors should focus on showing how their solutions can help to achieve these goals and demonstrating how their products are differentiated from the competition."

Landon's comments echo those made by Vikram Kumar, founder of KotahiNet, at the IoT Alliance conference in Auckland in October last year. It was his view that IoT solutions are seen as a way to reduce operational cost and are expected to deliver an ROI. For example, KotahiNet created a solution for Transpower that provides monitoring of remote power lines, and saves on the expense of having a person manually check on the lines.

According to Kumar, IoT is today at a similar stage to when the internet first arrived, and people struggled to see what it would mean beyond email.

The conservative approach to IoT deployments is evident in IDC's findings which show that just over 80% of New Zealand that have or plan to deploy an IoT solution are looking for third party vendors to assist them in building or implementing IoT solutions.

Here's the criteria they are using when selecting an IoT vendor:

 

"New Zealand organisations prefer to select vendors that they know", says Landon. "Enterprises are also looking for vendors with cost effective solutions.This creates opportunities for vendors that are able to put themselves in front of customers and begin to develop a continuing relationship."

"Vendors that have strong relationships with customers in adjacent fields may find benefit in offering IoT. Conversely, IoT vendors may gain from partnerships with adjacent vendors that already have strong customer relationships." 

Familiarity, it seems, breeds more business, as Landon notes.

"Vendors that can establish themselves as market leaders and put themselves in the eye of customers will generate business with new customers. They will create the opportunity to cultivate mutually beneficial relationships" says Landon.