IoT in business: Enterprise views on solution providers

The IoT ecosystem is complex and fragmented, with a multitude of players (traditional and new) vying for enterprise mindshare. Against this backdrop, enterprises are attempting to source the optimal solution for their business needs. This report is the third in a series examining findings from the GSMA Intelligence IoT Enterprise Survey, conducted across 2,271 companies at the end of 2018. Here we discuss enterprises’ considerations when choosing and sourcing IoT solution providers.

Our survey results speak to the fragmented nature of the supplier ecosystem, with there being no single “winner takes all”. Enterprises’ first-choice IoT solution provider varies, but IoT application vendors and platform companies are gaining a slight lead on the competition. On the whole, operators did not rank highly, indicating that work needs to be done to boost their profile and capabilities. Interestingly though, they led in a handful of markets and scored better with larger enterprises.

The top two requirements from the enterprises we surveyed were a vendor’s ability to offer customised solutions, and their security credentials. Interestingly, existing business relationships ranked last, indicating to vendors that there is much still to play for in the battle for mindshare.