Why You Should Think Twice Before Implementing a DIY Internet of Things

The main concept of the Internet of Things is no longer a stranger to modern businesses. The development of this technology has made complex business practices possible which were not even thought of before. Big businesses have begun to incorporate the Internet of Things into their structures so that they stay ahead and don’t lag behind the competition. However, if taken carelessly, this action could add more to their prevailing functional problems.

The underlying challenges of developing your own IoT projects from success is the money, time, and people required to develop IoT internally, as well as to scale the solution across the company and value chain. Worse, a failure of this IoT implementation method may cause rippling effects throughout an organization. Let’s take a look at the prospects of building your own IoT.

High Total Cost of Ownership

While the initial price to purchasing and IoT solution may seem steep to some companies, the alternative to developing it in-house and accomodating for the functionality required is far more expensive: a DIY IoT project’s total cost of ownership can be almost 4x bigger in a factory setting when compared to adopting a third-party IoT platform. With required continuous investments in the IoT system’s security, scalability, resiliency, and development of new features, costs for maintaining DIY IoT can spiral. Locking into this expenditure can quickly end up in bloated annual expenses and recurring negative annual outcomes.

Time-Consuming

Developing an IoT solution internally is a time-intensive and costly endeavor. When adding up the time to develop the application, to build and manage a team, and to move it to production, developing an IoT solution internally can take more than two years. Partnering with a software provider who offers a leading IoT platform is estimated to take half that time to boost proof of concepts (PoCs) into production and even quicker than that in some instances—89% of PTC’s IoT survey respondents expect to transition use cases to production within a year of purchase.

Competitive Pressures

With competitive pressures getting higher, the time it takes to adopt IoT grows twofold where industrial adopters of third-party IoT solutions are outpacing the market. This means companies without IoT in their business structures are quickly becoming the minority. With DIY IoT initiatives, there are many unknowns, which can lead to delays in implementation and ROI. With the current speed of change and innovation in the market, that means they are more likely to fall behind the competition.

Limited Resources Inhibits Scaling

As operational technology (OT) and informational technology (IT) groups increasingly work together to make digital transformation initiatives a reality, corporate cultures are changing out of necessity. This culture change will require a combination of traditional IT and OT skills, however, these skills are hard to come by: 99% of manufacturers have a hard time finding new hires. In order to develop and manage a scalable internal IoT solution, a company will need not only the convergence of walled-off IoT and in-house OT staff, but also the ability to lure in digitally-native talent in increasingly competitive labor markets. Acquiring, orchestrating, and optimizing the necessary skills to enable all of this is a massive overhaul, timely, and costly endeavor.

When it comes to building a DIY IoT, there have been more failures than success. However, that shouldn’t be interpreted to mean digital transformation initiatives that leverage IoT are not worth investing in, but instead that a robust partner ecosystem is critical to capturing value quickly. Telkomsel IoT can provide companies with cloud and security infrastructure, solution development technology, and experienced systems integrators. Visit https://telkomseliot.com/ and decide your cost-effective way to develop IoT utilization that expands into the real world.