* By Yassuki Takano
We are at a very promising moment in the digital transformation solutions market. In the latest edition of the IoT Snapshot, a study by Logicalis on the panorama of technology adoption in Brazil and Latin America, for the first time a considerable portion of the companies interviewed * (19%) with IoT solutions in operation and / or stage were identified roll-out. On the other hand, almost two thirds of the respondents (65%) did not even start their first projects. In other words, Latin America has already reached an advanced stage of maturity in adopting the solution, but there is still a huge market to explore.
Throughout the first editions of the survey, we were able to observe the evolution of the market in relation to attempts to use IoT. At first, there was a very low level of knowledge of concepts, applicability and technologies. Over the years, however, the market began to be convinced of the potential benefits, but it still ran into the justification of return on investment and the lack of budgets directed to these initiatives. It was especially difficult to make such estimates, there was still a large gap between technology and business areas for modeling solutions and the lack of practical examples did not allow the use of reasonable rates of impact.
For this edition, in which we were able to observe a sensitive proportion of operational cases, the good news is that we were also able to observe new opportunities emerging for this adoption phase. If initiatives in the pilot phase had as main challenges factors such as connectivity (32%) and maturity of solutions (20%), projects in the roll-out phase started to bring issues such as organizational culture and resistance to change (33%), in addition to integrating IoT solutions to legacy architecture (29%).
It is common to hear claims that digital transformation is not about technology. In practice, executives are realizing this as their initiatives need to evolve from technological pilots, tested in controlled environments and with reduced scopes, to operational solutions that support the processes of their companies and need to change the way professionals perform their activities.
IoT projects, unlike most technological solutions that IT teams have implemented so far, now permeate companies' business processes in a much broader and deeper way. In fact, the success of digitization initiatives seems to be linked to the ability to transform the way teams perform their functions using new technologies and to make them work in an integrated way with solutions already in operation.
In this way, and after testing and developing skills such as prototyping, agile methods for developing solutions and modus operandi in squads multifunctional, we can suggest two new investments in governance skills for digital transformation. They are: Change Management, with a strong emphasis on communication, training, identification and mitigation of resistance to change; and the design and integration of more flexible and multi-vendor technological architectures, to more easily incorporate the wide range of solutions that has been developed.
In short, for companies that are ready to start their digital transformation journeys, the priority is to make their first initiatives (proof of concept and pilots) viable by designing technical-business solutions and guaranteeing initial infrastructure and connectivity for their operation. For companies with a higher level of maturity, the focus of work is on cultural change and the integration of tested solutions into the technological architecture in operation.
Whether due to the entry of new companies on the theme or the greater number of roll-out solutions, we see a horizon of opportunities. If the investment trends and benefit capture with the solutions continue, it will be a matter of time before we see even more impacting results in the next editions of the IoT Snapshot.
* Yassuki Takano, Logicalis Consulting Director
Notice: The opinion presented in this article is the responsibility of its author and not of ABES - Brazilian Association of Software Companies
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