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SECTION
percent quit using their IoT devices or terminated their IoT
services until they can get safer guarantees.
“Despite all its promise, the Internet of Things market
has revealed itself to be a double-edged sword,” said Sami
Luukkonen, global managing director for Accenture’s Elec-
tronics and High Tech group. “The market opportunity is
enormous, but security and ease-of-use concerns are hinder-
ing its near- and long-term potential.”
This is all translating into a potentially flat market going
forward. For instance, only 13 percent of respondents said
they plan to purchase a smartwatch in the next year, up only 1
percentage point from last year. The survey found similar stag-
nation in demand for a range of devices, including fitness moni-
tors, wearable health devices, smart
thermostats and connected home-
surveillance cameras – with each
only cited as a planned purchase by
9 percent of respondents, about the
same percentage as last year.
The survey also highlights
sluggish demand for traditional
consumer technology devices as
a follow-on effect. For example,
less than half (48 percent) of re-
spondents said they intend to buy
a smartphone this year, down six
points from the 54 percent who said
they planned to buy one last year.
Consistent with this, the num-
ber of people who said they plan
to buy a tablet PC this year – 29
percent – also dropped from 38
percent last year.
“The slowdown in the consumer technology market is ir-
refutable, serious and global,” said Luukkonen. “The market is
not about the glitzy gadgets anymore – rather, it’s about provid-
ing secure, innovative and practical digital services and more
open collaboration. As device demand tapers off, the industry
needs to make a sharp turn toward providing innovative, value-
added services that consumers are able to use with confidence.”
Partners Opportunity in
Managed Security
It’s clear that device manufacturers have to start building
in security measures from the ground up. In too many cases,
new IoT devices don’t have proper safeguards in place to
prevent information-stealing or network infiltration.
“These companies need to consider investing more in
innovative services and make consumers’ online lives more
secure, convenient and enriching,” Luukkonen said. “Until
the promise of IoT meets expectations, the IoT market will
remain more promise than profit and do little to reinvigorate
the overall digital market.”
Given this climate, channel partners can bring their ex-
pertise to bear as trusted advisors. An increasingly IoT-driven,
sophisticated security landscape is challenging the validity of
many enterprises’ IT setups, forcing them to seek providers
of complementary and advanced services. At the same time,
many suffer from a lack of capital and skilled IT resources
needed to manage increasingly complex data security. As a re-
sult, managed security services have emerged as cost-effective
options for delivering security asset monitoring and manage-
ment, threat intelligence research, detection and remediation,
and risk and compliance management solutions on shared
basis to multiple clients.
In many cases this opens the door for channel partners to
offer managed security services to their customers, or to provid-
ing value-added services in the way of mobile device manage-
ment – the type of offerings that enhance the value of existing
customer relationships, offer a differentiation point, and bring
in new revenue streams beyond the waning bread-and-butter
communications offerings that define most agent, VAR and
wholesale portfolios. It’s also a service that has been proven to
drive customer loyalty and reduce churn. From a customer ser-
vice perspective, channel partners can make it easier than ever
for customers to protect themselves.
And there’s much to be gained. According to Allied Market
Research, the global managed security services market is expected
to reach $29.9 billion by 2020, registering a CAGR of 15.8 per-
cent. The firm said that the cloud-based managed security ser-
vices (MSS) deployment model market will grow faster than the
market for remotely monitored customer premises equipment
MSS by 2020, with small- and medium-sized businesses leading
the adoption of cloud-based MSS due to cost constraints.
Among various data security applications, endpoint secu-
rity applications would grow at the fastest rate, with growing
adoption of BYOD policy at workplaces – a trend with a direct
correlation to IoT, as improvement in production efficiency
and enhanced employee satisfaction drives the utilization of
mobile devices for accessing corporate data anytime and any-
where. Secured information and event management (SIEM),
an emerging technology solution suitable for automatic col-
lection, correlation and analysis of log and alert data, would be
the next-popular application, the firm said.
Source: Accenture
Impact of security concerns on consumer attitude
towards loT devices and systems
24%
decided to postpone
purchasing an IoT
device
18%
decided to quit or terminate
an loT device or service till
they were assured of safety
21%
are not too concerned
about: s curi y breaches
such as hacker attacks
37%
decided to be more
cautious when using
loT devices and services
Source: Accenture
Consumers who intend to buy these
device in the next year (2016)
% point movement over last year (2015)
Smartphone
TV
Laptop computer
Tablet
Smartwatch
Wearable fitness monitor
Wearable health device
Home connected surveillance camera
In Vehicle automation system
In vehicle entertainment system
Smarthome thermostat
Home 3D printer
Personal drone
48%
30%
30%
29%
13%
13%
11%
11%
10%
10%
9%
8%
7%
-6%
-8%
-6%
-9%
1%
1%
1%
1%
0%
0%
0%
1%
1%
Source: Center for Disease Control; U.S. Census; Market Realists
Ma ket Share in Fixed Segment, 2013
100%
90%
80%
70%
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
Cable
Wireline
Others
Fixed broadband
Residential fixed voice
41%
56%
58%
37%
SoHo
(micro) Business
1-4 Emplyed; $0.2
Source: Trading E
1974
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January - February 2016