From Interpretation to Prediction

Recognizing the huge potential of the Internet of Things (IoT) in the industrial field, Deloitte surveyed 156 Chinese manufacturers to explore the present state, future trends and challenges of industrial IoT applications, including IoT solutions users and providers, and compiled the report "From Interpretation to Prediction-Unleashing the Value of the Industrial Internet of Things". More than half of the respondents are CEO, CFO, COO, CIO or CTO.

Key findings

The great potential of industrial IoT applications comes from a new source of value – information and insight, which is particularly different from products and services. And its business value will increase efficiency, promote business growth and enhance risk management. The status quo and future trends of China’s manufacturing IoT applications include:

• While China's manufacturers recognize the importance of industrial IoT, they have not established clear-cut IoT strategies. 89% of the companies surveyed believe industrial IoT is critical to business success in the next five years. While 72% have started industrial IoT applications in one form or another, only 46% have established clear-cut industrial IoT strategies and plans.
• Manufacturers are still at the beginning phase of data application and the shift from interpretation to prediction takes time. The companies surveyed remain in the perception stage of data application, and have not reached the action phase yet. Most companies are collecting data to interpret patterns of historical performance and the root causes, rather than to support predictive decision-making analysis.
• Manufacturing IoT applications are mainly driven by efficiency improvement, revenue growth and risk management promotion. Optimizing supply chain (74%) is considered the primary approach for efficiency improvement, enhancing customer experience (72%) for revenue growth, and improving product security (77%) for better risk management. (* The survey question on this key finding is not a single chose question, thus the percentage does not add up.)
• The focus of future industrial IoT applications will shift from equipment and assets to products and customers. When it comes to the demands of data, 69% of the companies chose the products data while 61% selected the customer data, surpassing the operational data (53%), sales data (53%) and assets and equipment data (42%).
• Companies surveyed point out three biggest challenges in applying industrial IoT technologies, which are the lack of interoperability standards, data ownership and security as well as under-qualified operators. 52% of the companies surveyed believe the lack of interoperability standards is one of the major challenges in applying industrial IoT technologies, 46% believe it is the problem of ownership and security of data, and 42% believe it is the lack of qualified technical personnel.