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Inmarsat: Skills shortages a top barrier to IIoT adoption

Technology

Skills shortages are putting a brake on IoT innovation, inhibiting the adoption of the technology and the effectiveness of IoT deployments across businesses, according to a research by Inmarsat

These findings underline how little progress has been made in addressing skills shortages since the company’s 2018 report pinpointed that the skills gap was top barrier to successful IoT deployments. This remains the case, with oil and gas organisations needing to do more to upskill, bring in new talent or work with outsourcers with the requisite skills.

According to the research, based on interviews with 450 global respondents across the agriculture, electrical utilities, mining, oil and gas and transport and logistics sectors, organisations don’t always have the skills they need to fully utilise their IoT projects.

A lack of in-house skills remains the top barrier to IoT deployment for over a third (34%) of oil and gas respondents in the study. In terms of the specific skill sets businesses need, over half (55%) of oil and gas respondents stated that they lacked cyber-security talent, equalled by a need for additional staff with experience and skills in connectivity technology (55%), data science and analytics (53%) and technical support (46%).

Many oil and gas businesses also lack the strategic IoT skills needed in the C-suite or senior leadership team to integrate fully IoT into their overall business strategies, with less than one in three (28%) of oil and gas respondents claiming to have all the skills needed at this level. Underlining the importance of having a strategic approach to IoT at leadership level and the right policies in place to support this, the research shows those oil and gas organisations with a formal IoT strategy have far more strategic support for IoT at board level (45%, compared to only 11% of those without one). 

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