Cities around the world are looking for ways to benefit from smart city opportunities, and the Internet of Things (IoT) is set to account for about $265-billion of expenditure.
These are among the findings from the study “IDC Government Insights 2014 Predictions: Worldwide Smart Cities” that highlights market predictions for the year ahead.
The top 10 predictions are:
* In 2014,15% of cities in the world will be in the Opportunistic Stage of Smart City maturity;
* Shadow IT will be a major source of departmental level innovation but will threaten Smart City roadmaps;
* The key enabler of omni-channel citizen experience will be mobile;
* The business case for NextGen311 investment will be based on operational performance transformation value and not just customer service;
* Open data sets and open APIs will start to affect policy decision-making;
* Leading edge cities experiment with gamification as first step to nudge citizen behaviour change;
* Worldwide Smart City spending on the Internet of Things will be $265-billion in 2014;
* In 2014, Smart Cities will redirect 15% to 20% of traditional IT spending to the cloud;
* 45% of all big data use cases will be in financial performance, public safety, and transportation; and
* Competition heats up and there is significant M&A and partnership activity as vendors better define their offerings.
“This is going to be a big year for smart cities. Cities will move more quickly from research and evaluation to investment in pilots and the organizational structures to support Smart City initiatives,” says Ruthbea Yesner Clarke, research director of IDC Government Insights Smart Cities Strategies.
“We predict that in 2014 there will be a lot of partnership activity as vendors define their smart city offerings and strive to gain customer mindshare.”