International Data Corporation (IDC) has announced that its Internet of Things Roadshow will be visiting South African shores in February 2016, with the country’s inaugural event set to take place at the Radission Blu hotel in Johannesburg.
Providing a platform for South Africa’s ICT community to discuss the latest goings on across the Internet of Things (IoT) landscape, the event will assess the progress that is being made at the local, regional, and global levels.
“The era of the Internet of Things is here, and the potential for the associated technologies to radically transform individual businesses and society as a whole is huge,” says Mark Walker, associate vice-president at IDC Sub-Saharan Africa. “With IoT, organisations can enhance their operations to gain real-time insights, improve their efficiencies, develop new business models, and deliver innovative services to customers, partners, and employees alike.
“However, the IoT industry is facing a number of challenges that are hindering its growth, such as skill shortages, a lack of standardisation, and concerns around security and privacy, so there is a pressing need for all IoT stakeholders to gather together to plot a mutually beneficial path for future success.”
Drawing on its most recent survey findings, IDC believes we are now entering a crucial period for educating the wider IoT ecosystem on its inherent benefits. “IDC’s ‘Global IoT Survey’ indicates that IoT deployments are still in their early stages, with only one-third of planned endpoints already connected,” says Walker. “As such, the next 18 months represent a critical window for vendors to implement strategies and position themselves as IoT thought leaders. In order to secure a key role in the future IoT arena, vendors should focus on building attractive capabilities around consulting and professional services, while simultaneously developing a broad IoT ecosystem of partners.”
During the Internet of Things Roadshow in Johannesburg, keynote speakers from South Africa’s most innovative companies will share the lessons they have learned from their own IoT deployments, dissecting the challenges they encountered along the way and outlining the innovative solutions they used to overcome them. Industry experts from some of the world’s leading IoT players – including the event’s Diamond Partner, Samsung – will also be on hand to document the technological advancements being made across a wide variety of different domains.
Delegates will be drawn from across South Africa’s vertical spectrum, with the government, transportation, manufacturing, healthcare, oil and gas, banking, energy, retail, mining, and automotive sectors all set to be heavily represented. The conference will provide insights into a range of existing and emerging vertical-specific applications and will present attendees with a clear outlook on the trends that are set to shape IoT adoption in South Africa over the coming years, with a particular focus on the role of big data and new approaches to data processing and analytics.