IoT will be a gold mine for channel resellers in 2017

Dell EMC’s latest reseller study has revealed that IoT will set the channel alight in 2017, with adoption rates soaring over the last 12 months. According to the data, over three quarters of resellers have seen their customers’ businesses being influenced by IoT technologies on a daily basis, particularly within the small to medium enterprise segment.

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The survey, carried out amongst UK based resellers, highlighted the substantial revenue opportunities for resellers from IoT technology in 2017, with 76 per cent of partners revealing a significant uplift in IoT related sales over the past 12 months. Though the figures vary across vertical sectors, 66 per cent of respondents stated that IoT revenues had increased by up to 30 per cent in the last financial year.

Retail leading the way

When resellers were asked about which sectors had been quickest to adopt IoT, retail received 35 per cent of nominations, demonstrating the diversity of IoT within that industry as well as the significant potential for profit for channel partners. Interestingly, banking and finance came next with 29 per cent and manufacturing followed with 23 per cent. These results clearly show that IoT’s flexibility and long term benefits are a key driver in adoption across a wide range of vertical markets, as businesses battle to stand out from the competition and offer the very best technology solutions to customers.

“Resellers are increasingly reporting IoT as an opportunity for extensive business growth and expansion,” said Sarah Shields, vice president and general manager, Channel, Dell EMC UK. “Rapid adopters in the technology, retail, finance and manufacturing sectors have been able to deploy IoT technology in small-scale applications such as wearable and wireless monitoring devices to access the business benefits.

“The increased popularity of IoT across vertical markets demonstrates the current demand for innovative solutions and the changing face of the modern marketplace. IoT presents endless opportunities and it is extremely exciting to see strong adoption across the board both now and for 2017.”

Falling Behind

Whilst some sectors represent great growth areas for resellers, only 11 per cent of respondents cited demand for IoT from the public sector, falling to 10 per cent and 7 per cent for the oil and gas and telecommunications sectors respectively.

Frequently in these sectors, greater regulation and complexity around implementing new technology can slow the adoption of innovative solutions. An extra step that some industries – such as rail and oil and gas – face is the requirement for a certified engineer to deploy IoT technologies. Of the 71 per cent of resellers that were aware of this requirement, nearly three quarters (70 per cent) believed that this significantly delayed the deployment of IoT projects in the field.