Standards<\/strong><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\nThe development of IoT<\/strong> has suffered from a lack of standards in the market. Proprietary protocols and fragmented<\/strong> markets proved the rule rather than the exception. Without standards, IoT cannot mature. 2015 and 2016 have proved to be years of change and an inflection point as such. While on the customer market side the emergence of standards is still in its early stages, on the industrial side, in areas such street digitization or in new technologies such as standards emerge and certain protocols become de facto standards. With that said, a lot of work remains to be done and efforts in the market to \u201cself-standardize<\/strong>\u201d are delivering a huge boost to the overall development of IoT.<\/p>\n\n\n\n- Big Data<\/strong><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n
Big data has often been called \u201cthe new oil<\/strong>\u201d. Collecting and leveraging big data is becoming mainstream yet plenty of issues remain, especially in the public domain, with issues concerning ownership, privacy and cyber security<\/strong> hovering in the background. Who guards the data and guards the guardian? The private sector, as well as the government, cannot be solely trusted to provide the full orchestration of the governance of privacy-sensitive data<\/strong>. Sufficiently addressing this challenge is one of the most important organizational issues of our day and of our age.<\/p>\n\n\n\n- Security<\/strong><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n
Computer-generated security is on everybody\u2019s mind when addressing digitization. The world currently deals with 2.5 million cyber security<\/strong> threats per second. Understandably, 60 % of business leaders are reluctant to innovate due to cyber risks. Computer-generated security is an enormous challenge and yet also a great opportunity. Cisco positively views it that way and has become one of the world leaders in cyber security<\/strong>. No other organization knows better where each packet of data is sitting, where it\u2019s coming from and going to \u2013and whether it is supposed to be there in the first place. Cisco delivers security in the network rather than adding a solution on top of it. Cisco Talos monitors 600 billion<\/strong> emails\u00a0every day<\/em>. On average the detection of a common breach takes the affected organization 100 to 200 days to discover. Cisco does it on average in 17.5 hours.<\/p>\n\n\n\n- Skills & Jobs<\/strong><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n
Digitization and the request it is creating for the right professionals \u2013 engineers, network and solution architects, big data analysts etc. \u2013 is growing faster than educational institutes provide training. Europe is expected that 1.2 million IT related job vacancies<\/strong> will exist by the year 2020. It is an encounter, however yet again this also creates an opportunity \u2013 for universities, technical schools, governments and the tech industry. Cisco\u2019s Network Academy continually enrolls hundreds of thousands of professionals worldwide. The linkage academy has also become an important aspect of the Country Digitization Acceleration initiatives Cisco has launched in partnership with the governments of countries such as France, Germany, Italy, Mexico, and India.<\/p>\n\n\n\n- Proof of Value<\/strong><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n
All digitization efforts have technology at its core. What drives the adoption of these efforts, however, is not so much proof of concept, but\u00a0Proof of Value<\/em>. Many IoT solutions find themselves at a stage where the value is being proved \u2013 in monetary, social and environmental terms. Structure the suitable business architectures isn\u2019t just a challenge, it is an opportunity for many in the market \u2013 and it is happening at a fast pace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n- Understanding & Anticipating Impact<\/strong><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n
Digitization is triggering an economic revolution. In the words of Jeremy Rifkin, an acclaimed thought-leader in this area: \u201cThe Internet of Things<\/strong> is the first general purpose technology platform in history that can potentially take large parts of the economy to near zero marginal costs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n