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The Internet of Things has permeated the worlds of business, industry and consumers, but most projects remain limited in scope.

One of the biggest challenges facing those that wish to roll IoT out at scale is getting executive buy-in – and those leaders have a variety of concerns related to project management, connectivity and, of course, cybersecurity.

Here are the conclusions of a recent survey of more than 100 IoT decision makers performed by Internet of Things World, the world’s largest IoT conference covering every technology and catering to every vertical, combined with other key statistics from the IoT industry over the past 12 months.

Survey respondents included leaders across industries such as retail, supply chain/logistics, oil & gas/energy, construction, telecoms, agriculture, financial services, healthcare, manufacturing, transportation, ecommerce, travel and government.

IoT World 2018 Executive Survey

Nearly half (46.39%) of respondents say their company can handle up to 1,000 devices. A total of 27.84% can accommodate fewer than 100 devices. On the other end of the spectrum, 30.93% are confident that their company could handle 100,000 or more devices.

Managing Devices

Also telling was the fact that, of the international companies surveyed, half currently lack a global IoT strategy. Nearly a quarter of them are developing one, but 16.49% have yet to begin.

Growing Pains

The top challenges companies are facing in scaling IoT operations include:

Nearly half of the executives surveyed (46.94%) stated that implementation problems plagued their IoT solution projects while an additional 12.24% singled out the lack of the support for a production-quality deployment as a key hurdle.

Managing the cross-functional nature of IoT implementation vexes many organizations. Just determining who is responsible for an IoT project — whether operations, IT or the C-suite — can be tricky. Companies are choosing diverse strategies, with the largest group (32.65%) choosing to go create a business strategy team tasked with implementing IoT within the company. Trailing that, 27.55% of companies are asking IT to take the helm in leading this implementation.

What’s the latest on IoT security?

Much has been made of the need for data and network security in IoT projects. The good news is that 72.16% of respondents to our survey of IoT’s leaders are ensuring security is incorporated into the design and embedded into the product life cycle of the devices used. Further more, 61.86% are either developing an IoT security policy or enforcing one.

But on the other hand, fewer than two-thirds of respondents are staying up to date on security fixes and patches. The IT team is essential for IoT defense and needs to be trained to stay up-to-date on things like security patches, but over half (57.6%) of organizations aren’t training their IT staff on the latest IoT security mechanisms.

Also alarming is the fact that half of the respondents are not maintaining an inventory of connected devices and 43.4% are not conducting vulnerability testing to identify where the weak points are in the network and working to shut them down.

Deciphering Blockchain

While IoT security is still a front-and-center problem, blockchain is an intriguing potential solution. Currently, the centralized enterprise security model is struggling to meet the demands of IoT, but blockchain’s decentralized nature offers scalable with stronger data protections. That’s why early adopters are already doing some serious company soul searching about their future with blockchain. 46% are currently considering the use of blockchain technology in their IoT strategy.

For the companies that are seriously considering how to incorporate blockchain, IoT World’s recent survey of IoT leaders revealed the biggest potential benefits that would justify investing in this technology are:

Despite the hurdles outlined in this survey, the opportunity for the Internet of Things remains huge.