What is the Internet of Things, and what is the importance of this technology worldwide?

Internet of things (IoT) is one of the most trending technologies today. In general, industries work to identify how their products and production can incorporate such technology and look for ways to benefit from this new trend.

Today, there is a widespread explosion in the use of the internet of things in various products, such as transportation, washing machine, refrigerator, lamp, television, toys, and medical apparatus. Technology has also been used in the production process to allow data collection and interaction with various production equipment, using sensors and actuators, respectively. It is essential to mention that in this case, the internet of things will be part of the entire supply chain in the industry, including even after-sales. In this scenario, it is commonly known as the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT).

It is known that the internet of things will become more and more part of the global society and, for this reason, one now talks about the internet of everything, where it would include the internet of things, the internet of people, and the internet of industrial things or industrial internet (Di Martino et al., 2018).

Some figures help to understand the global dimension that the internet of things is taking. The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) presents some statistics obtained directly from companies such as McKinsey Global Institute, Ericsson, and Cisco (OECD, 2018). For example, McKinsey estimates an economic potential for the Internet of Things between USD 3 trillion to USD 11 trillion per year in 2025. Ericsson forecasts that by 2022 there will be 29 billion connected devices, of which 18 billion will be related to IoT (OECD, 2018). it is worth mentioning that these numbers vary depending on the definition of the internet of things. The OECD (2018) itself calls attention to that fact when it says that “given that the IoT is part of an ecosystem with key enablers, it has proven challenging to find a sufficiently precise definition for measurement purposes” (OECD, 2018, p.12).

Considering the numbers and the increasing importance of that technology, it is necessary to study in-depth and understand the challenges to be faced globally to develop, deploy, maintain, and live with this new technology. As highlighted by the OECD (2018), the IoT is the next step in the convergence between information and communication technology, the economy, and society. Exponential growth is expected in the coming years and, for the organization, this transformation takes on a scale without precedents.