Winning with the
Industrial Internet
of Things
How to accelerate the journey
to productivity and growth
2 Winning with the Industrial Internet of Things
Seizing the opportunity
Just when you thought
the digital revolution was too
focused on consumers, along
comes the Industrial Internet
of Things (IIoT). Arguably the
biggest driver of productivity
and growth in the next decade,
this latest wave of digital
innovation will accelerate
the reinvention of sectors that
account for almost two-thirds
of world output.1
Accenture estimates it could add
US$14.2 trillion to the global economy
by 2030,2 and that there will be
particularly significant gains for
the real gross domestic product (GDP)
of mature economies.
Contrary to conventional wisdom,
Accenture research suggests that this
next generation of digital technology will
also benefit workforces of the future by
augmenting skills and redefining tasks.
The potential economic benefits of the IIoT
may be massive, but they are by no means
guaranteed. Realizing returns begs two
key questions: Are companies prepared
to take full advantage of this opportunity?
Are governments putting the right
conditions in place to facilitate progress
and capture benefits?
Although a few pioneers are reaping
rewards from their early investments,
widespread adoption is hampered by major
challenges. Accenture analysis reveals that
many CEOs may be overconfident about
their readiness for the IIoT. It also shows
that many countries lack the full spectrum
of enabling conditions required to spur
the application of these new technologies
across their economies.
As the world struggles to emerge
from a phase of weak productivity
growth, fragile employment and pockets
of inadequate demand, the IIoT offers
a chance to redefine many sectors and
accelerate economic and employment
growth. However, to seize these
opportunities, businesses and
governments must intensify their
efforts and escalate investments.
The Industrial Internet of Things is a network of physical
objects, systems, platforms and applications that contain
embedded technology to communicate and share intelligence
with each other, the external environment and with people.
The adoption of the IIoT is being enabled by the improved
availability and affordability of sensors, processors and
other technologies that have helped facilitate capture
of and access to real-time information.
Winning with the Industrial Internet of Things 3
Securing economic growth
The raw technical conditions
for the widespread adoption of
the IIoT are highly favorable. The
number of sensors and devices
on which the IIoT depends has
already reached tens of billions.
There is a difference, however, between
the availability of these technologies
and capitalizing on their full potential
by applying them effectively within
organizations, through entire supply
chains and across multiple industries.
Consider the emergence of electric power
at the turn of the last century. Electricity did
not become mainstream or transformative
until the United States took the lead
in embedding it across the wider economy.
It was one thing to light the streets;
it was another to reinvent factories around
powered assembly lines, retrain workers
and standardize manufacturing processes.
The substantial boost to productivity laid
the foundations for entirely new markets.
The United States' head start in electricity
gave the nation an advantage in developing
and leading a range of related sectors,
from the light bulb and domestic appliances,
to automotive, semiconductors or software.
Likewise, if the IIoT is to generate economic
growth, company and country leaders will
have to think unconventionally as the rules
of competition, production and service
delivery change. Accenture estimates that
the IIoT will lift real gross domestic product
(that is, adjusted for inflation) by 1.0 percent
in 2030 over trend projections for 20 major
economies studied. And if those economies
were to increase their IIoT investments by
50 percent and improve the underlying
enabling conditions in their respective
countries, this could rise from 1.0 percent
to 1.5 percent in that year. Looked at
collectively in 2030, Brazil, Russia, India
and China (BRICs) will see corresponding
increments to annual GDP of 0.2 percent
on average and, with enhanced investments
and measures, 0.5 percent.
In particular, Accenture estimates that
China looks set to see greater economic
gains from the IIoT than Russia, India or
Brazil. With IIoT-enhancing measures in
place, China could see its cumulative GDP
rise by US$1.8 trillion by 2030, raising
its GDP in 2030 by 1.3 percent over
trend projections.
The United States' economy will gain
US$6.1 trillion in cumulative GDP by 2030.
By taking additional measures, for instance,
to improve the country's broadband
infrastructure, this figure could rise to
US$7.1 trillion. This could mean that the
United States' annual GDP is 2.3 percent
higher than trend projections in 2030.
Including additional efforts and investments,
Germany could lift its cumulative GDP
by US$700 billion and the United Kingdom
by US$531 billion within the next 15 years.3
This would raise German gross domestic
product and United Kingdom gross domestic
product by 1.7 and 1.8 percent, respectively,
in 2030 over trend projections.
How can this economic uplift be achieved?
By 2030, the Industrial Internet of Things could be worth (US dollars)2
$7.1
trillion to the
United States
$1.8
trillion to China
$700
billion to Germany
$531
billion to the
United Kingdom
4 Winning with the Industrial Internet of Things
Creating the outcome economy
Today, the IIoT is helping
to improve productivity,
reduce operating costs
and enhance worker safety.
For example, in the petroleum
industry wearable devices
sense dangerous chemicals
and unmanned aerial vehicles
can inspect remote pipelines.
However, the longer-term economic
and employment potential will require
companies to establish entirely new
product and service hybrids that disrupt
their own markets and generate fresh
revenue streams. Many of these will
underpin the emergence of the "outcome
economy,"4 where organizations shift from
selling products to delivering measurable
outcomes. These may range from guaranteed
energy savings in commercial buildings
to guaranteed crop yields in a specific
parcel of farmland (Figure 1).
The path to the
outcome economy
At Marathon Oil refineries
employees wear a wireless
multi-gas detector that tracks
exposure to harmful gases.
Plant managers can monitor
status, location and safety
of all employees on site and
individuals press a panic
button to call for help.
Source: Helping Achieve High
Performance Safety Using Intelligent
Industrial Mobility, Accenture, 2013.
Source: Caterpillar pushes dealers
missing out on billions in sales each
year to increase use of telematics
data, by Wayne Grayson, Equipment
World, May 21, 2014.
Source: Big Data Comes to the
Farm, Sowing Mistrust Seed Makers
Barrel Into Technology Business,
by Jacob Bunge, Wall Street Journal,
February 25, 2014.
Source: www.monsanto.com
Monsanto used mapping data
on all 25 million farming fields
in America by field shape,
type of crop, crop yields, soil
capacity and other critical
metrics. By adding that data
to Monsanto's data on seed
yields, farmers can better
understand which seeds
will grow best in which fields
and under what conditions.
In Europe, the 365FarmNet
brings together equipment
makers Claas, Rauch, Horsch
and Amazonen-Werke, with
Bayer, financial services giant,
Allianz, the European Global
Navigation Satellite Systems
Agency and others to provide
farmers with access to data and
analysis on diagnostics, crops,
fertilizers and other factors
important to improving
crop yield.
Caterpillar has started using
industrial analytics to help its
dealers succeed. The company
harnesses and analyzes data
from its machines, engines
and services and transmits the
resulting insights to dealers,
enabling them to anticipate
problems, proactively schedule
maintenance and help
customers manage their
fleets more efficiently.
Figure 1.
PRODUCTIVITY
SERVICE-CENTRIC
SAFETY
EFFICIENCY
THE OUTCOME
ECONOMY
Winning with the Industrial Internet of Things 5
How ready are companies?
It is clear that many companies are not
ready to take advantage of the outcome
economy. When Accenture surveyed
more than 1,400 C-suite decision
makersincluding 736 CEOsfrom some
of the world's largest companies, the
vast majority (84 percent) believe their
organizations have the capability to create
new, service-based income streams from
the IIoT.5 But scratch beneath the surface
and the gloss comes off. Seventy-three
percent confess that their companies
have yet to make any concrete progress.
Just 7 percent have developed
a comprehensive strategy with
investments to match.
Similarly, CEOs and executives express
remarkable confidence (96 percent)
that the senior leadership in their
organizations grasp at least something
of the nature of the IIoT. But far fewer
say their leaders have completely
understood it (38 percent).
And even this percentage seems to reflect
a degree of overconfidence. Accenture,
in collaboration with the Industrial
Internet Consortium (IIC) undertook
a World Economic Forum Industrial
Internet Impact Survey among more than
90 market leaders,6 those who are actively
pursuing IIoT initiatives. The vast majority
(88 percent) said that they still do not fully
understand the underlying business models
and long-term implications of the IIoT.
These conflicting opinions underscore
uncertainty around the IIoT. Accenture
argues that many companies do not
comprehend its full potential and that
most are not primed for the fundamental
shifts required to deliver hybrid products and
services in an outcome-focused economy.
If companies are to move from recognizing
the potential of the IIoT to taking action,
they need to improve their understanding
through early experimentation and pilots
with a range of partners.
Commitment to the Industrial Internet of
Things: 73 percent of businesses have yet
to make concrete progress. Only 7 percent
have developed a comprehensive strategy.
Source: From Productivity to Outcomes: Using the Internet of Things
to drive future business strategies, Accenture 2015.
6 Winning with the Industrial Internet of Things
Are countries laying
the right foundations?
The evolution of electricity shows us that technological diffusion
is not the same as its economic diffusion. Only once the technology
behind the IIoT combines with a number of broader social, economic
and political enabling factors can countries make the most of their
productive and innovative potential. These factors are complex,
often indirect and not always under the control of the private sector.
Accenture terms these enabling factors that
explain the extent to which countries have
woven the IIoT into their economic fabric as
a country's "national absorptive capacity"
(NAC). Our ranking of major economies on
this metric can help spur policymakers into
action.7 It can also help guide multinational
companies looking for suitable locations in
which to invest their various production and
service operations.
The ranking model incorporates four
measures of a country's enabling factors.
The business commons includes reliable
banking and finance, education, good
governance and a healthy network of
suppliers. A category of take-off
factors includes the levels of research
and development (R&D), the presence
of high-tech companies and the degree
of technology skills.
The wide diffusion of technology
requires effective transfer factors, such
as the level of social and end-user
acceptance, the willingness to embrace
organizational change and an ability to
respond to the impacts on human capital.
Finally, a group of characteristics determine
a country's ability to reach a level we term
as the self-sustaining innovation dynamo,
when the ubiquity of IIoT technology acts
as a multiplier effect on existing levels
of entrepreneurialism and the ability
to commercialize new ideas.
The Accenture ranking reveals three
broad groups: in the first group, the
United States, Switzerland, the Nordic
countries and the Netherlands have
the most conducive environments.
In the second group, Brazil, India and
Russia are joined by Spain and Italy as
those countries that have weaker enabling
environments. Finally, the remaining group
are among the world's leading economies
that form a middle-performing cohort
(Figure 2).
A country with a NAC score of 100
would be the top performer on each
of the 55 indicators compared to the other
study countries. Overall, the results show
that no one country has achieved this level
of NAC. In other words, every country
has work to do.
The NAC Index
Figure 2. Rankings of countries' Industrial Internet of Things enabling factors
Source: Accenture and Frontier Economics
UNITED STATESSWITZERLANDFINLANDSWEDENNORWAYNETHERLANDSDENMARKUNITED KINGDOMJAPANGERMANYAUSTRALIASOUTH KOREACANADACHINAFRANCESPAINBRAZILITALYINDIARUSSIA64.0 63.9 63.2 62.4 61.8 59.0 58.8
55.0 54.4 54.3 54.1 52.2 50.9
47.1 45.7
33.0 32.4 31.3 29.9
21.3
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
100
90
80
NAC SCORE
Winning with the Industrial Internet of Things 7
Contrary to some accounts of the growing threat from
intelligent machines, the IIoT will make people's work
more engaging and productive.
Eighty-seven percent of business leaders
believe that the IIoT will result in the net
creation of jobs.8 Intelligent machines
will automate mundane tasks, freeing up
workers to perform more creative and
collaborative work with wider networks
of people and machines. For example,
real-time data access will enable today's
blue collar workers to jointly analyze and
adjust the performance of drill equipment
in a mine or design products more iteratively
with the use of rapid 3D printed prototypes.
The IIoT will augment work through
innovations, such as wearable technology.
Global positioning system (GPS) navigation
is an early example. Accenture and Royal
Philips have created a proof-of-concept
demonstration that uses a Google Glass
head-mounted display for researching ways
to improve the effectiveness and efficiency
of performing surgical procedures.9
This solution could provide physicians
with hands-free access to critical clinical
information. Theoretically transferable
to other industries, the application could
be used to help field engineers repair
equipment with which they are unfamiliar,
for instance.

As IIoT growth takes hold, the need for
talent will intensify. What is more, entirely
new categories of jobs will be created:
in digital medicine and precision agriculture,
for example. The demand for digital literacy
will be at a premium, with new skills
required in specialist roles from digital
robot design and management to transport
network engineering and data analytics.






As digital technology blurs or removes
organizational boundaries, it will create
more flexible workplaces that will appeal
to sought-after Millennials and other
groups that will be required to deliver new
customer-oriented services. The impact will
be felt on the workforce at every level and
will require greater delegation by leadership
and more decentralized decision making
by individual employees.
Good news for the workforce of the future
8 Winning with the Industrial Internet of Things
Three accelerators to
productivity and growth
Given the clear impact of national enabling conditions on
a country's ability to take advantage of the IIoT, government
action will be important. It will be a balancing act.
To accelerate the IIoT, countries require
"hard" capabilities, such as digital
infrastructure, and "soft" technology skills
and upskilling programs that depend on
investmentin industries, data and people.
Business should play its part in identifying
the deficiencies in education, capital,
technology or institutional frameworks,
and ensure that policy action focuses
on a balance of factors that can amplify
existing competitive advantages.
Governments can support directly by
bringing together the public, private and
education sectors in the promotion of
pilots that fast track innovation while
reducing the investment risks.
Winning with the Industrial Internet of Things 9
Reimagine industry models
If every product is connected and enables
a new service, reinventing industry
practices and business models becomes
paramount. As companies embark on
a journey that begins with using the IIoT
to improve efficiencies, and progresses
to creating outcome-oriented, product-
service hybrids, they will need to plan each
stage. How can their efforts for improving
asset utilization, for example, be used as a
platform for new services? Will a company
gain most value by offering its own data
to an ecosystem of partners, or from
incorporating third-party data to enhance
its own services? Should a company invest
in its own platform or join existing industry
platforms? How will its partnerships
evolve as a consequence?
Capitalize on the value of data
The power of the IIoT comes not only from
generating insightful data from physical
objects, but also from sharing it between
players within supply chains and cross-
industry consortia. According to a survey
undertaken by Accenture and GE,10
73 percent of companies are already
investing more than 20 percent of their
overall technology budget on big data
analytics. That shift requires new technical
and management skills. Further, it demands
a cultural willingness to streamline data
flow, not only within enterprises, but also
between them. Companies must create
new financial and governance models to
share the rewards of using common data.
Interoperability and security are identified
as the greatest hurdles to progress by two-
thirds of those companies actively pursuing
IIoT initiatives, according to a survey by
Accenture, the World Economic Forum
and the Industrial Internet Consortium.11
Collaborators should establish their
own processes and tests to improve
interoperability while establishing common
security frameworks. Governments need
to work across borders with business and
other stakeholders to agree who owns data,
what can be shared and how liabilities will
be handled across jurisdictions.
Prepare for the future of work
An overwhelming majority of executives
(94 percent) believe that the increasing
use of smart products and robotics will
change the required skill and job mix in
the workforce of the future.11 Decision
making can be devolved to workers
empowered by valuable data, while the
design and creative process could become
more iterative and experimental. Employees
may have to develop working relationships
with intelligent machines. And continuous
learning could replace traditional training
as technologies and business practices
evolve quickly.
Managers will have to be willing to
collapse hierarchies and silos and open
up to extended workforces beyond their
own walls. Such an approach demands
a new culture and tolerance of autonomy.
Leaders must also accept the demand for
individually tailored working environments
and experiences by creative and dispersed
workforces, while maintaining core
values and a common purpose within
their organizations.
Companies will have to establish digital
platforms to create global talent exchanges
that address skills shortages. Digital tools
will also accelerate skills development and
support a continuous learning culture.
Companies will need to reassess their
organizational structures and operations.
Thanks to technologies such as 3D printing
and micro-assembly, in some quarters,
the IIoT will reverse today's trend of
centralized manufacturing and localized
services, requiring the reconfiguration of
operations and talent.
For businesses, three key areas need to be addressed to accelerate the
economy-wide, cross-industry application of the IIoT:
10 Winning with the Industrial Internet of Things
Relevant reading
Read more about the Industrial Internet of Things
The Growth
Game-Changer:
How the Industrial
Internet of Things
can drive progress
and prosperity,
Accenture, 2015
Industrial Internet of
Things: Unleashing
the potential of
connected products
and services, World
Economic Forum
in association with
Accenture, 2015
Industrial Internet
Insights Report
For 2015, GE and
Accenture, 2014
Driving
Unconventional
Growth through
the Industrial
Internet of Things,
Accenture, 2014
From Productivity
to Outcomes:
Using the Internet
of Things to drive
future business
strategies,
Accenture, 2015
CEO Briefi ng 2015
From Productivity
to Outcomes
Using the Internet of Things
to drive future business strategies
Winning with the Industrial Internet of Things 11
Contact us
Paul Daugherty is Accenture's chief
technology officer and also leads the
Accenture Technology Innovation &
Ecosystem groups.
E-mail: paul.r.daugherty@accenture.com
Follow him on Twitter @pauldaugh
Bruno Berthon is managing
director-Accenture Strategy,
Digital Strategy Lead.
E-mail: bruno.berthon@accenture.com
Follow him on Twitter @BFB61
References
1. Copyright Oxford Economics Ltd. Global Industry Databank, accessed on June 12, 2014.
2. Accenture analysis in collaboration with Frontier Economics.
3.
The Growth Game-Changer: How the Industrial Internet of Things can drive progress and prosperity,
Accenture 2015. www.accenture.com/iiot
4.
Industrial Internet of Things: Unleashing the potential of connected products and services,
World Economic Forum in association with Accenture, 2015. www.accenture.com/iiot
5.
From Productivity to Outcomes: Using the Internet of Things to drive future business strategies,
Accenture, 2015.
6.
Survey participants were either members of the IIC, or on the Steering Committees for the IoT World Forum
by Cisco, the Industrie 4.0 or the WEF Industrial Internet Working Group. www.accenture.com/iiot
7.
The Growth Game-Changer: How the Industrial Internet of Things can drive progress and prosperity,
Accenture 2015. www.accenture.com/iiot
8.
From Productivity to Outcomes: Using the Internet of Things to drive future business strategies,
Accenture 2015.
9. http://newsroom.accenture.com/news/philips-collaborates-with-accenture-to-create-first-proof-of-
concept-for-delivering-vital-patient-data-via-google-glass.htm
10. Industrial Internet Insights Report for 2015, GE and Accenture. www.accenture.com/iiot
11. Industrial Internet of Things: Unleashing the potential of connected products and services, World Economic
Forum in association with Accenture, 2015. www.accenture.com/iiot
About Accenture
Accenture is a global management consulting, technology services and outsourcing
company, with approximately 319,000 people serving clients in more than 120 countries.
Combining unparalleled experience, comprehensive capabilities across all industries and
business functions, and extensive research on the world's most successful companies,
Accenture collaborates with clients to help them become high-performance businesses
and governments. The company generated net revenues of US$30.0 billion for the fiscal
year ended Aug. 31, 2014. Its home page is www.accenture.com.
Copyright 2015 Accenture
All rights reserved.
Accenture, its logo, and
High Performance Delivered
are trademarks of Accenture.
This document is intended for general informational purposes only and does not take
into account the reader's specific circumstances, and may not reflect the most current
developments. Accenture disclaims, to the fullest extent permitted by applicable law, any
and all liability for the accuracy and completeness of the information in this document
and for any acts or omissions made based on such information. Accenture does not
provide legal, regulatory, audit, or tax advice. Readers are responsible for obtaining such
advice from their own legal counsel or other licensed professionals.