• by Chase Martin , October 10, 2016

Business executives involved in the Internet of Things say they are interested in improving customer relationships and some of them already are seeing results.

More than three quarters (85%) of business executives said that IoT products are a key focus of their organization, according to a new survey.

The Getting Connected Products Right study by Innovation Leader for Altitude, comprised a survey of 92 executives in businesses currently active in, interested in or developing connected products.

More than half (60%) of executives said they are currently developing their IoT strategy and more than a third (36%) already have launched products. Here is the breakdown of current stage of development for connected products:

• 60% -- Developing strategy
• 51% -- Exploring market opportunities
• 49% -- Developing products
• 36% -- Launched products
•  4% -- Abandoned IoT

Of those who have launched IoT products, a quarter (25%) of them said their project either exceeded expectations or was a ‘home run’ while 9% did not meet expectations. Here is the breakdown:

• 19% -- Met expectations

• 17% -- Not enough data yet
• 10% -- Home run, it inspired more activity
•  9% -- Did not meet expectations
•  5% -- Exceeded expectations

When it comes to measuring performance, the majority (67%) of executives said they are interested in establishing deeper customer relationships.

Here is the breakdown of IoT performance metrics that organizations are using or plan to use:

• 67% -- Deeper customer relationships
• 60% -- Revenue
• 54% -- Customer acquisition
• 44% -- Analyzing data for business decisions
• 38% -- Market insights

Another recent study, conducted by Harbor Research for Xively, found that the majority of product manufacturers with IoT initiatives already launched said they have seen business improvements in most of those areas.

Nearly all (95%) of product manufacturers that have launched IoT initiatives said they have seen improvements in customer insights and almost as many (88%) said IoT initiatives have improved customer relationships, according to that study.

Other areas that IoT initiatives have improved include customer support (93%), business efficiencies (92%), product performance (91%) and revenue (87%).

The Innovation Leader study found that there seems to be some uncertainty around IoT data.

Fewer than a third (29%) of executives said they have a plan to utilize the data collected from their IoT program and slightly more (33%) collect the data, but are not as confident in the plan to use it.

The same amount (33%) said they don’t use or don’t collect data from their IoT program.

The top area that executives said their organization needs help in is identifying IoT opportunities.