This document introduces an IoT maturity model developed by Microsoft Services to help organizations assess their IoT capabilities and maturity. The model evaluates three capabilities - People, Technology, and Business - across four levels of maturity from Emerging to Optimized. The assessment provides recommendations to help organizations improve their IoT adoption and maximize the impact of their IoT investments.

1. Internet of Things Maturity
Model (IoTMM)
This maturity model is a response to an underlying issue encountered in Microsoft Services’
experiences working with large and global organizations on their IoT deployments.
Published: February 2018
Author: Pablo Junco, Senior Business Program Manager at Microsoft Services
For the latest information, please see www.InternetofYourThings.com

2. IoT Maturity Model (IoTMM) | Page 1
The Internet of Things or IoT is driving the revolution in the manufacturing industry and is at the heart
of digital transformation across many industries such as Transportation or Retail to name just a few of
them.
The trends driving digital transformation include business, people, technology, and generational
factors. Markets and consumers are quickly experimenting with new technologies and businesses as
the time between hype and adoption has shortened. In response, organizations are digitally
transforming their business models to shift how they deliver value and drive revenue fundamentally.
Organizations are looking to enhanced customer experiences as a key strategic differentiator.
The IoT Adoption in Microsoft’s Customers Digital Transformation Journey whitepaper summarizes the
IoT customer journey in three stages, each of them with clear business outcomes from cost saving to
an enhanced customer experience monetizing exiting investments.
Figure 1: Three main stages of a customer journey with IoT
More information here: https://aka.ms/IoT-DT-Journey-WhitePager
Understanding the customer journey is an important step but, organizations also need a simplified
approach to recognize their IoT maturity level and get recommendations to use the IoT technology to
empower their innovation and potentially, improve business processes starting where they are today.
This paper describes Microsoft Services’ approach to understanding the IoT maturity level across
organizations. As you will see, the model provides a framework that encompasses four levels and three
capabilities that can be used to understand, manage and maximize the impact of IoT investments.
Executive Summary

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Contents
Introduction........................................................................................................................................................................3
Why an IoT Maturity Model? .........................................................................................................................................4
What is the IoT Maturity Model? ..................................................................................................................................4
The IoT Maturity Model Framework ............................................................................................................................5
Capabilities.....................................................................................................................................................................5
Levels ...............................................................................................................................................................................6
Detailed View.................................................................................................................................................................6
Recommendations and Roadmap...........................................................................................................................7
Call to Action......................................................................................................................................................................9

4. IoT Maturity Model (IoTMM) | Page 3
Introduction
The Internet of Things (IoT) is changing the business landscape and Azure IoT is an industry leader,
driving positive change by empowering organizations to achieve more by gaining new insights into
their data and acting on those insights.
“Microsoft will invest $5 billion in the Internet of Things over the next four years. Our goal is to
give every customer the ability to transform their businesses, and the world at large, with
connected solutions.”
— Julia White, Corporate Vice President, Azure
IoT offers a tremendous opportunity to help organizations to transform operations, potentially improve
operational efficiency, and to enhance customer experience with new business models. Azure IoT is a
comprehensive platform that covers device connectivity, device management, gateways, advanced
analytics, and command & control functionality. All through solutions that span the Intelligent Cloud
and the Intelligent Edge. Azure IoT is already in production with millions of devices sending trillions of
messages a month.
To get the full potential of the technology, organizations should determine how ready they are for
implementing IoT in their process and products. In this document you will find the maturity model
developed by Microsoft Services to help organizations to understand where their IoT platform
maturity stands and to provide recommendations to start thinking about what they can do to expand
their capabilities with IoT.
Figure 2: Microsoft Services’ IoT Maturity Model

5. IoT Maturity Model (IoTMM) | Page 4
Why an IoT Maturity Model?
The overall goal of the IoT Maturity Model is to help organizations use the IoT technology to enable
innovation and to improve business processes, providing value to their businesses and customers. By
gaining an understanding of the current capabilities, especially in comparation to the market,
organizations could understand their current maturity, areas of strength, opportunities of
improvements, and most importantly – make an informed decision regarding their target maturity level,
the desired benefits/outcome, and the investments required to achieve their goals.
It allows organizations to make more targeted investments, which offer the greatest potential for
achieving the desired return-on-investment and business value. The IoT Maturity Model specifically
focuses on technical capabilities and maturity and is thus used to inform the technical roadmap for the
organization.
Also, organizations could identify training opportunities based on their maturity level and leverage the
existing training courses and online materials to increase their people skills and capabilities.
What is the IoT Maturity Model?
The Microsoft IoT Maturity Model (IoTMM) is a systematic approach to measuring IoT adoption,
capabilities, and value realization across an organization. The IoTMM was built with a bottoms-up,
outside-in and inside-out approach to enable digital transformation by converting data to action
without compromising the security of the lifecycle of IoT data, and business processes.
The model described in this document is industry-agnostic, can be used with any organization, and
focuses on helping you to understand your current IoT maturity level and receive recommendations to
improve your IoT capabilities to maximize the business impact of your IoT investments.

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The IoT Maturity Model Framework
The IoT Maturity Model Framework assesses an organization’s level of IoT Maturity based on its
capabilities across three dimensions: people, technology and business.
Capabilities
It is important to look at a holistic picture when assessing an organization’s level of maturity, which is
why the assessment is based on three equally important capabilities, defined below:
Table 1: Capabilities of the Microsoft Services’ IoT Maturity Model
All three capabilities should be assessed in the same manner, regardless of the context in which the
assessment is conducted.
Capability High Level Description and Key Questions
People Assesses the degree to which an organization’s human capital capabilities are an enabler
to successful implementation and usage of IoT.
• Are the right people with the right knowledge, skills, and experience in place to
successfully implement and use IoT?
• Does the culture support taking risks, trying new things, and adapting quickly?
• Does the organizational structure and design include roles dedicated to IoT and
enable cross-functional collaboration and efficient handoffs between groups?
• Does the organization have the right level of awareness regarding IoT, and
understand the business imperative?
• Does IoT have support at the executive level?
Technology This capability assesses the organization existing infrastructure and technical architecture
to support IoT solutions.
• Does the existing infrastructure, hardware, and technical architecture support
IoT, or are there specific plans in place to move towards a technical structure
which does enable IoT?
• Are both Information Technology (IT) and Operational Technology (OT) in place
and aligned with a cohesive IoT technical strategy?
• Has an integrated platform for IoT been defined and implemented?
Business At the end of the day, all technology (including IoT) must align to business objectives.
This capability assesses the degree to which an iterative and beneficial relationship
between technology, business, and people has been established.
• Has an overall IoT strategy been defined in a way which aligns to the
organization’s overall vision, mission, and strategy?
• Is there an annual or more frequent planning process which aligns IoT
capabilities and objectives to business objectives?
• Have IoT objectives been defined in business terms?
• Have specific use cases been developed?
• Is there a process in place by which to measure the benefits of IoT, and have
examples of success been shared with the broader business to build support for
expansion?

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Levels
The levels represent an organization’s overall degree of maturity based on its scores within each
capability. Generally, the overall score will be based on the least mature of the three respective
capabilities (for instance if an organization is rated as Managed for People and Technology but
Emerging for Business, the overall rating would be Emerging).
As you might anticipate, the journey from Emerging to Managed would be quicker and easier for such
an organization than for one which rate as Emerging in all three categories. It is important for
organizations to understand that it is not a bad thing to be at an earlier level of maturity. The levels
simply represent different stages of the journey for different organizations, and there will be some
natural variation based on industry, organization size and strength, business strategy, etc.
The overall levels of maturity are defined below, along with their general characteristics:
Table 2: Levels of the Microsoft Services’ IoT Maturity Model
Level High Level Characteristics
1.
Emerging
• Beginning to envision IoT and its potential benefits to the organization
• Assessments of tools and processes may be started, but no formal IoT program
(or concrete plans to implement one)
2.
Managed
• IoT program has been initiated, e.g., Proof of Concept (evaluation of technology)
in place
• Extracting data and connecting devices to acquire real time analytics
• Complete scope of IoT is not clearly defined
3.
Advanced
• IoT program is in place including the key metrics well-defined
• Governance defined, and process and tools established
4.
Optimized
• Fully aware of the strategic value of IoT and has the programs and infrastructure
to support it
• IoT is interwoven with the business and technology
Detailed View
The following provides a detailed view of each maturity level, including details for each of the three
capabilities.

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Table 3: Mapping capabilities with levels of the Microsoft Services’ IoT Maturity Model
Level Capabilities
People Technology Business
1.
Emerging
• Resources are
managed in ad
hoc manner
• Limited IoT
technical experts,
structure, and/or
Informational
Technology (IT)
integrators
identified
• No formal technology
alignment in place
• IoT viewed separately
from IT infrastructure
and architecture and
Operational
Technology (OT)
software
• Vision defined but not the benefits
and the Return-on-Investment (ROI)
• Evaluating solutions to get data
telemetry from their devices or
gateways
2.
Managed
• Proactively
identifying IoT
Service providers
• Establishing group
of professionals
interested in IoT
• Technology
development
confined in siloes or in
units
• IoT projects have
narrow focus
• Clarity around potential benefits of
IoT – e.g., cost/ benefit analysis
performed, and budget approved
• IoT projects are defined and under
evaluation
3.
Advanced
• Personnel in place
to develop, deploy
and manage IoT
• IoT center or org is
a key area of IT
• IoT services are
actively managed and
reported on
• Beginning to support
scalability to manage
IoT
• The business is moving toward real-
time, data-driven optimization
based on IoT capabilities
4.
Optimized
• IoT staff is an
extension of
existing IT groups
• Business units can
deploy IoT projects
and programs
rapidly
• Technology
infrastructure is in
place for adding to
existing capabilities
• IoT framework
supports the
architecture goals
• Assessment of maturity of IoT is
always evolving
• Gaps are continually defined, and
plans put in place to improve
Recommendations and Roadmap
The goal of any maturity assessment is to provide concrete and actionable recommendations, along
with the corresponding Microsoft offers and solutions which are best suited to help you in your IoT
adoption journey.
The overall framework for providing recommendations is based on results of the current and targeted
maturity level for each category. Once the assessment is complete, the recommendations will be
based on each level of maturity and each capability (People, Technology and Business).

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Figure 3: Recommendations engine

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Call to Action
Get started today. Work with Microsoft to extend and develop solutions that will transform your
business today. Use our knowledge and expertise to envision and develop your end-to-end program
to accelerate the value imagined from the Internet of Things (IoT).
As part of Microsoft Services’ portfolio, we have a 16-week Internet of Things Advanced offering to
support your end-to-end IoT Program and to help you create an enterprise-ready IoT Platform that
will allow you to build rapidly, test, and deploy smart, connected business solutions. It makes use of
the full potential of Microsoft Azure IoT-related services to activate delivery of current needs as well as
continued growth and innovation.
Figure 4 Recommended engagement model for complex IoT projects
During the engagement, subject matter experts from Microsoft Services will conduct a session to
assess your organization and help you to understand your current IoT maturity level and provide you
with personalized recommendations to improve your IoT capabilities.

11. IoT Maturity Model (IoTMM) | Page 10
Answering questions about your current business strategy, culture, organization, and capabilities will
help you to find out:
▪ Where you are on the IoT readiness spectrum
▪ What steps other organizations at your readiness level have taken
▪ Considerations and recommendations for moving forward with IoT
For more information about Consulting and Support solutions from Microsoft, contact your Microsoft
Services representative or visit www.microsoft.com/services.
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