By 2030, over 29 billion connected devices are expected to be in use around the world. For manufacturers, that number doesn’t just represent a wave of innovation—it signals a seismic shift in how products are designed, built, and maintained.
Despite $15 billion in IoT investments last year, 75% of connected product projects exceed their original budgets by nearly 50%. What starts as a straightforward project—adding WiFi to industrial equipment—routinely becomes a multi-million dollar, multi-year ordeal. On average, time to market for connected products now stretches to nearly 42 months. “Simple” connectivity upgrades break manufacturing processes, expose security vulnerabilities, and create customer service chaos.
Smart products are no longer a novelty. From industrial equipment to consumer goods, connectivity is quickly becoming a competitive necessity. But for many manufacturers, making the leap to connected products isn’t just challenging—it’s overwhelming.
The truth is, most smart product initiatives don’t fail because the idea is bad. They fail because the manufacturing process isn’t built to handle the complexity of connected product development.
The Moment You Add Connectivity, Everything Changes
Traditional product development is a well-oiled machine. You define requirements, design the product, build it, test it, and ship it.
But once you introduce connectivity—even something as “simple” as a Bluetooth module or cloud sync—everything shifts.
You’re no longer delivering a standalone product. You’re delivering a living system that spans hardware, software, cloud infrastructure, mobile apps, and user data. And each layer brings its own risks, dependencies, and stakeholders.
Suddenly, your roadmap is riddled with questions you weren’t planning to answer:
- How will we secure data from edge to cloud?
- What happens when the firmware needs to be updated post-launch?
- Can our existing team support this ongoing infrastructure?
- Who actually owns the system after it ships—IT, Product, or Engineering?
This is where the cracks start to form.
Five Core Reasons Smart Product Initiatives Derail
1. The architecture plan isn’t fully developed.
Many projects start with a single use case and bolt on components as needs arise. But without a systems-level architecture that connects hardware, cloud services, APIs, and interfaces, teams end up with a brittle solution that can’t scale—or worse, can’t ship.
2. User experience is deprioritized.
Connected products don’t just need to work—they need to be understood. Whether it’s a technician installing a sensor or a customer interacting with a mobile app, experience gaps often lead to abandonment or rework.
3. Teams are misaligned.
Product is pushing for features, engineering is worried about scale, and leadership wants to prove ROI fast. Without early alignment, conflicting priorities turn into last-minute pivots and avoidable delays.
4. The right skills aren’t in place.
Smart product development requires a mix of hardware, software, cloud, and UX expertise that many manufacturers don’t have in-house. Without access to experienced system architects, embedded engineers, or data security specialists, teams often struggle to make confident decisions—or fill the gaps with short-term fixes that don’t scale.
5. There’s no roadmap for what comes next.
Unlike traditional products, smart products don’t end at launch. They require monitoring, maintenance, and evolution. Many organizations invest in building but don’t plan for sustaining—and that’s where risk multiplies.
The Real Cost of Getting It Wrong
When a smart product rollout fails, the damage goes beyond technical debt. There’s erosion of trust—internally and externally. Lost momentum. Budget overruns. In some cases, missed market windows.
And it’s not always because of poor execution. Often, it’s because the organization didn’t fully understand the complexity they were stepping into.
This doesn’t mean smart product development is out of reach—it means it needs a different approach.
What Successful Teams Do Differently
From our experience working with manufacturers—from industrial tools to consumer products—those who succeed in building and scaling smart products share a few common traits:
- They ask hard questions early. Successful teams don’t rush into development—they pause to ask the questions that most overlook. Before committing to a build, they explore technical feasibility, clarify business goals, understand user needs, and map how the entire system—from hardware to cloud—will need to function. This kind of upfront thinking helps avoid costly surprises and ensures the team is solving the right problem from the start.
- They don’t assume alignment—they build it. Product wants features, engineering wants stability, and leadership wants ROI. Left unaddressed, these competing priorities derail progress. High-performing teams don’t leave alignment to chance—they engineer it through shared discovery, facilitated planning sessions, and frequent checkpoints. By creating space for each team to contribute early, they reduce friction and build toward a shared definition of success.
- They prototype with production in mind. A functional prototype might impress in a pitch meeting—but that’s not where most IoT products fail. The real challenge lies in moving from prototype to pilot, and from pilot to scalable production. Teams that succeed use prototyping as a tool for learning, not just selling. They design their prototypes to reveal risks, test real-world performance, and expose the operational needs of manufacturing, deployment, and long-term support.
- They plan beyond launch. Smart products are living systems—not one-and-done projects. They require ongoing monitoring, software updates, data handling, user support, and security maintenance. The most resilient teams treat launch as the beginning, not the finish line. They build infrastructure and governance strategies that scale, so their product can evolve alongside customer needs and market demands.
If You’re Feeling the Weight of Complexity—You’re Not Alone
Smart product development is complex—and that complexity catches many manufacturers off guard. But with the right planning, alignment, and expertise, it doesn’t have to be overwhelming.
Whether you’re exploring a connected product for the first time or revisiting an initiative that lost momentum, the most important step is pausing to ask the right questionsbefore diving in. What are we really trying to solve? Who needs to be at the table? How will this evolve over time? What does success actually look like?
Manufacturers who take the time to clarify these answers aren’t just better prepared—they’re the ones who bring smarter, more sustainable products to market.
And if you’re looking for guidance along the way, that’s where we come in. At Mutually Human, we help teams turn complexity into clarity—whether through strategic planning, technical validation, or proven tools like Callbox, our end-to-end framework.
Explore how we support connected product development and what it could look like for your team.
Let’s build something that works—not just technically, but strategically.
