IoT Trustworthiness is a Journey and NOT a Project
Figure 8: IoT Trustworthiness Top-down versus Bottom-up Views
Corporate Sponsorship
IoT Trustworthiness is a cross-functional discipline that involves stakeholders from the IT and OT
side, as well as stakeholders from other functions such as the business, corporate and legal. These
stakeholders tend to have divergent perspectives on trustworthiness:
IT is concerned with security
Operations (and OT in particular) are interested in safety, reliability and resilience
Compliance and legal are concerned with the risks of non-compliance
Corporate is interested in the strategic vision for the IoT solution
The business is interested in achieving the business outcomes
For such a multi-disciplinary and cross-functional effort to succeed, the program MUST have a
senior corporate sponsor whose mission is to define the objectives of trustworthiness and
empower the organization to achieve them and maintain them throughout the lifecycle of the
system. The objectives can be any mix of business, technical, operational and even reputational
objectives. The type of vertical domain and use case will determine who that person is and the
level of his or her seniority.
IoT Trustworthiness Program Tsar
The cross-functional nature of trustworthiness poses another challenge. The program must have
a clear leader who is empowered and mandated by the Corporate Sponsor to steer this cross-
functional program and achieve its objectives.
The IoT Trustworthiness domain is still in its early stages of development. It is not clear yet who
in the organization should assume this leadership role, what his or her profile should be, and
where he/she fits within the organization chart.
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IIC Journal of Innovation