While the Internet of Things has reached an all-time high of hype and hyperbole, more and more organisations plan to deploy IoT technologies in the coming year.

That's according to 451 Research, whose 2016 IoT Preview Report evaluated the key trends and challenges facing this emerging sector, and says business process changes will drive financial and business opportunities.

The report identified the six top trends that will drive 2016: 1 .Business process changes will continue to be the largest barrier to IoT adoption. 2. Communication protocols at the edge will remain fragmented. 3. LTE-M timing gap and new LPWAN upstarts will force the hand of operators. 4. The volume and management of data generated by 'things' will continue to present new opportunities and challenges to storage, cloud, analytics and visualisation vendors. 5. Pricing for IoT components is rapidly declining, bringing IoT deployments into reach for a larger audience. 6. Security of IoT continues to be a source of major concern for early IoT adopters as they connect previously unconnected industrial ‘OT' systems.

According to 451 Research, there is a growing number of production deployments, ranging from industrial automation and enterprise to fleet and automotive applications, to the wild world of the consumer market.

It says increasing percentages of organisations plan to evaluate and deploy IoT technologies in the coming year, with 15% of the large enterprises surveyed by 451 Research's Voice of the Enterprise Study already deploying some form of IoT, while another 31% plan to do so in the next 6-12 months.

The research company says the IoT market is a hotbed of merger and acquisition activity, with more than $23 billion spent in 94 IoT-related transactions in the last 12 months, according to 451 Research's M-A KnowledgeBase, a database of more than 44,000 technology M-A transactions across 650 industry segments.