The IoT readiness of SMEs in Malaysia: are they worthwhile for investigation?

Technology readiness measures the people’s propensity to embrace and use new technologies for accomplishing goals in home life and at work.It allows the sources of motivators and inhibitors of new technologies to be understood.It also enables people to be segmented into several categories based on the readiness index, which is proven to be useful for technology planning.In the meantime, the internet of things (IoT) has recently becoming the center of focus in literature. IoT comprises of the intelligent interactivity between human and things to exchange information and knowledge for new value creation. Due to the importance of IoT, the government of Malaysia has introduced the National IoT Strategic Roadmap in 2014 as a way to sustain the economic growth.With the active participation of the SME Corp.Malaysia, the roles of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) as the enabler to achieve the goals of roadmap have becoming critical.However, SMEs are facing various challenges to embrace and use IoT. Since the tendency to use IoT can vary from one service to another, it is crucial to not just investigate but also compare the IoT readiness of SMEs between the information and communication technology (ICT) and non-ICT services.For a start, this review paper aims to justify the worthiness of the topic to be investigated in future empirical study.Some suggestions on the potential research areas are also highlighted, such as the motivators and inhibitors of IoT adoption in services SMEs, and the internal and external factors influencing the IoT readiness among ICT and non-ICT services SMEs