|
The tremendous growth in the mobile subscriber base has changed the way enterprise customers go about conducting their business. The idea of anywhere-anytime connectivity, is fast becoming a reality. Business executives, no matter where they are, are realizing the importance of remaining connected. Blackberrys and other similar devices have suddenly become a rage amongst business users and is one of the success stories of a killer application in India. This is enabling the mobile workers to interact directly with the customers on the field instead of rushing back to the office to reach their office computers. The interesting element is that even personal mobile devices of executives are being used for business purposes-such is the need to remain connected. While all these means extending the enterprise, this also has widespread repercussion for the productivity enhancement. According to IDC predictions, two-thirds of US workers and more than half of Western European workers will be traveling for business by 2006. According to all indications, situation in India is no different.
KEY TRENDS
Enterprise mobility will fundamentally change the way people work. The ability to work away from the office and on the move is a defining feature of modern business. No enterprise hoping to remain competitive can ignore the fact that people live in an increasingly mobile world. From the globetrotting CEO to the mobile field engineer, portable devices such as mobile phones, laptops and personal digital assistants (PDAs) have radically changed the way people work.
Mobile email and enterprise voice convergence are two trends leading the way for business mobility. Driving these trends are market pull for new devices, access to mobilized applications, and technology convergence. Having experienced the tremendous productivity improvements, complemented with the advancements in wireless technologies, enterprises worldwide are now looking for supporting more mobility, which is not just limited to the already mobile workforce but also looking beyond the obvious scenarios such as sales and service support mobile applications to more cross functional and value added solutions, which enable the work-force to respond faster and delight customers.
There is a growing trend for enterprise fast adapting mobility to enhance work productivity and become competitive while reducing costs and the Indian market is no different. A large chunk of enterprises today have mobility as a part of their IT strategy and this is a testimony of the fast growing need for enterprise mobility in India which has 78 mn mobile subscribers today. The growing mobile base in India is definitely a sign of improved telecom infrastructure in terms of increased coverage and robustness providing reliable connectivity anywhere anytime-which is one of the most important factors for an organization to adopt a mobility solution. Operating costs being another major concern for organizations in the Indian scenario and the reducing service charges is another plus point for the organizations to consider a mobility solution. Many of the mobility applications overseas typically make use of high-end mobile devices such as PDAs and smart phones. In India, apart from such applications, some simpler applications making use of standard mobile phones could also have a great potential. Say for eg SMS based applications.
The next phase of application extensions to include Mobile Intranet access eg business forms, rich document viewing is gaining acceptance and adoption in developed markets in the US, Europe, and select Asian countries. Going forward we see this trend, extending further and moving ahead to adoption of mobile business applications such as CRM, work flow management etc. Starting with mobile voice and moving towards capabilities to access and process information wherever, whenever is the natural progression for enterprise mobility.
|
