Driving mobility in the enterprise

For many years, the Canadian technology market has heard about rising adoption rates of mobile computing. Perhaps you have seen a rise in your sales? Certainly the increased supply and demand of notebook PCs has contributed to the rising success of mobility. To fully harness the continued interest in this trend, however, it is important to understand the driving forces. It is one thing to advise customers to purchase notebook PCs because unit costs have declined, and inventory levels are strong. It is another to understand the drivers towards mobile adoption, and the uses of the devices. Understanding the forces, can help increase the mind share your organization holds within the client site.

Through a survey of over 300 business and IT managers, Info-Tech Research Group identified key drivers for an organization’s adoption of mobile devices. Five stood out: increased mobility of workers, increased use of mobile devices, the need for specific mobile roles, pressure from end-users, and pressure from senior management.

The social trend of employees not working full-time in the office has greatly increased the need for mobile devices. Whether the products are notebook or handheld PCs (such as a smart phone) user demands have created a need to which enterprises must respond. Thirty-four percent of respondents indicated that this was the primary reason for adopting mobility within the enterprise. This is a sharp contrast to the corporation of the past, which demanded that employees be accessible anywhere, anytime. The definite pull from the employees to get suited with mobile devices is a strong influence.

Which leads directly to the increased use of mobile devices in the enterprise. Consequently, 26 per cent of survey respondents indicated the increased use of products results in the increased presence of the devices. The presence has resulted in the increased adoption, leading to the increased need and reliance.

The need for specific mobile roles finished as the third most important driver for mobile adoption, with 16 per cent of respondents. Consider the increased use of handheld devices within the restaurant and warehouse industries. Specific functions require a handheld device, functions that are not just outside sales or executive-level positions. These mobile positions help boost mobility demands within the enterprise.

Pressure from end-users represented 15 per cent of responses for mobile adoption drivers. While this trend can be also seen under “increased mobility of workers”, it also highlights the demands that departmental managers place on their staff, with respect to being available to respond to business demands. Mobile factors enable employees to work a bit more on their terms, instead of sitting in an office on a regular basis.

The final significant driver is pressure from senior management, which accounts for seven per cent of respondents. An increasingly number of senior business decision managers request mobile devices and applications for enterprise use.

These five drivers: increased mobility of workers, increased use of mobile devices, need for specific mobile roles, pressure from end-users and pressure from senior managers, are not courtesy of the vendors, but of the corporate end-users. This is what is driving purchases of mobile devices and applications, not what is driving sales out. They are what are driving corporate mobile purchases into corporations. They are the issues your clients need to address. Can you help them?

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Jim Love, Chief Content Officer, IT World Canada

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