Mobility Solution Complexity Drives New Vendor Opportunities
During the past year, many companies have revisited their corporate mobility initiatives, device support, and mobile application deployment strategies. In addition, a growing number of firms are prioritizing mobility initiatives as a key strategic focus, expanding the use of smartphone devices, and investing in a range of mobile applications to address the needs of employees in various roles.
As the population and diversity of smartphones making their way into firms increases, so do the challenges for IT organizations. Below are key drivers of increased corporate mobility complexity:
- Most enterprises support multiple wireless networks.
- Many firms also support a wide variety of mobile devices.
- New segments of mobile workers are emerging.
- Employees use a wide range of mobile applications.
- Some employees choose non-approved devices.
- Smartphone security concerns loom over mobile adoption.
These sources of complexity have opened new doors of opportunity for enterprise mobility vendors who are developing products and solutions to help companies address these issues. For example:
- Network service providers are tightening their relationships with middleware vendors, application developers, and software vendors to ensure mobile applications seamlessly integrate with their networks.
- Mobile operating system and device manufacturers are creating a range of devices with varying features and functionality, user interface options, form factors, screen sizes, and battery lives.
- Middleware vendors help enterprises simplify the interfaces between various mobile device operating systems and the applications deployed over these devices.
- Line-of-business applications will continue to drive momentum in mobile app development, targeting specific types of mobile employees.
- System integrators have the expertise and resources to manage and support deployment of complex mobile solution implementations across national and international geographies. Some of these systems integrators specialize in implementing mobility solutions for particular vertical industries such as healthcare, retail, and transportation.
Some companies are also turning to mobile management solutions to deal with the complex mobile device and network landscape, provide support to the increasing number of mobile-enabled employees, and better monitor the expenses associated with mobile device and solution deployment. To capture enterprise mobility opportunities, vendors must develop solutions to address the issues facing the IT department as well as to help enterprise customers support the increasing number of employees who are using mobile devices, applications, and solutions.