There are four main business and market drivers pushing IT to put – and keep – mobility front and center in their 2012 planning.

Enterprise mobility will dominate IP priorities in 2012. Moreover, this trend will continue during at least the next three years. Some of the big drivers for prioritizing mobility that we’ve identified during 2011 include:

1)      Users are demanding improved mobility support: This includes supporting more personal mobile devices (smartphones and tablets), expanding use of mobile apps both inside and outside the office, and supporting new mobile operating systems, especially Android and Apple iOS in addition to BlackBerry.  

2)      The business is finding ways to deploy apps they want without you: IT needs a strategy for prioritizing mobile apps development and deployment. The business also needs updated guidance about who pays for smartphones and tablets, and the associated mobile services, endpoint security, and appropriate use of personal devices.

3)      Customers are voracious about multichannel access to your content: Mobility will be key in social computing initiatives to drive deeper customer engagement. Customers (and suppliers) will love you for giving them great mobile apps like a product catalog, maintenance schedules, or project calendars accessible using their Internet-connected mobile device (smartphone, tablet).

4)      Mobility helps make the business case for broad adoption of UC: Mobility could very well prove to be the tail that wags the unified communications dog. Adoption of UC solutions are proliferating across a growing number of user company organizations.  Particularly in firms with distributed international operations, mobility is expected to help cost-justify earlier and wider UC implementation across the organization.  After all, what’s the point of implementing IP telephony, presence and instant messaging/chat, unified messaging, and integrated IP conferencing – if at least basic UC features like presence and IM, and the corporate directory can’t be easily accessed using a mobile device?

Forrester Report References:

October 17, 2011 Build An Operations Stairway To The Mobile Future 

July 22, 2011 Forrsights: Mobility Dominates Enterprise Telecom Trends In 2011

April 11, 2011 Personal Device Momentum Will Challenge Traditional Mobile Sourcing Strategies