Enterprise Mobility Market Outlook: 2009

Enterprise mobility predictions: 2009

by Purushottam Darshankar

Amidst the gloomy economic scenario, year 2008 saw companies of all sizes, in many vertical markets, and across various geographic regions identifying enterprise mobility initiatives as key priorities, and that is unlikely to change dramatically in 2009. Organizations still face the challenge of tracking and managing decentralized workforces and reducing operational costs. Concerns around mobile security continue to inhibit the uptake of mobile solutions, especially among financial services organizations, however, the mobilization of enterprises is growing, from simple applications, such as email, to more complex one such as mobile SCM.

In 2008, Forrester’s survey results show that between 40% and 60% of enterprises in North America and Europe identified more mobility support to employees, implementation of fixed-mobile convergence (FMC) solutions, and formalization of a mobile strategy as critical priorities.

The iPhone launch in 2008 caused a mobile operating systems war which will continue in year 2009. The mobile device market will still continue to remain fragmented across BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, Symbian, iPhone and Android smartphones. The launch of iPhone has increased user interface expectation of end users as touch screen interface based phone will continue to dominate in 2009. As a result, iPhone will make a more significant dent in the enterprise mobility market, primarily among SMBs. However the BlackBerry will continue to lead the enterprise mobility market, knowing the security that BalckBerry offers. In 2009, vendors will develop devices that will address the dual needs of personal and professional use of mobile devices as well as implications on device size, battery life, keyboard requirements, and form factors.

In recent months, a number of major industry players that includes handset makers, and operators, have announced their concerns about handset volumes in 2009. According to IDC, total mobile phone volumes will be 1.9 percent lower in 2009 than 2008, the first downturn in annual shipment volumes since 2001. Lower prices will make converged mobile devices an attractive choice for consumers despite the fact consumers may choose to hold on to their current devices rather than replace or upgrade them.

In 2009, there will be rise in mobile application deployments in Asia Pacific region, particularly for mobile information applications such as email, calendar, and personal information. 2008 saw very interesting Location-based services applications for employee productivity improvements or worker efficiency. LBS will continue to remain a key component in variety of other applications including business, social networking and advertising domain. With 3G services to be rolled out in India, 2009 will see more advanced and data-heavy mobile applications and services on employee’s mobile device. These would require more sophisticated mobile middleware platforms to monitor and mange the applications.

Currently the enterprise mobility ecosystem is fragmented – companies offering mobile applications, mobile device management, mobile security solutions, mobile content etc. Many of these vendors have focused on developing specific type of application or services – such as SYBASE for mobile middleware, Pyxis mobile for financial market solution etc. In 2009, we will see mobility vendor consolidation as system integrator and mobile middleware vendors snatch up small players in the ecosystem, in order to expand their breadth in overall enterprise mobility service and solution capabilities.

As we look ahead to the challenging economic environment of 2009, the service providers, device makers, software vendors and mobile application developers will focus on their strategy to fulfill the demand for enterprise mobility solutions and the competition for products and services.

Event 2 : 3G: The Next Wave - Kochin

ASSOCHAM in association with Ericsson had organized the "3G: THE NEXT WAVE" on 4th - 5th December, 2008 at Le Meridian, Kochi, India. Siddhartha Behura Secretary, Department of Telecommunication and Chairman, Telecom Commission was the chief guest on the occasion.
The event was attended by all the leading telcos in India, content providers , content aggregators, entertainment channel providers and device vendors. The event had a lot of significance at the backdrop of government decision to auction 3G spectrum. The auction that is slotted for January’09 created lot of debate during the event.
This conference had coincided with the well known “Formula One Sport of Ocean Racing – the Volvo Ocean Race” at Kochi- Kochi hosting this 1st time.
After the welcome address by Balaji VP, Ericsson India , Gowton shared his views on Global 3G trends and its relevance to India, Sanjeev Aga, MD of Idea Cellular during his keynote address requested the DOT to conduct the auction in healthy manner and to think beyond the objective of revenue generation.
Jithu Niruthambath, Director of Wireless business at Texas Instrument emphasized on the importance of User experience and soon to launch devices such as MID (mobile internet devices) that would cost ~ 150 USD will bring revolution into a consumer applications such as MobileTV etc.
Jaikishan Rajaraman, Sr. Director at GSMA gave a brief of GSMA contribution to the telecom world and shared the global trends in Telecom market.
Before we head for a Gala night, the DOT gave on regulatory environment and overall auction process of 3G spectrum.
After having back-to-back session participants were in desperate need of some cocktail break. The evening couldn’t have been better and the site more electrified with good music, food and drinks around.
The second day all started with a “New revenue Doors” – a prospective from pioneers of entertainment providers in India viz. Sony and NDTV. In their view, Telcos due to lack of flexibility in business model have failed to provide the value for their content. Telcos have merely gone for acquiring the subscriber and have also retained a major share of revenue earned through content services. Sanjay Trehan, CEO NDTV emphasized on the need to synergies so as to tap the potential of mobile content.
The two day conference concluded with a memorable tour to VOR race village. The experience shared by the Ericsson crew who was on voyage kept us spellbound…!!!

Event - 1 : ESRI's GIS ENVISION Series Seminar

ESRI who are the market leader in the field of GIS and Geospatial solutions had organized the "GIS ENVISION SEMINAR" at Hotel Pride Pune on 25th November.
The day long event was attended by Indian Government bodies & offices, content and map providers and IT service providers.
The winter season that had just begun in Pune delayed the welcome address by an hour . Vatsal Dave took the audience through ESRI vision, its market share, product suite and service offerings.
Brd. Khanzode, Director Symbiosis Institute of Geoinformatics gave a keynote address. He highlighted on the importance of GIS in different sectors such as tourism, disaster management, utilities etc. As per his opinion, lot more can be done by different stake holders in GIS space in order to give a secure and better quality of life to common man.
Seema Joshi took the audience through the GIS overview and range of ESRI products viz. Desktop GIS, Server GIS and Mobile GIS.
Her session on "What's new in ARCGIS 9.3" was lively with some good demos which kept the audience on their toes.
The day long event was concluded by Nagarajan Murali who conducted a good session on ArcLogistics that provides routing and scheduling solution for fleet management. Pilots being run in Delhi with Tele Atlas Kalyani India Ltd. providing all the Map data for this solution.

Scaling Enterprise Mobility deployment against challenges

Enterprise mobility deployment drivers and inhibitors

by Purushottam Darshankar

To win in today’s competitive world, businesses are finding new ways to optimize the business process, shorten cycle times and empower the employees to better serve their customers by deploying mobile technologies. This enables greater supply chain efficiencies and accuracy thereby increasing the operating margins and greater customer satisfaction.

Although some enterprises are considering the widespread adoption of mobility solution, the evidence suggests that enterprise adopt a low risk strategy and focus on solutions which have proven ROI. The main inhibitors of enterprise mobility deployment are (source: Telsyte, 2008)

- Integration with existing IT systems & solutions

- Understanding the future of mobile technology

- Cost / ROI / business case justification

- Mobile network / carrier selection

- Ongoing management / maintenance

- Security concerns

- Business process reengineering & realignment

- Mobile device selection

- Lack of organizational capability

- Mobile application vendor selection

The benefits of mobility solution is immense, however realizing its full potential can introduce a significant IT challenge. Today’s enterprise mobility solutions are connected to backend system using ad –hoc system and management of this complex system is important. Management of these deployments is usually an afterthought, if not addressed properly, may result into increased deployment and support cost, under performing systems, increased organizational risks.

A standard enterprise mobility deployment may include several hundred mobile devices, access points and backend technologies – complexity of these environments make the device and network rollouts, updates / maintenance and support more difficult. Existing network management tools available in market lack in dealing with roaming devices, intermittent network connectivity and wireless security.

Ensuring the uniformity of software versions on mobile devices across hundreds of devices, provisioning and configuration of mobile devices and wireless network is of paramount importance. Proper version control of application, OS and firmware is necessary using OTA push to keep the mobile workers up-to-date with latest application and updates.

The trained technical staff to support the mobility solution is as important as the solution itself. However, hands-on technical staff required to support large-scale enterprise deployments is expensive, both in the number of and the cost per technician. The ability to support remote diagnostics and remote problem resolution is critical. Integrated management tool is required to respond to the problems encountered by field worker with their mobile devices.

A mobile device inherently has limited processing power, battery life and memory which makes collection and processing of field data difficult. The intermittent connectivity and bandwidth limitation compound this problem. This makes the data synchronization with enterprise database a complex procedure. The alternative ways of data synchronization either over USB cable or Bluetooth should be made available to avoid loss of data.

The enterprise mobility is still dogged by security concerns. Remotely locking of lost or stolen devices to restrict access to data and device functionality is must if data is sensitive. The recovered devices again need to be unlocked for continued usage quickly to avoid loss of productivity.

The enterprise mobility solution should not be developed considering specific operating system and device in mind. The solution should provide flexibility to add new devices with minimal changes in application and its provisioning. If multiple devices with a variety of operating system and screen size are being used by field force, the system should posses the inventory of such devices for better technical support.

The IT department should be capable of supporting different peripheral devices such as RFID, barcode, camera, GPS, printers and other data collection accessories used by field force. The IT department should keep the necessary spares coupled with well laid procedures of logging support/repair calls for replacements/repairs of devices and accessories. After all, it is the IT department that is likely to own the company’s mobility roadmap and is responsible for technical aspects of mobility deployment. As with other IT projects, it is important that organizations have a “buy in” from top executives to ensure the success of enterprise mobility deployment.

Enterprise Mobility - a way to deal with economic downturn

A way to navigate your business through economic downturn

by Purushottam Darshankar

Economic downturn is a reality and there is no escape from reality of economic crisis, as we see businesses across the world facing a recession. It calls for an action and innovation to successfully navigate through economic downturn. While economic downturn creates formidable obstacles to businesses that are trying to survive and grow, an economic downturn can open up opportunities. The key is to focus on your core competencies, reduce operating expenses and manage more proactively, rather than reactively. In order to reduce operational expenses, one needs to improve the productivity through increased efficiency. How can businesses provide more services per person at lower administrative costs and reduce expenses while at the same time providing quality work and good customer services?

A broad economic downturn forces companies to seek new sources of improving productivity while leveraging existing investment in IT. Proper Enterprise mobility initiative that is consistent with the overall stated corporate objectives can bring in required transformation for businesses. They can use enterprise mobility to develop more productive business process while maintaining budget discipline. The significant impact of enterprise mobility could be felt in field service automation. Some of the following business initiatives would be of significant importance for businesses during economic downturn.

To be more productive and effective, make available all the required backend enterprise data (work order information, product information etc.), user manuals, trouble shooting manuals to remote service technician at jobsite to minimize on communication cost, wasting time and excess fuel driving back and forth to the office.

The poor scheduling and routing is another area that can be looked upon. Location intelligence of service people could enable businesses to improvise on their decision support, operation and planning. Planning and scheduling of work could be done based upon the location, parts and expertise needed. Sending service technicians to a distant location, when another service technician is closer and ready to take up a task leads to wastage of time and fuel. Can you use GPS tracking on the vans to better know the location of all service technicians so you can dispatch the closest and best service technician for the job? Use of Location aware field force automation solution would dispatch the right work orders to field technicians on their handhelds that can improvise your productivity, operational efficiency and better customer satisfaction.

Tight control over inventory is another important area. Improvise on visibility of parts needed, the location of inventory and parts used in each of the service ticket. GIS integration with inventory management system can help improvise the utilization of spares stored and managed from across the different locations.

Poor Cash collection and management at jobsite can be further improved using POS based handheld devices. You can collect money, swipe credit cards and print receipts from handheld device. You can reduce wastage of time, paper and avoid postage expenses and sending out invoices weeks after the work was completed.

The administrative costs can be brought down by automating work order scheduling and dispatching using enterprise mobility solution that reduces cost of data entry and administrative staff. The management visibility into the work done in the field is essential to ensure quality of services and customer satisfaction.

Slow economic time motives each of us to be smarter and more efficient. There is growing demand of enterprise mobility solution as a service ( SaaS model)- “on Demand” service. The entire functionality bundles could be delivered as services hosted by independent service provider. Business users of these plug-and-play offerings would pay a monthly fee and in turn be able to demand quality of service. For business, not only the TCO (Total cost of ownership) is low but the ROI (return on the investment) is also quickly realized and quantifiable.