Mobile enterprise takes off with implications for transport and beyond
If IBM is right, some 35% of the world’s total workforce will be mobile by the end of this year – at least in some capacity. In the United States, this percentage is expected to exceed 70%.
It is, therefore, no accident that mobile enterprise is one of the four main themes to be highlighted at this year’s Open Mobile Summit in San Francisco.
The event takes place Nov. 12-14 at the Parc 55 Hotel, San Francisco, and more information is available at http://www.openmobilemedia.com/san-francisco.
In a series of panel discussions, the Open Mobile Summit will discuss a major shift within the sector:
Mobile enterprise was once associated with the insular domain of industrial field engineers – think a traveling logistics worker toting a ruggedized scanner for signature capture.
Today, the deployment of mobile devices to support critical business functions has a much wider reach, with benefits ranging from improved communication with out-of-office staff and streamlined dispatch processes to higher productivity and significant cost savings.
For example, a survey of 1,100 mobile workers worldwide by iPass, an enterprise mobility vendor, suggests that employees using mobile devices for work contribute an additional 240 hours per year compared to those who do not use mobile devices while on the job.
And a case study after case study attests to large reductions in response times, paperwork and invoicing lags – all of which enhance company competitiveness and contribute to overall customer satisfaction.
But reaping these benefits is not without challenges.
Whether the mobile devices are company-owned or belong to the employee, they can be lost or stolen, emails can be forwarded to the wrong account, data lost or simply erased.
Many companies fail to appreciate the strain a mobile-enabled workforce can place on everything from in-office connectivity to data storage and security. “Analysts have claimed that mobile enterprise puts 20% extra traffic on a network, but we believe that is an underestimation,” says Chris Spain, VP of product management for mobility, Cisco. “It’s a tsunami of data.“
Nor are companies fully aware of all the costs that come with supporting mobile enterprise.
To truly benefit, chief information officers (CIOs) need to look for scalable solutions that allow an ever-evolving set of devices and operating systems to collaborate with the legacy systems back at base.
And there needs to be an honest evaluation of likely employee behaviors as this will ultimately determine whether a solution is accepted and used on a daily basis.
The Open Mobile Summit explores all the major mobile battlegrounds and competitive shifts as the worlds of mobile, Internet, media and commerce converge. More than 100 speakers are confirmed in total for the San Francisco event, chosen to represent the leading influencers across carriers, handset manufacturers, media and publishing, enterprise and brands.
About Open Mobile Media Ltd.
Open Mobile Media is a registered company in England and Wales – Registered number 04388971, 7-9 Fashion Street, London, E1 6PX, UK. The company specializes in providing business intelligence to business leaders across the converging mobile, Internet, media and high tech spaces.http://www.openmobilesummit.com