Future of Enterprise Mobility

We discuss this topic at a time when, probably the new generation workforce who were using PCs at their primary school level started coming to enterprises to begin and explore their professional career. Much has changed in the perspective of collaboration, workmanship, response time and customer behavior, as time passed from the pre Internet era to the Internet based computing time. We have started hearing corporate IT agenda on resetting their systems, application and information security policies to accommodate and leverage proliferation of smartphones and tablets and make a foundation for social media as a collaboration tool.

We have seen an exponential growth in the number of devices used from 1960 (mainframe period) to 2010 (desktop Internet time). 100 million plus PC users in 90s had grown to more than one billion Internet desktop users in the first decade of the new century. In the new mobility era, smartphones, tablets, and Internet connected other personal devices will exceed the size of total PC installations. By 2013, global smartphone shipments are expected to exceed total PC shipments by 150 million units.

A Gartner survey conducted among knowledge workers found that 33% of respondents used their personal devices such as smartphones while at work to access social media websites such as Facebook. This indicates a new work culture which will widely spread in the coming years.

With mobile phone's deployment growth, mobile commerce will grow at a faster rate like e-Commerce. Large number of purchase decisions irrespective of commodities or services will be taken based on information disseminated over mobile platforms.

Mobile stores and micro sites will become the biggest marketing place. Advertisements, instant advice, push and pull information and snapshots become sales and service tools in the enterprise mobility regime.

Employee expectations on corporate IT is changing. The new generation workforce expects new generation tools, operating systems, systems behavior and ergonomics. As more tech savvy employees come to work, the IT environment and its objects and components will undergo substantial change.

Corporate senior executives will be depending heavily on their personal gadgets for seeking information and collaboration. This changes the structure of application, access controls and perimeter security definitions.

Customers demand services availability on smartphones, tablets and other Internet connected personal devices. The look and feel, navigation, response time and existing control structure will undergo dramatic change.

It will be a move from fixed workstation and limited connectivity to “always on” and access from “anywhere”. Primary device is fixed today; certainly a mobility enabled device will replace it. Employees and customers want freedom to participate rather than sending or responding through email or traditional messaging solution. It will not be IT deciding what gadget (today it is a PC-based work station) to be used, it will be a choice or selection which reflects the user's behavior and work culture.

Corporates will face new challenges on Information Security. Perimeter security will be redefined and people will become perimeter. Also, it will tend to segment users and develop an application and user role strategy. Gartner Research reveals that by 2013 - 14, 80% of business will support a workforce using tablets. This means that there will be revolutionary change in application development and its deployment.

For most organizations, there will be an increase in cost to manage and secure new data access methodology. The devices will be heterogeneous in nature and hence security challenges will be different from today. Apart from this, hyper-connectivity will increase identity and privacy challenges.

The entire software licensing policy and its maintenance will undergo a dramatic change. In the case of employee owning the device, it will further complicate. New licensing policy will emerge.

In short, enterprise mobility is a by-product of telecom revolution, seamless connectivity, low-cost handheld devices, and sophisticated user interface, new governance and new channel for customer services, and increase response and resolution time. Lots of innovations started taking place in software application development and its delivery. Adoption of Cloud-based computing (services which can go to a private or public Cloud) coupled with enterprise mobility standards will change not only corporate IT strategy but also determine its sustenance and competence.