With mobile consumerisation driving the enterprise mobility market in recent years, mobility promises to be high on the list of priorities for all CIOs, according to Ovum’s 2015 Trends to Watch: Enterprise Mobility report.
The enterprise view
Richard Absalom, senior analyst, enterprise mobility, Ovum, says while pressure from end users continues to have an impact on the market, enterprises must become more proactive with their mobility strategies and look for ways that all mobile devices and apps can work in tandem with other endpoints.
“Vendors and service providers in the space need to keep expanding the range of features and services that they offer to meet the growing range of demands, and they will also need to continue to build effective partnerships, especially in support of large, global organisations which expect and demand consistent global service delivery,” he says.
According to Ovum, there are five key trends in the mobile consumerisation market:
- The “mobility mismatch” between employers and employees will persist – for example, the rate of bring your own device (BYOD) behaviour continues to grow, but it is not being embraced by IT at the same rate.
- Organisations will move beyond BYOD, to make more of a distinction of formal versus informal and managed versus unmanaged services. This will be prompted partly by the introduction of more formal support models for employee-liable connections and devices. In some companies, particularly those with high security/data protection needs, a corporate-liable approach will be sustained, possibly alongside formal managed BYOD.
- Enterprise mobility management will be framed in a “workspace” strategy, incorporating management of all endpoints and applications, with the aim of giving employees access to the tools and data they need wherever they are and whichever device they are using.
- Senior line of business executives, particularly in HR, procurement, and operations, will also have an increasing influence on deployments.
- SMEs and the vendors that sell to them will have a stronger focus on mobility, but this is expected to be a challenge for service providers, which are not generally viewed as trusted partners by SMEs when it comes to delivering IT services.
Consumer mobile developments
According to Arvind Sarin, founder and CEO of Copper Mobile, 2015 will bring a slew of mobile/technology developments that will change the landscape. As Sarin wrote in an SAP Business Innovation blog, here are five big predictions for 2015:
- Security will be at the forefront of product development.
Sarin says we should expect to see more companies move away from simple passwords in favour of harder-to-game technologies. “Look for continued growth in fingerprint verification like that seen with Apple’s Touch ID along with a host of pattern-based technologies to supplant easier to crack alphanumeric passwords,” Sarin says.
2. Mobile finance will take a massive step forward.
This year, according to Sarin, we will see Apple Pay and Google Wallet take near-field communication mainstream to further simplify payments.
3. Wearables on the ascendancy.
Though the consumer wearables category has been dominated by fitness applications so far, this may change with the release of the Apple Watch in early 2015 and second generation Samsung and Motorola wearables – a trend which will also be influential in the enterprise market.
“There are myriad enterprise functionalities a wearable device like Google Glass could offer in the enterprise space. From logistics and transport to inventory management and retail support, there are huge implications for enterprise connectivity, data management and productivity with the success integration of wearable technology,” says Sarin.
4. Geosensing technology to drive new consumer app features.
The expansion of iBeacons already signals a new wave of development in this area, beyond the GPS or NFC tracking capabilities of smartphones.
“Retailers can use [geosensing] to push customised alerts and maps while you’re in their stores. Enterprises can use it for more effective inventory management and productivity tracking,” says Sarin.
5. The Internet of Things gets closer to reality.
While the technologies already exist for many of the consumer-based use-cases of the Internet of Things (IoT), the cost of purchasing and implementing these solutions has been too high for mainstream adoption. As the price point comes down, this may change.
This article published in Inside SAP Summer 2014/15.
