Connectivity Services: Enterprises on the Move

Improving workforce productivity and efficiency, and bringing

down costs to ensure increased margins have always been key goals of business

enterprises. It's only the degree of urgency that has changed now-thanks not

just to competitive challenges, but also to customers who are demanding new

levels of responsiveness. All this is driving a hitherto unknown level of

business transformation.

The key drivers of this transformation are a host of networking

and communication technologies. These technologies are not only helping

businesses discover new ways of communicating, but also helping them find new

ways of doing business. The idea of anywhere-anytime connectivity is fast

becoming a reality. Business executives, no matter where they are, are realizing

the importance of remaining connected. Blackberrys and other similar devices

have suddenly become a rage amongst business users. These are enabling mobile

workers to interact directly with customers on the field, instead of rushing

back to office to reach their office computers. Without these technologies at

their disposal it would be impossible for businesses to even survive, forget

about flourish.

Trends Pushing Mobility



There is a growing trend among enterprises to fast adopt mobility to enhance
work productivity and become competitive while reducing costs; the Indian market

is no different. A large chunk of enterprises today have mobility as a part of

their IT strategy and this is testimony of the fast growing need for enterprise

mobility in India which has more than 140 mn mobile subscribers today.

The growing mobile base in India is definitely a sign of

improved telecom infrastructure in terms of increased coverage and robustness,

providing reliable connectivity anywhere anytime, which is one of the most

important factors for an organization going for mobility solutions. Operating

costs being another major concern for organizations in the Indian scenario,

reducing service charges is another plus point. Many of the mobility

applications overseas typically make use of high-end mobile devices such as PDAs

and smart phones. In India, apart from such applications, some simpler

applications making use of standard mobile phones could also have a great

potential. Say for example SMS-based applications. Mobile email and enterprise

voice convergence are two trends leading the way for business mobility. Driving

these trends are market pull for new devices, access to mobilized applications,

and technology convergence.

Mobilizing Applications



Mobilization of applications is currently in many companies' plans and
strategies for competitive advantage. This goes beyond simply providing secure

remote-access or offering web-access to corporate intranets/applications.

Technology convergence impacting these two business mobility trends is

fixed-mobile convergence and voice-data convergence. Businesses are looking to

increase their competitive edge through improved cost efficiencies by leveraging

their existing IT investments. There is also a growing trend of integrating

business devices with voice, messaging, email, intranet and Internet to allow

maximizing productivity while on the move.

Application mobility brings support for popular business

applications to devices to increase employee interactions with colleagues,

partners, and customers and provide them access to key company information.

While mobile email is used by most, other mobile applications

which garnered high ratings are: applications to view office documents, ERP/supply

chain related use, and access to Intranet/corporate database on mobile device.

Mobile email appears to be the entry-level mobile solution for

companies embarking on the path towards greater mobility. As companies mobilize

key business processes, they will expect mobile devices to evolve in step-providing

a reliable delivery platform for business applications. (such as SFA, CRM and

ERP)

Major Drivers



Reducing the number of devices per employee, and increasing accessibility
and productivity; avoiding missed revenue opportunities; improving customer

service; and high work/life balance for employees are the major drivers of

enterprise mobility. The key industries adopting enterprise mobility will be the

BFSI segment, BPOs and software houses, followed by manufacturing and the large

PSUs and the government sector.

Field service and sales applications obviously offers the

largest opportunity for mobility applications, as this is the segment with most

staff in field. India is just beginning to adopt mobility solutions and this

would be the first thing enterprises would want to go for. The field service

opportunities exist in many industries such as home repair, IT/office

automation, industrial equipment repair, courier services etc. Transportation

and distribution could be another driver. Asset tracking, as a functional area,

is also gaining ground.

Dilemmas & Challenges



The dilemma of multiple devices is one of the main challenges that the
industry faces right now. Typically, in an organization, many employees use

their own personal mobile phones for work. Under IT guidance, standardization on

specific devices can result in significant cost savings for the organization. IT

involvement can have a big impact on successful device management, resulting in

a decrease in workload for the support team. For example, an organization that

is standardized on specific devices can apply security and application updates

remotely over the air quickly and efficiently, effectively extending their

existing IT infrastructure to include the mobile workforce.

Nevertheless, security plays a crucial role in the overall

enterprise ecosystem. Enterprises today look at a secure, reliable connection

from many mobile devices and control access to enterprise networks to ensure

integrity of the network and the content that flows in and out of it. Large

corporations have strong security implementations but at the same time, have to

constantly review these to cater to the demanding needs of business mobility.

Quality of Service (QoS) is one more issue. Real-time services

such as interpersonal communications using voice or video, as well as critical

enterprise applications (ERP, CRM) demand a certain level of network performance

to provide enterprise-grade service quality. Critical transport parameters

include latency, delay jitter and data rate, which can be controlled in managed

packet-networks by various QoS mechanisms, which operate on different network

layers.

To Conclude



With more and more international players entering India, there is increase
in user expectations and the changing business models are demanding that Indian

businesses now be agile and adaptable. And facing greater expectations from

customers and to enhance overall productivity, there is very little scope for

the enterprises but to serve the customer from anywhere and at anytime. And

mobility is the answer!

Gyana Ranjan Swain





gyanas@cybermedia.co.in