A host of benefits that would accrue to the enterprises on going wireless is tremendous. As corporate work-force becomes increasingly mobile, the need for an enterprise to deploy wireless
solution to enable this workforce is increasing. The need for seamless access to
corporate information and application through high-speed wireless links is
becoming the need of the hour. All these have been possible due to great strides
in Wireless LAN technologies and the explosive growth of mobile services in
India. Enterprises across all verticals are realizing the importance of wireless
in a big way. A clear cut RoI is emerging and the decision makers in the
enterprises are seeing the benefits of going wireless.
According to a study, senior executives on an average spend
one-third of their time outside the office and so they need access to corporate
information from wherever they are. Another study by IDC says that the global
mobile workforce is expected to grow by more than 20% by 2009. This, according
to IDC, translates to 878 mn mobile workers working from laptops, handhelds and
mobile by 2009. According to Yankee Group, approximately 55% of US businesses
will deploy a wireless wide-area data solution by mid-2006.
Calculating Productivity |
Source: Infosys |
According to a Canadian research firm Ipsos-Reid1, the median
value of time regained from downtime to productive time each connected mobile
employee each day is 47 minutes. It is also predicted that the time an employee
will gain each day will increases from 60 to 95 minutes over the next 4 years.
According to another study, about a saving of 5-6 hours per week can be expected
from handheld and IM applications.
Access to Corporate Information
The main benefit of an enterprise going wireless is the
ability of its employees to move freely between offices and field while
seamlessly accessing the corporate network. So this real time information access
enabled by the implementation of the wireless infrastructure would go a long way
in increasing the employee productivity. So, irrespective of where employees
are, they are connected. The only thing they need is connectivity to access the
network. With all telecom service providers expanding in a big way across the
country, finding network to connect would no more be an issue. This will also
reduce lot of paper work.
Competitive Advantage
This is going to be the one of the key benefits which will
drive enterprises to go wireless. Early adopters in order to stay ahead of their
competitors will have to do everything possible to make sure that their
workforce is able to communicate within and outside the organization by using
wireless technologies.
Considering that customers require round the clock support
and services, it would be in the interest of companies to provide their
employees every possible wireless tool, which will help improve the customer
services which in turn will mean a competitive edge over others.
Cost Reduction
Managing heterogeneous networks in an enterprise is becoming
complex and thereby increases the capex and opex. An integrated mobile
enterprise system if put in place by the enterprise will ensure that capex is
reduced substantially with gradual reduction in opex. It will result in
consolidation of devices and also a reduction in telephony costs. All leading
vendors are offering an integrated IP telephony solution along with wireless
functionality with tangible cost benefits. The wireless service providers are
also bringing in innovative suite of data services to address the enterprise
customers in a better way. Imagine the kind of transportation costs these
companies incur towards returning to office simply to access their network or to
file reports or do something that can be done without undertaking the time and
money consuming travel.
Increased Efficiency and Productivity Improvement
Enterprises that are using wireless have shown a clear
improvement in efficiency and thereby productivity. Flexibility and access to
corporate network have provided a boost to the morale of the mobile workforce.
Companies are experiencing increased sales due to increased responsiveness of
field services. This has also reduced the cycle time. The field workforce is
getting updates from the head offices about the status of inventory ensuring
timely delivery of products.
The Map Ahead
With ground work having begun by service providers and policy
makers in the run up to the launch of 3G services in India, enterprises can look
forward to an increased value proposition to make their enterprise wireless. 3G
technology aims to provide enterprises with more security, higher data speed to
access their network and critical business applications. The bandwidth
bottlenecks are set to go away with 3G. For example, downloading heavy
attachments will no longer be a problem with the high speed internet access on
the network.