Mobility solutions not priority for enterprises
LONDON: Growth in the enterprise mobility market has been slower than anticipated, a new report by independent market analyst Datamonitor reveals. Although there are many planned investments across the surveyed regions and industries, the market is beginning to saturate in some geographic regions.
The report ‘Understanding adoption of mobility solutions' also highlights the fact that mobility solutions are often deployed together as a packaged solution as both investment and penetration levels for mobile management, applications and security are at similar levels. The report expects the largest growth in mobility solutions to come from the healthcare sector.
Datamonitor's report analyses the results of a survey of 1000 IT decision makers across Europe, North America and Australia to discover their plans for investment in mobility. The report also assesses enterprises' preferences for mobility procurement and outsourcing. Mobility was discovered to be a low priority for enterprises and out of the eight core enterprise technologies that Datamonitor has included in the survey, it is the least likely to be outsourced.
Slow growth
The survey reveals that growth in the enterprise mobility market has been slow. Penetration for the five technologies assessed, which includes mobile management, applications, security, platforms and integration and Telematics, has only increased 5% across the survey base since 2006.
“It is clear that mobility is not a top priority for enterprises with enterprise applications and IT systems management topping the agenda for enterprises' largest IT project,” says Aphrodite Brinsmead, technology analyst with Datamonitor and author of the study.
The mobility market appears to be saturating in the Nordics and Germany, which is unsurprising as enterprises in these regions are known to be early adopters of technology. Although penetration in these two regions has only reached 60%, Datamonitor says it is unlikely to increase much more. This is related to the fact that mobility cannot be used by all enterprises, particularly those that do not have field workers.
“Penetration should increase to 50% for mobile management in 2008, with the other technologies following close behind. But enterprises often overestimate their investment plans and penetration is not likely to increase as much as indicated in this survey. However, it does appear from the results that enterprises are likely to make more investments in the medium term (6 –24 months timeframe) rather than the short term.”
Mobility is popular in financial industries such as retail banking and the energy/utilities sector and Datamonitor's survey reveals that adoption has been highest amongst these enterprises. This stems from a number of factors, including a larger mobile workforce and often greater IT budgets. However, the most growth is likely to be in the healthcare industry, where penetration may increase as much as 20% over the next two years.
“The ability for doctors to access patient records or drug information whilst in different parts of the hospital or on home visits is hugely beneficial and explains why such a high proportion of healthcare providers are planning new investments in mobility. These organisations have been slower to adopt mobility due to strict regulations and more controlled budgeting.”
Keen interest
Only 16% of the surveyed enterprises currently outsource for mobility and this figure has not increased from 2006. From looking at a previous Datamonitor report on enterprises' technology priorities*, it is clear that enterprises are more likely to outsource technologies that have a higher cost and visibility within the organisation such as enterprise applications or security. However, mobility outsourcing appears to be more popular in Italian and Spanish enterprises; a much higher proportion of these enterprises currently outsource or would consider it in the next couple of years.
“Despite the general lack of interest in outsourcing mobility solutions, enterprises in Italy and Spain show a greater propensity to outsource. These countries tend to adopt similar technology patterns with regards to outsourcing and their IT budget spend is similar. Larger IT budgets may also be a factor influencing enterprises' decision to outsource which is supported by the fact that a higher proportion of respondents in both Spain and Italy are large enterprises.”
