Mobility Solutions Not a High Priority for Enterprises

Growth in the enterprise mobility market has been slower than anticipated - and although there are many planned investments across surveyed regions and industries, the market is beginning to saturate in some geographic regions, according to a new report by Datamonitor, writes MarketingCharts.

The report, “Understanding adoption of mobility solutions,” finds that mobility is a low priority for enterprises and the least likely to be outsourced out of the eight core enterprise technologies that Datamonitor included in its survey of 1,000 IT decision makers across Europe, North America and Australia.

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.

Among the findings of the Datamonitor study:

• Penetration for the five technologies assessed, which includes mobile management, applications, security, platforms & integration and Telematics, has increased only 5 percent across the survey base since 2006 (see chart of 2006 and 2007 mobility penetration, and adoption plans for 2008, by technology).
• Penetration should increase to 50 percent for mobile management in 2008, with the other technologies following close behind.

“Enterprises often overestimate their investment plans, and penetration is not likely to increase as much as indicated in this survey,” said Aphrodite Brinsmead, technology analyst with Datamonitor and author of the study. “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.”

• Saturation of the mobility market appears to be taking place in the Nordics and Germany, where enterprises are known to be early adopters of technology.
• Although penetration in those two regions is at only 60 percent, it is unlikely to increase much more, since mobility is not useful for all enterprises, particularly those that do not have workers in the field.
• Industries with the highest mobility adoption are financial industries such as retail banking and the energy/utilities sector, in part because they have 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 percent 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,” said Brinsmead.

• Only 16 percent of the surveyed enterprises currently outsource for mobility, and that figure has not increased from 2006.
• Enterprises are more likely to outsource technologies that have a higher cost and visibility within the organization, such as enterprise applications or security.
• However, mobility outsourcing appears to be more popular in Italian and Spanish enterprises; a much higher proportion currently outsource or would consider it in the next couple of years.