August 31, 2018
Enterprise mobility is rapidly evolving as more businesses look to take advantage of increasingly flexible and useful mobile communications technologies.
For example, a range of Mobile Unified Communications offerings and enterprise mobility strategies have become the subject of many product and service announcements this year.
Major corporations, such as PwC, have announced they are going “Mobile First” as they make mobile phones the primary communications devices for thousands of employees. In PwC’s case, some 18,000 of its employees in the UK are being switched from landline to all mobile communications.
So why are these changes in enterprise mobility happening now?
The surge in mobile phone adoption took place over the last 20 years. With the iPhone’s advent a little more than a decade ago, the consumer adoption of mobile devices exploded.
And that really is the answer to why we see a major increase in new enterprise mobility strategies today: consumer-driven mobility dominated the last wave of mobile devices and services. Now it’s the enterprise’s turn.
That’s one of the findings in a new report and an upcoming webinar from 451 Research, focusing on “Second Wave Mobility.”
Consumer-driven mobility was the first wave of mobility, as consumer markets were flooded with devices and services mainly tailored to consumer needs.
But the ubiquitous spread of consumer mobile phones meant that these devices would inevitably become tools for business.
“Consumer-driven mobility has led employees to rely increasingly on mobile devices for business purposes,” writes Raúl Castañón-Martínez, a senior analyst at 451 Research in his new report.
The report cites survey research by 451 Research about the use of mobile phones for business: “Survey results show that nearly 70% of respondents use a smartphone – either personal or provided by their companies – for business purposes.”
The problem lies in the fact that these mobile devices and services are largely disconnected from enterprise IT, Castañón-Martínez explains.
“The lack of integration between mobile networks and enterprise IT systems means mobile and traditional business communications sit side by side, with IT managing them as separate entities.”
As a result, many of these business communications take place outside of the control, compliance enforcement, and policy enforcement tools available to IT.
These factors are why “Second-Wave Mobility” is focusing on enterprise needs, putting enterprise IT in control of mobility in the same way it controls landlines, networking, personal computing devices, business applications and other IT elements.
The new 451 Research report will be the subject of a webinar coming up in September:
Second Wave Mobility: The Enterprise Mobile Communications Revolution Begins
The complimentary webinar will focus on how enterprise mobility is being addressed in the latest wave of innovations and industry technology trends.
Andrew Bale, Tango Networks’ General Manager of Cloud Services, will join the webinar to discuss the evolution of enterprise mobile communications.
Featuring the most advanced implementation of fixed mobile convergence technologies, Mobile-X from Tango Networks supports many use cases for a distributed workforce, including Mobile Unified Communications, mobile workforce communications, and programs for remote working, work from home, telecommuting and business continuity.
Webinar topics to be covered include:
- How new mobile technologies are enhancing corporate collaboration
- How mobility is being integrated with Customer Relationship Management, Workforce Optimization and other business applications
- Mobile communications recording compliance and policy enforcement
- Business text messaging in the new generation of mobility
- How future directions in Private 4G / Private LTE networks can transform the corporate wireless strategy