Organizations are increasingly leveraging mobility to transform their businesses. With continued mobile penetration in the Middle East region, smartphones are changing how organizations interact with customers, employees and partners. To this end, mobile solutions have become an integral part of any organization’s overall IT strategy. According to findings of the TMR report, the global enterprise mobility market is anticipated to reach a valuation of US$510.39 billion by the end of 2022 which in 2014 stood at a much lower value of US$86.36 billion. If the figures hold true, the global market for enterprise mobility will exhibit an incredible CAGR of 24.7% in a seven year period.
As Mobility trends continue to transform the way we communicate, collaborate and access information, customers are taking a wireless-first approach to connectivity. They need mobile networking solutions that allow enterprises to easily accommodate smartphones, tablets and other personal devices on internal networks while keeping them safe with the most robust security features available. All of this creates a tremendous opportunity in the channel.
“Mobility Engagement solution is comprised of several components such as ‘way finding’ solution, mobility analytical engine and targeted advertising system. Customers such as hospitals, large educational institutes, malls, airports, stadiums and similar organizations need this solution to enhance customer service, satisfaction and loyalty. This is another big channel opportunity,” stated Manish Bhardwaj, Sr. Marketing Manager, Middle East & Turkey at Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise Company.
Over the past few years, IT has been focused on just attempting to control the influx of smartphones, tablets, e-readers and other mobile devices into the work environment. It is now apparent that with the right approach, IT can do a lot more to capture the opportunities mobility offers while still minimizing the risks it introduces.
“With BYOD accelerating in the Middle East, the biggest challenge facing channel partners and clients is transforming the underlying network architecture to support cloud-native apps. This is true for all industry verticals, and especially for early adopters such as banking and finance, education, and telecommunications,” added Ossama Eldeeb, Senior Manager – MENA Partner Organization at VMware.
The rapid adoption of smartphones and tablets in the workplace is undoubtedly responsible for the initial wave of the mobility revolution; however, the real benefits are arriving through the applications, services, and data that employees can access for a productive work experience on any device. The race is on to go beyond basic email and calendaring to deliver complete mobile workspaces suited to the growing spectrum of device form factors and capabilities.
Gartner finds that managed mobility service (MMS) is one of the main spaces where new opportunities lie for the channel. “A lot of factors are enabling the rapid adoption of managed mobility services in the market. One of the key drivers would be regional enterprises that are taking a keen interest in increasing productivity within their workplace and find MMS as the perfect solution,” explained Leif-Olof Wallin, Research Vice President at Gartner.
Faced with the challenges of mobile devices and information explosion, fierce global competition, and rapid emergence of new technologies, smarter, stable and secure connectivity is required to redefine the enterprise and to realize its vision of creating a more productive and efficient work environment.
According to the Head of Sales Engineering – East Region at Cisco Middle East, Mohannad Abuissa adds that IT decision makers are under pressure to deliver mobile apps but cannot afford to depend on any one model exclusively. “They need to evaluate which apps should run natively, which should run in a browser environment and which should use a hybrid approach. They must consider which ones should use application or desktop virtualization, and which ones should be delivered from the cloud in a software-as-a-service (SaaS) model. Each approach has pros and cons. Cost, time, resources, data security, user experience and back-end integration all need to be taken into account. The mobility infrastructure needs to optimize and secure all these delivery models.”
“Mobility has won a permanent place in the enterprise competitive arsenal, and is ultimately becoming the convergence point for new information and data distribution services, including unified communications, mobile Software-as-a-Service (mSaaS), and the truly mobile Internet,” added Bruce Zhou, CEO of Axilspot.
Mobile technologies are having a dramatic effect on the way we live, work, learn and play. While organizations recognize that the impact of mobility could be as great as that of the web, many are struggling with what exactly to do about it. IT leaders have the opportunity to direct this transformation to help apply mobile technologies to transform the way we all work, and to enable organizations to better engage with mobile consumers of their products and services.
“The next two years are critical for Middle East organizations to work with partners to develop digital transformation roadmaps centered on the mobile user experience. Channel partners need to overcome challenges such as integrating vendor solutions and back-end data, enhancing enterprise apps usability, and upskilling app developers,” explained Mohamed Khan, Channel Head of SAP Global Partner Organization in MENA at SAP.
According to Gartner Analyst, Wallin the main challenge that partners looking to move into the enterprise mobility market may face will be acquiring the right skill set. “There is a global shortage of mobile developers and it is difficult to not only find and recruit good talent but also in retaining them. While there have been focussed efforts by some universities to offer courses to develop the required skill-sets, still the demand is much higher than what these universities can turn out right now,” he added.
Many organizations today have set their sights far beyond “bring your own device” (BYOD). They are recognizing that mobility is moving beyond device connectivity to really empowering employees with consistent and meaningful mobile experiences. It lets businesses get closer to customers, to do business better and all while reducing risk and exposure. As organizations move to the digital workplace, it is critical to get the IT infrastructure ready and utilize all the benefits that mobility can bring into the workspace.
