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Enterprise Mobility Growing Rapidly in India

By Susan J. Campbell, TMCnet Contributing Editor

Expanding markets are demanding that professionals increasingly stay in the field to meet customers on their own turf and drive a competitive advantage. This trend is increasing the need for enterprise mobility, putting additional strain on the enterprise to support multiple employees using multiple devices. For companies offering enterprise mobility solutions around the world, the opportunities are sure to be significant.

This recent My Digital Life report highlighted the possibilities in enterprise mobility in India. According to an enterprise mobility study conducted by Zinnov, a management consulting company, India’s rapidly evolving enterprise mobility market is projected to hit $1 billion by mid-2015. Projections suggest that country will support 100 million active mobile Internet users over the next five years.

This growth, according to Zinnov, will result from a combination of factors, such as entrepreneurial and startup activity, innovation, better device penetration and the increased acceptance of the majority of mobile platforms. Efforts to manage enterprise mobility will include a focus on enterprise resource planning, customer relationship and supply chain management, unified communication, sales force automation and billing.

A number of industries are seeking to expand their enterprise mobility management efforts, including banking, finance, construction, pharmaceutical, human resources, retail, customer service and field service. Early adopters of enterprise mobility include sales, marketing, information technology and corporate management.

A healthy entrepreneurial trend in this segment is indicated by the 25 percent of digital startups in the mobility space. OEMs are also developing innovative tablet offerings and tech companies such as Qualcomm (News - Alert), RIM and others have expressed an interest in providing seed funding and venture capital to startups working in the enterprise mobility space in India.

India currently has 840 million mobile phone subscribers and 15 percent smartphone penetration. Powerful devices are helping to fuel the growth of enterprise mobility as the tablet personal computer market is flourishing. Zinnov also interviewed key IT decision makers in India, determining that the key reasons for mobility were collaboration among employees, push from management, reducing communication costs, and get more work time out of employees.

Companies are increasingly leveraging enterprise mobility to optimize their mobility investments. The choice of pay-per-use models drives down operating costs. The projected Indian mobile data traffic is set to grow four times faster than Indian fixed IP traffic through 2015. Total IP traffic in 2015 is expected to be at 28 percent.

Even with this drive toward enterprise mobility in India, there are still barriers to complete penetration and the use of mobile applications. Most industries lack standard supply chains and vernacular content will make it difficult for businesses to find value in available applications for mobile devices.




Susan J. Campbell is a contributing editor for TMCnet and has also written for eastbiz.com. To read more of Susan’s articles, please visit her columnist page.

Edited by Stefanie Mosca