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The sales head immediately took out the device from his pocket and typed frantically on it. Once his sudden energy spurt was over, he looked at us and smiled, had to close a deal urgently. First movers advantage. We looked at the device in his hand. The blue light kept on beeping on it. It was our turn to smile and say, so this is what enterprise mobility can do for you.

While not many dispute the use of having enterprise mobility in their kitty, there is still a visible reluctance on the part of the companies to deploy a full fledged mobility solution in their organizations. At its very basic interpretation, enterprise mobility is all about making the back-office support available to the personnel on field. It is smooth, seamless communication with the boxes lying in the backyard of your office.

However, if one is to explore deeper into the robe of enterprise mobility, there is a crowd of applications, bar-codes, hardware and security firewalls that need to be tackled. And the Indian enterprises are finally tightening their armors and gearing up to embrace mobility.

Roaming Charges
As per a Forrester report on enterprise mobility, having a well-mobilized workforce can save an organization up to 40% of its valuable man hours, and can result in a consolidated increase in the overall efficiency of employees. If thats not enough encouragement, then there are enough studies to prove that enterprise mobility can help reduce costs of an organization by at least 20%.

But all of these motivational tools have not been able to make the Indian enterprises take the plunge. Is there a lack of awareness regarding mobility prevalent in our country? No, say experts and adopters alike. As per Ramesh Sundararaman, business manager, mobile computing division, Motorola Enterprise Mobility, The advantages of enterprise mobility are clearer than ever. The organizations know how well it can work for them. But there are still some implementation challenges.

As of now, only about 12% of the businesses in India are completely mobility enabled. However, the good news lies in the fact that over 45% of the organizations want to be enabled and are looking at this option seriously. These figures, though they say much about the challenges, also boast of the tremendous potential that enterprise mobility holds.

Says Shubho Bhattacharya, CEO, CDC CRM Solutions, Indian executives are still not equipped. They are still living with lesser technologies. There is tremendous scope for us to move up the tiers of mobility. Right now, a majority of people are at the bottom rung. He goes on to justify the penetration of mobility in big enterprises alone, Mobility has made a mark in big enterprises where there are economies of scale. It has hardly reached the SMEs.

Areas like CRM, remote data collection and management, RFID, LBS are fast catching up Madhavan Krishnan, head, domain solutions group, Wipro Infotech	The advantages of enterprise mobility are clear. But there are still some implementation challenges Ramesh Sundararaman, business manager, Motorola Enterprise Mobility	There is tremendous scope for us to move up the tiers of mobility. It has hardly reached the SMEs Shubho Bhattachrya, CEO, CDC CRM Solutions

Right now, the go-to-market approach of vendors of enterprise mobility can be divided into two segments the hardware and the software part. While the hardware vendors swear by their products, its the software part that is generating a lot of interest. According to Sundararaman, it is the capability of the device and its features that make all the difference. The more rugged it is, the sounder its architectural stability, the better it can work for an organization.

However, the scope of enterprise mobility resting on the back of these devices, again become restricting in nature. These devices obviously come at a cost, and although the RoI is a good case, the initial cost still acts as a hurdle. The case for enterprise mobility then, shall perhaps be made when it can reach the common devices and is not dependent on specifics alone. And the shift seems to be happening. What executives started doing with their blackberrys a couple of years back, is being taken further on their iPhones. It might only be a matter of time till mobility reaches devices spread across the layer.

Knots in the Wire
Motorolas acquisition in January 2007 of the wearable computer company Symbol Technologies, called attention to the increased mobility of enterprise employees who nevertheless, still demand quick and easy access to business-critical information. Since then, everyone seems to be wanting to get into the enterprise mobility industry.

And a lot of players did take the plunge into mobility. The term, since then has matured considerably. While even sending bulk SMSes to the sales force was considered to be a mobility sort of adoption (and a large number of our SMBs are still in that stage), we have now evolved to reach what the experts call the email stage. As Vadiraj, VP and head of mobile application business for MindTree notes, A major chunk of enterprise mobility in India right now is mobile email. Right now, it garners at least 40-50% of the mobile enterprise market. That also makes the definition of enterprise mobility a bit problematic.

While moving from messages to email is a progress in itself, we are still far from the western definition of enterprise mobility that encompasses everything from the integration of cell phones into a corporate PBX system to vertically oriented solutions. The later involving the quick delivery of productivity enhancing information to people in the field, the factory, the warehouse, at cash registers and at patients bedside.

We are still at a stage where only the very conventional sectors like retail and BFSI are using mobility applications for conventional areas like sales-force automation, transaction management, etc. As Madhavan Krishnan, head- domain solutions group, Wipro Infotech notes, Field force automation and integration, mobile transaction management, asset tracking and management, bill payments/receipts, ticketing, Intranet applications such as executive MIS on mobile, etc, are the things that are currently in vogue. However, other areas like CRM, remote data collection and management, queue buster solutions, integrated handheld solutions with other technology solutions like RFID; location based services are fast catching up.

The biggest challenge in the way of enterprise mobility is the security of the data being transferred. After all, the data being transmitted can contain sensitive and crucial information and companies need to ensure that it is not going beyond their network.

Bhattacharya agrees that security is a valid concern. He, however insists that security is no longer an issue that cant be dealt with effectively. One of the easiest and first steps towards ensuring safety is to make sure that there should be no storage capacity in the hand-held devices he says.

We are still in the process of evolving the hardware to accommodate a mobility platform. But a hardware oriented approach is not exactly what can be envisioned for India, given the price sensitivity of our nation. This remains all the more valid for mid and small level enterprises.

The change shall only come once the focus shifts decisively towards intelligent applications, rather than fancy devices. As Bhattacharya notes, Business applications should be designed in a way that they are intelligent enough to push themselves through the most rudimentary of devices. Solutions have to work all across the structure, otherwise we shall see very limited growth.

So clearly, there are challenges in the way of enterprise mobility. And clearly, the spurt has not lived up to general expectations. There are things that need to be acknowledged and looked into, before we blow the mobility trumpet any louder.

Its time for a reality check, and putting some solutions on the shelves!

Mehak Chawla
mehakc@cybermedia.co.in

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