Enterprise Mobility: The Changing Market Landscape
I have been sharing a lot my thoughts on innovations and market trends in the Wireless Applications space. In my last blog on Enterprise Mobility, I tried to describe my thoughts on the next of wave opportunities for businesses and brands. For once, I wanted to take a step back and share with you my questions for which I would like to hear your thoughts.
Enterprise Mobility market has been traditionally associated with applications/solutions like Field Force Automation and Mobile Point of Sale. Enterprise Mobility started out as productivity improvement tools that invaded our lives in the forms of mobile phones and Blackberries, dramatically extending work days and globalizing work. How have operators played in these markets other than providing the network access and devices. MNOs are now offering a wide range of hosted mobility solutions to their enterprise customers like providing remote access, Device Mgmt, Unified messaging, audio conferencing, instant messaging etc. While these are technical solutions that focus primarily on the productivity aspects of an Enterprise, can an Operator help drive revenues for their enterprise customers thereby creating a revenue opportunity for themselves?
Operators know all about their devices, the multitude of operating systems that are abound in this segment, they understand their network better and they have reach to 10s of millions of consumers who are also consumers of large enterprises. Can operators create focused vertical solutions for their Enterprise customers? Consumers are hungry for applications and Enterprises all around are trying to use mobile devices as a new sales and service channel. How can an operator enable their customers to shop at a large Retail Outlet avoiding the long queues or enable a local grocery to reach out to their customers with mobile coupons?
What are your thoughts on extending Enterprise mobility solutions/application beyond employees to an enterprise’s customers?
What can Operators do to enable the Enterprises meet with their mobility challenges? How can operators provide a platform for Enterprises to launch their mobile applications? What are the benefits Enterprises can realize from doing this?
