Mobility Strategy
For mobile devices to flourish in the country there is a need to get the software communities in India to develop economic applications, which have short time to market. Interoperability is another issue which needs to be addressed by device agnostic solutions, which provide the enterprise to choose the operator, vendor, the type of handset, etc.

Organizations have started to think of crafting a mobility strategy and with the growing subscriber base 100% mobility in enterprises is not a tough task to achieve.

Applications Abound
Enterprises are beginning to view wireless as the natural extension of their presence in the real and virtual world. The advantages of wireless are also widely accepted by enterprises. In a competitive environment that India is in now, enterprises are in search of economy and efficiency, and they feel wireless can deliver both. Researchers believe that the drivers for the enterprise mobile application market in India are zooming mobile penetration; the existence of telecom networks supporting data usage, and corporate adoption taking off. In addition, the rapid migration to high-end smart phones, an increasing need for differentiated solutions and a unified view of corporate and field data in real-time are also contributing to a growing market for mobile applications.

Cost, convenience and reach are also factors that are driving companies to adopt wireless technologies. It's a commonly known fact now that mobile handsets are the largest access and content device in terms of population. They outscore TV sets, desktops or landline phones by a big margin. Wireless, therefore, is accepted as the right media to reach the largest target audience at the least cost.

One of the key application areas for enterprises is automation of sales and service. It has become a high growth application especially for markets like India where there is geographical diversity, coupled with low broadband penetration. So mobile phones will be the device of choice and cellular networks would be the carrier. The key, however, would be the data (text) input technology, which will decide speed of transaction. Location-based service, although has not caught up yet, has immense possibilities.

Productivity enhancement applications such as email, Internet/intranet and calendar, etc give enterprises a competitive edge to improve turnaround time and decision-making and thus improve profits. These applications are expected to drive proliferation of next-generation mobile devices and applications.

Customer-centric applications such as sales force automation (SFA), customer relationship management (CRM) customer care/call center, legacy and customized applications are the thrust areas which help enterprises increase productivity, cut down on cost and maintain an edge over competitors.

ERP-centric applications such as enterprise resource planning (ERP), manufacturing financial/accounting, human resources, legacy/customized applications are also gaining traction in the Indian enterprise segment.

The driving factors in the next one to two years will be increased availability, easy to integrate applications and competitive advantage. Among the trends that enterprises are increasingly seeing are that the Internet is emerging as the backbone for mobile applications. Rather than packing intelligence into smart phones, the trend will be to provide applications from centralized locations that will be accessed using a mobile device.

Some enterprises, especially in the developed world are using mobile instant messaging as a good productivity tool. In Western Europe SMS based applications, specifically designed to suit enterprise applications, are in use. Distribution companies for tracking are also using GPS.

Best Ways to Reach Customers
Adoption of wireless is faster in consumer driven companies-banks and financial institutions, travel and tours, retail and media portals. They primarily view this as the best way to reach their customers or employees because of obvious benefits in terms of cost, convenience and reach. Enterprises are now eagerly waiting for robust m-commerce platforms and mobile sales force automation.

Despite the maturing market, security still forms a potential threat for enterprise mobile applications but not for all. Companies including handset manufacturers are developing technologies for providing a complete and secure wireless solution. Adoption of new services such as m-commerce, the next generation mobile application, largely depends on secure platforms, which is being affectively addressed by solution providers.

Matching Needs
The biggest challenge is customizing application to suit enterprise requirement and then having it embedded on ones device. Predictive Input technologies like T9 are expected to the usage, as this would mean intelligently feeding data with high speed and accuracy for transactions which will be the key to productivity.

Another major challenge is imbalance in the wireless ecology. The application creator or enabler has no say in overall business policy or norms. It's the operators who decide all; and their priorities, naturally, are different.

Apart from solution providers, for the operators providing the network there are tighter SLAs, price drops, entry of new players, right of way (ROW) issues and requirement for huge capex for last mile connectivity.

Companies now are intensely focusing on cost cutting and expense reduction. As price reduction increases competition in stagnant markets mobile employees armed with their handhelds can reduce the business cycle, shrink business process cycle times and improve communication and customer satisfaction. The importance of mobility in an organization is growing day-by-day, and with better devices and innovative applications mobile workforce will be the lifeline of the enterprise.

Sonia Sharma
sonias@cybermedia.co.in