Telsyte predicts $5.5bn enterprise mobility market by 2020

The market for management software, devices and services is expected to approach $5.5 billion by the end of the decade, according to new research by Telsyte.

Findings from the Telsyte Australian Enterprise Mobility Market Study 2017 predict that by 2020, the enterprise mobility market will consist of $1.9bn worth of devices (smartphones and tablets), $1.2bn worth of management tools (including MDM) and $2.3bn of integration and support services.

This will be due to more businesses moving to a mobile first strategy and supporting a workforce that is increasingly able to work anywhere. According to Telsyte, 34% of businesses have staff regularly working outside of the work premises, which has been a consistent trend over the past two years.

Despite the rise in bring your own device (BYOD), almost 80% of businesses still buy some smartphones for staff, while 50% buy tablets. Almost half of all tablets purchased have cellular features.

The two big consumer smartphone brands also dominate the enterprise, with most organisations purchasing Apple and Samsung smartphones.

Bring your own apps (BYOA), a term coined by Telsyte, has also started to become more common in the Australian market. More organisations are trying to enforce rules that stop or limit the use of consumer-grade apps in the workplace, mainly due to security concerns. However, companies are struggling to contain the problem.

“Despite the fears, around 10% of organisations admit they can’t control BYOA and staff use personal apps regardless of policies,” said Rodney Gedda, Telsyte senior analyst.

Around half of all businesses with greater than 20 employees allow BYOA, with most citing productivity and employee demand as the main reasons, as well as lack of training needed to use apps.

“With arrival of Facebook’s Workplace, more companies will look to enterprise applications that leverage consumer platforms to reduce training requirements and promote adoption, a trend that has been a driver of BYOA in the past,” said Gedda.

The main personal applications used in in the workplace are email, file storage such as Dropbox and project/task management. Group calendaring is also on the rise.

Telsyte estimates that almost half of all organisations in Australia now have an enterprise-grade MDM, with this expected to close in on 70% by 2020.

Research demonstrates that less than 20% of Australian companies are mature with their enterprise mobility and realisation of innovation and productivity benefits. The leading MDM vendors in Australia are BlackBerry, IBM and Samsung.

The growth in MDM is being driven by a high rate (86%) of enterprises still concerned about the security of enterprise mobility. This includes inadequate separation between work-related use and personal use of a device and the security of devices that have access to corporate information but are not corporately managed.

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