The true cost of poor enterprise mobility connectivity

More than 50% of the workforce (representing 1.7 billion workers) is now relying on technology and mobile solutions to perform their everyday job functions.

Many workers — such as nurses, first responders, field service technicians, or delivery drivers — depend on reliable mobile access in real-time to critical information at the point of interaction. Mobility is business-critical, and this reality has put more pressure on companies to find solutions that safeguard customer or asset data for remote workers while supporting productivity, reducing workforce downtime/failures and providing clear ROI (return on investment).

According to a new study commissioned by SOTI and conducted by VDC Research, access to increasingly powerful mobile and other internet-connected devices, intuitive and immersive applications and robust networks has significantly changed the way we work. In fact, even one dropped connection or poorly performing application per shift can translate into almost $20,000 in annual support and productivity loss costs per mobile worker. The consequence of each failure incident can result in up to 100 minutes in lost productivity or 23% of a daily shift.

The study found that even though workers are relying on mobile solutions more than ever, surprisingly, many are not leveraging enterprise mobility management (EMM) solutions to their fullest potential. In fact, only one in five claims to have complete visibility into mobile device (comprising of phones, tablets, POS systems, scanners and other ruggedised internet-connected hardware) and application usage. This represents a massive underserved opportunity for organisations to further streamline business-critical mobility support as well as improve the end user experience and ultimately a company’s bottom line.

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Leading business-critical mobility investment drivers

Improve worker productivity	36.4%
Increase sales/revenues	28.6%
Improve real-time decision making	27.0%
Improve competitive advantage	26.2%
Reduce paperwork	26.2%

While improving workforce productivity remains the leading business-critical mobility investment driver, organisations are similarly leveraging these investments to drive revenues, improve real-time decision making and introduce competitive differentiation.

Worker productivity improvements ranked high as a driver for investment in mobile technology in all sectors — which include healthcare, manufacturing and transportation and logistics. However, there were differences in the primary driver for investment between the sectors. For example, the retail sector with its inherently mobile workforce, estimated at 220 million workers, listed increased sales and revenue as its top priority.

“If organisations are not leveraging an integrated mobile approach to improve the visibility, management, and support of their business-critical mobility solutions, they are limiting their ability to quickly diagnose and fix issues which directly leads to losses in revenue,” said Shash Anand, Vice-President of Product Strategy at SOTI.

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Leading causes of mobile solution failure

Network/connectivity issues	49.3%
Software issues: application	40.6%
Mobile battery failure	36.8%
Software issues: security and access control	36.5%
Software issues: operating system	34.1%
Mobile hardware damage (non-battery related)	25.9%
Mobile peripheral/accessory damage	20.2%
Unauthorised configuration changes by employee/end user	18.3%

The most successful enterprises consider several key factors when implementing business-critical mobility strategies. These include identifying challenges that affect the success of mobile solutions in the field — from application performance to network latency and data throughput, among others.

The key to minimising the impact of failure of business-critical mobile solutions is the visibility and ability to remotely manage mobile solutions, as well as:

• Securing devices (protecting data through encryption and passcode policies, locking down certain device features, auditing devices, etc.);
• Managing mobile devices (asset and inventory management, updating and provisioning new policies, pushing out new configuration policies, etc.); and
• Deploying mobile devices (activating devices, enrolling them in policies, authenticating users, configuring policies, provisioning apps, etc.).
   

The rise in mobility coincides with the ability to use applications to streamline workflow processes. The report found that leveraging tools that can rapidly develop and deploy minimum viable products, like mobile applications, offers organisations an opportunity to streamline this process and stay ahead of application demands.

“EMM is key for enterprises with business-critical mobility, but sometimes EMM alone is not enough,” said Anand.

“Many organisations today are facing a battle to keep up with the demand for mobile applications in a timely and budget friendly manner. Mobile applications can take an average of five months to develop and cost an average of $55,000 per application. We created the SOTI ONE platform to address the various mobility challenges enterprises face, including cost, complexity and device downtime.”

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^Methodology

^{VDC fielded a global survey among enterprise mobility decision makers spanning multiple industries, including retail, manufacturing, transportation/logistics, healthcare, energy, professional services and public sector organisations. A total of 400 respondents completed the survey. The respondents all supported significant mobile estates averaging 2,267 devices.}

^{About SOTI Inc.}

^{SOTI is the world’s most trusted provider of mobile and IoT management solutions, with more than 17,000 enterprise customers and millions of devices managed worldwide. SOTI’s innovative portfolio of solutions and services provide the tools organisations need to truly mobilise their operations and optimise their mobility investments. SOTI extends secure mobility management to provide a total, flexible solution for comprehensive management and security of all mobile devices and connected peripherals deployed in an organisation. For more information, visit www.soti.net.}

Top image credit: ©stock.adobe.com/au/Uzhursky