APAC Enterprise Mobility market set for fragmented future...

The Asia/Pacific Enterprise Mobility market is expected to become increasingly fragmented in the coming years, as countries in the regions have begun to utilise mobility in different fashions depending on their needs.

According to IDC research, companies across the Asia/Pacific excluding Japan (APEJ) region have been readily increasing their investments on mobility adoption.

On average, over 70% of all survey respondents stated that there were some kind of mobility initiatives in their organizations.

"Enterprises across the region are realising it’s no longer a question of why, but a question of how when it comes to mobility adoption in their organisations," says Ian Song, Research Manager for Enterprise Mobility, IDC Asia/Pacific.

“With the growing momentum of the trend of Bring Your Own Devices (BYOD), companies can no longer ignore mobile devices in the workplace.”

According to the survey, organisations are becoming increasingly aware of mobility, as well as becoming more accommodating to mobility in their organisations.

This has led to a rapid increase of relaxed company policies toward mobile devices, both personally owned as well as professionally procured.

However, when probed further, Song says very few organisations have a clear direction on how to leverage mobile devices effectively at workplace.

The top response for engaging enterprise mobility was to increase employee goodwill, which indicated that many organizations haven’t thought about mobility strategically.

“Clearly, enterprises have clued in the fact that they have to adopt enterprise mobility,” Song adds.

“But very few organisations understand the value proposition of mobility for their businesses, which is about enhancing and driving business growth, not just to make employees happy.”

The enterprise mobility survey shows that how mobility is perceived and utilised in Asia/Pacific can vary quite drastically.

Developed countries like Singapore or Australia put more focus on ensuring security and management of the enterprise mobility platform; while emerging countries like Indonesia and Thailand tend to focus on developing applications to drive business on the mobile platform.

“Companies in developed countries tend to have more infrastructure and data they need to protect, especially on the mobile platform," Song adds.

"Whereas companies in developing countries have less legacy to deal with, and more customers leveraging mobility, so they must utilise mobility to stay competitive."

IDC also finds that across the region, more organisations are putting more emphasis on mobile security and management.

About 80% of respondents who has mobility initiatives in their organisations has either implemented or are testing mobile security and management solutions.

However, IDC finds that more organisations are still leaning towards device-only management solutions (MDM) rather than the more comprehensive mobile enterprise management (MEM) solutions that secures the device, application and data.

“The average cost per user for MDM solutions is USD$28 in Asia/Pacific on a perpetual basis, while the average cost for MEM solution is USD$36, which is only USD$8 more," Song adds.

"Clearly, pricing is a factor, but the large impetus here might be a general lack of understanding on differentiation between MDM and MEM."