Mobility “fundamentally changing” the way NZ organisations do business

The majority of New Zealand organisations (87%) are investing in mobile solutions to improve their experience with their customers, allocating a high proportion of budget to mobility solutions in the process.

According to new research from IDC New Zealand’s recent Asia Pacific (excluding Japan) Mobility report, of the 2,000 businesses surveyed, New Zealand sits among the top three countries in the APeJ region with regards to maturity of mobility adoption.

Adam Dodds, IT Services Research Manager, IDC NZ, believes the key differences between New Zealand and other more mature countries such as Australia, is their investment in mobility to change business end to end business processes.

As a result, New Zealand organisations signal that a high level of budget for the 2014/15 period will be aligned to mobility, with 40% of businesses set to spend 10-30% of their budget on mobility - higher than that of their counterparts in Australia.

So much so that everyone wants to participate in the mobile opportunity as across organisations every department signal an involvement in the mobility adoption process. Dodds believes this subsequently risks the process being laboured from over involvement and over governance.

Tech turned on its head...

Dodds believe organisations are heading into a period of technology adoption where the traditional approaches to doing business "are being turned on their head."

“Being able to add the context of location and access to information can fundamentally change the pace in which decisions will be made with or without the need for human intervention," he adds.

The study makes note that the budget for mobility is coming from across the business with 29% of companies now possessing a budget that is dedicated to mobility.

A further 35% is coming from existing IT budgets and 9% from marketing, while the remainder is evaluated on a case by case basis (27%).

"When looking at mobile as a mechanism for customer engagement the opportunity to be personalised and referenceable in the engagement is incredibly compelling,” Dodds adds.

“With 53% of businesses now saying that their 1-20% of their revenue is coming online the ability to be more insightful about the customer and their customer's environment is a must.”

Security remains the highest area of focus with regarding the enablement of mobility solutions and as a consequence here is a particular focus on network security, access and identity management.

"Organisations will live and die by the value of their information and how it is protected from others,” Dodds adds.

“Customers are willing to share more information about their location, preferences and needs but will act with ferociousness if this is not treated with due care.”