Productivity gains drive mobile working

Increasing worker productivity, rather than lowering costs, is the primary driver behind mobile technology deployments that provide staff with remote access to email and business applications.

According to research conducted by analyst IDC, boosting productivity ranked higher than any other potential strategic benefit of mobility - including increased revenue and market share - and reduced costs.

The study found that early adoptors of mobile are already becoming dissatisfied with basic wireless access and limited mobility, with leading-edge organisations saying they have already mobilised applications such as customer relationship management, field service, and salesforce automation tools.

Two thirds of the organisations surveyed currently provide wireless access to their back-end servers, applications, and/or data for mobile corporate applications, and another 28 per cent plan to do so in the next 12 months.

But companies still face problems such as security and the challenge of integrating today's mobility solutions within their existing infrastructures, the analyst firm warned.

"Organisations that can effectively leverage mobility solutions to achieve their business objectives are leading the next evolutionary wave," said Dana Thorat, senior analyst of IDC's mobile user programme, in a statement.

"These organisations are moving towards device convergence, wireless local area nework infrastructures, wireless access to back-end servers and corporate data, and deployments beyond basic personal information manager and email, all while instituting standards, policies and processes to minimise the security risks of these investments."

The survey findings also suggest that a concerted push towards devices with converged features is in store for mobile enterprises.

Organisations indicated plans to purchase data-enabled mobile phones, wireless-enabled PDAs, converged devices/smartphones, and the latest BlackBerry devices that can support voice telephony.