Enterprise mobility and digitalization

Introducing enterprise mobility

2019 has proven to be an impactful year for the progression of enterprise mobility, with cloud solutions and cyber security of course remaining a top priority. In our annual survey, we measured 2019’s trends regarding mobility priorities and roadblocks in order to gauge the 2020 landscape. Survey respondents included those from Enterprise Digitalization, Enterprise Mobility, the AI & Intelligent Automation Network, and others who are responsible for moving strategy and technology forward within an enterprise. Respondents were asked about investment priorities, barriers to making investments, mobile app development challenges, concerns with cloud computing, the state of enterprise mobility and cybersecurity, and more.

Industry overview

At the dawn of 2020, enterprises continue investing in enterprise mobility solutions. 57.53 percent of survey respondents reported that they expect their budget to increase for new technology solutions in 2020; 32.88 percent reported that they expect their budget to remain about the same; and, fortunately, only 9.59 percent reported that their budget would be decreasing. Data analysts suggest that no matter what- technology and IT spending should almost always increase, even if a recession were to occur. Enterprise mobility and digitalization are simply essential to survival.

“IT often has a solution, but they don’t necessarily have the budget and resource. If the hypothesis is that IT is understaffed and overburdened or overwhelmed—that statement is proven true by looking at the capital expenses of pretty much every company out there. IT’s a cost center, so your business has been growing at 10 to 12 percent every year for the last decade and a half. But how fast has your IT budget grown? 2 percent? That means you’re selling things that you don’t actually embrace internally as an organization. That’s a problem.” Ryan Martin, Principal Analyst, ABI Research.

Which industry vertical best describes where your organization sits?

In your organization, for what regions are you responsible?

Do you expect your budget to increase or decrease for new technology solutions in 2020?

Although a good portion of respondents don’t expect their 2020 budget to increase, most respondents still plan to invest in a variety of mobility solutions. 21.33 percent of respondents anticipate investing in the cloud in 2020; 17.33 percent anticipate investing in mobility; and 13.33 percent anticipate investing in apps.

It seems that the overall mood surrounding the industry is quite promising. 65.33 percent of respondents reported feeling optimistic about the state of enterprise mobility and digital transformation; an additional 25.33 percent feel careful/strategic; and only 1.33 percent feel pessimistic.

Overall, my take on enterprise mobility and digital transformation is

While this optimism surrounding the industry is great, it is true that there are still plenty of concerns weighing heavily on people’s minds. When survey respondents were asked about what keeps them up at night, we received a variety of different responses. The biggest concerns included cybersecurity and not having enough resources to properly integrate new technologies—with both of these factors on the frontlines of keeping an enterprise ahead of the curve, it is no wonder why such things seem so formidable.

• “What keeps you up at night?”

45.45 percent responded with cybersecurity; 41.56 percent not having enough resources to integrate new technology solutions; 35.06 percent educating employees about new technologies; 28.57 percent hiring the right talent for digital transformation; 28.57 percent lack of budget to match needs; 25.97 percent IT support team overburdened; 24.68 percent missing opportunities buried in large volumes of untapped data; 20.78 percent lack of clear ROI; and 16.88 percent falling behind competition.

“Not having enough resources to integrate new solutions, that’s a problem right now. And it’s more around finding staff and finding candidates to fill staff positions. In this economy, we’re really struggling trying to hire employees. We’re competing- they’ve got competing offers- and before we can pull the trigger, they’ve moved on to another job. A challenge that we’re struggling with- especially on the IT side- is finding qualified candidates, it seems to be harder than in the past. There are just fewer out there that have the skills that we’re looking for and hiring them is a challenge.” Jim Degliumberto, CIO, Southeastrans.

Cloud computing and cybersecurity

As the workforce becomes rapidly mobilized, most enterprises have begun to invest in new technologies. Migrating to the cloud in particular remains a top priority for businesses, and it is easy to understand why. Not only is the cloud useful and accessible for nearly every industry type, but its ability to collect extensive data has become an essential tool for enterprises who wish to keep up in today’s competitive market. The cloud is also superior in its flexibility and mobility, which is crucial in tandem with the increasing trend of remote workers and remote collaboration. Our contributors speak on the imperative nature of cloud computing:

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“If your mobility strategy is not regulated by security governance policies, then cloud migration is your top priority—otherwise, it is security.” Dan McFall, President & CEO, Mobile Labs.

According to our survey, most enterprises have already migrated to cloud computing. 33.33 percent of survey respondents have migrated to a public cloud solution, 14.67 percent to a private cloud solution, and 28 percent to a hybrid cloud solution. It is no wonder why a hybrid cloud solution has appealed to so many of our survey respondents, as there are several benefits to being both public and somewhat private at the same time. However, 24 percent have still yet to make the transition to the cloud at all, which is concerning, given that the cloud is the foundation upon which virtually all other digital transformation and enterprise mobility initiatives will rely. It is possible that those who reported that they have not yet made the transition to the cloud are unaware that some of the tools they use on a daily basis are likely to be cloud-based.

Has your enterprise migrated to cloud computing?

A closer look into our survey results yielded the following key findings:

• 52.56 percent of survey respondents reported that the cloud is the digital transformation component in which they are most interested; this was the second-most popular answer, preceded only by data/analytics at 55.13 percent.
• 25 percent of survey respondents reported that they are using cloud computing to gain insight into data, which came second only to Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning.
• 21.33 percent of survey respondents reported that they anticipate investing in cloud computing in 2020, which accounts for nearly all respondents who noted that they have not yet begun their transition to the cloud. Similarly, 14.47 percent of survey respondents reported that migrating to the cloud is their top digital transformation initiative for 2020.

When asked about their enterprises’ biggest challenge when it comes to cloud computing, 46.67 percent of survey respondents responded with security and privacy; 22.67 percent with costs; 21.33 percent with losing control of data; and 9.33 percent with other. It is true that costs area prevailing issue for a lot of enterprises, as it is quite difficult to gauge the true cost. There may be tools that help to calculate the final cost, but there are so many variables that make forecasting not entirely reliable. For example, it is all too common to have adopted a cloud platform only for the service or pricing model to change a year later, completely disrupting one’s budget. The fluidity of the cloud is certainly one of the reasons why the cloud can be cost prohibitive.

The fact that cybersecurity will always be a number one priority was clearly reflected in our survey results. There are certainly no questions as to why businesses would prioritize keeping their data safe, especially considering the fact that cybersecurity may be one of the most time-consuming enterprise mobility initiatives, as it also includes educating employees about cybersecurity. There is likely no limit as to the amount of security measures that would be useful for an enterprise, so each company needs to determine how much security it can afford, as well as how much risk it can afford.

What is your enterprise’s biggest challenge with cloud computing?

Although it is hardly controversial that cybersecurity should be a top priority for any enterprise, we spoke with several data analysts who don’t believe that security and privacy need to be an enterprise’s top concerns when it comes to cloud computing. After all, no enterprise’s own IT department could possibly have a better security policy than Azure or Amazon. Additionally, security and privacy should already be in place, as they should be built in to the applications that an enterprise has developed.

“I don’t buy it. I honestly think that in many ways we can be more secure and more private in a cloud environment than in our own environments. I would have thought security and privacy would have gone way down these days, because you look at all the breaches and the problems we have in security and privacy. I have yet to see—well, I’m sure there are examples—but I have yet to see many big examples of where that was directly caused by a cloud environment.” Len Dudis, CIO, Grupo Vidanta.

“[The large number of respondents who are concerned about] cybersecurity is a little bit of a surprise because it’s expected to be embedded in solutions. There’s difference in security. There’s endpoint security and network security. Endpoint security, we would expect things to be more embedded. Network security is when things though can really go wrong because it has to do with obfuscation data, and is it encrypted or decrypted at rest versus not. A good example is mobile payments- MasterCard, you’d think would have a lot of customer information. They really don’t; the banks hold that information. All they can see is the data that’s in transit. And because of things like GDPR, they can only be really working with encrypted data, or that’s best practice.” Ryan Martin, Principal Analyst, ABI Research.

Mirroring these sentiments, 77.33 percent of survey respondents believe that the state of enterprise mobile security is improving—only 24 percent do not—which speaks to the overall optimism people are feeling regarding enterprise mobility and digital transformation as a whole. Because it would be difficult to argue that security is not improving, some might argue that every respondent should believe that the state of enterprise mobility security is improving.

Even if people do, indeed, believe that the overall state of enterprise mobility is improving, it is likely that security will always remain a top concern, as it is no wonder why enterprises would want to keep their data safe. Maintaining a sense of caution is simply good practice when it comes to cybersecurity.

“There’s so many unknowns. There’s ‘known unknowns’ and ‘unknown unknowns’, and just the known unknowns are enough to keep anybody up at night because you’ve got constant ransomware attacks, which are now morphing into extortion attacks.” Richard Stiennon, IT Security Industry Analyst, IT-Harvest.

Enterprise mobility management mobile device management, and mobile app development

Enterprise mobility has come a long way in just a few short years. Because using mobile devices for work-related purposes has become almost a given, it is imperative for companies to find a way to protect enterprise data while also supporting employees’ autonomy and ability to work remotely.

Our survey findings shed some light on the state of workplace mobility:

When asked if employees were allowed to access data and apps on wearable devices, 64.1 percent said yes, while 37.18 percent said they were not.

Are your employees allowed to access data and apps on wearable devices?

• Survey respondents were asked about the mobile solutions their enterprise embraced in 2019. 61.84 percent responded with mobile device management; 30.47 percent responded with mobile app management, 34.21 percent responded with enterprise mobility management; 34.21 percent responded with managed services; 21.05 percent responded with rapid app development; 26.32 percent responded with operational intelligence; 9.21 percent responded with none; and 3.95 percent responded with other.

In which solutions do you anticipate investing during 2020?

In last year’s survey, mobile device management, mobile app management, and enterprise mobility management were reported by survey respondents as some of the most valuable mobile solutions to their enterprise in 2018, so it seems that this year’s survey respondents are following suit and making some worthwhile investments. Despite the impressive results regarding 2019’s mobility investments, enterprises are seemingly struggling to move forward and continue developing comprehensive mobility strategies for the coming year. Out of thirteen options, survey respondents ranked, in order, their biggest challenges with their enterprise mobility strategies:

• The most overwhelming numbers have to do with budget, time/resources/skills, and developing comprehensive strategies. 44.83 percent of respondents reported that budget was their biggest challenge; 37.93 percent reported that time, resources, or skills were their second biggest challenge; and 37.25 percent reported that developing a comprehensive strategy was their third biggest challenge.

What is the biggest challenge with your enterprise mobility strategy?

It seems that these three factors—budget, time/resources/skills, and developing a comprehensive strategy —all come hand in hand and require one another. Indeed, it is not the security, nor the technology, that makes strategy development difficult; it is time, money, and effort.

Also read: Enterprise Data & Business Analytics

Our data contributors speak on the interconnected nature of strategy development as well as the difficulties of and keys for developing an excellent mobility strategy:

“Budget drives everything else. Because if you have the budget, you can buy the time and resources.” Kevin Baradet, CTO, The Johnson Business School.

“It all starts with awareness, education, alignment, execution. That’s sort of the four steps that is how transformative technology comes to market.” Ryan Martin, Principal Analyst, ABI Research.

“When I look at developing a comprehensive mobility strategy, I have to look at what are all the different lines of business? And when I look at my group, they range from construction onsite people to hotels and guests, etc.- this kind of goes into time- but do I have the time to go to every line of business? Develop a unique strategy for that line of business? Now I’m talking about a hundred lines of business and I’m going to put together a comprehensive strategy. That’s a full-time job. That’s a couple people’s full-time job- it’s difficult to find that time to develop a comprehensive strategy.” Len Dudis, CIO, Grupo Vidanta.

Without the right budget, there are no resources, which, in the end, means that there is no strategy. Besides budget, resources, and the actual development of a comprehensive mobility strategy, our survey results also show that managing expectations is another big challenge for enterprises when it comes to their enterprise mobility—25.93 percent reported that this was their fourth biggest challenge. Richard Stiennon speaks on this trend:

“It probably reflects the excitement people have at the idea of deploying an app. The expectation is that it’ll increase revenue, be low cost, and those things usually take time to develop. And people don’t measure the secondary benefits [like] increas[ing] customer retention, happier employees, that sort of thing.”

The difficulty of managing expectations seems to be a consequence of not having a comprehensive enough mobility strategy set in place. Before deploying a mobile app or investing in new technologies, an enterprise’s strategy should not only detail exactly what that enterprise is aiming for, but also what is realistic and attainable.

Most enterprises understand that mobile apps can bring about a variety of benefits for customers as well as for the workplace—indeed, a well-designed mobile app has great potential in bolstering the business-customer relationship and in improving employee productivity. However, the process of deploying those apps can be a somewhat complex process. Firstly, finding the right mobile developer can often prove to be more difficult than expected. Secondly, the app development process requires a number of new and costly investments, and, since the stakes are not low, the app must be seamless, fast, and easy to use. Many enterprises feel as if they do not currently have the time, effort, and money to spare for such an undertaking.

“A couple of years ago it was people who were building apps just to say they’d built apps. Really, what’s the need for that app? If it doesn’t make sense, then we won’t build it. For our transportation business, we only have a handful. For everything else—back office tools and things like that—if there’s a native app developed by our vendor that we use, sure it’s available, but we’re not building those systems ourselves.” Jim Degliumberto, CIO, Southeastrans.

“Developing that strategy—that, I think, is key. Because from what I’ve seen, you can’t put everything within a screen, right? On a small phone. So, you do want to make sure that what you’re developing ties into the other business processes that you have, and that they complement the client or the full client application and not try to replace it. When you start looking at developing a mobile app, is the business pushing you to get everything into that mobile app? And if you don’t have that strategy set out, you will fail.” Jim Degliumberto, CIO, Southeastrans.

• 38.46 percent of survey respondents reported that apps are the digital transformation component in which they are most interested.
• We received a wide variety of answers when survey respondents were asked how many mobile apps their enterprise deployed in 2019. 57.14 percent responded with 0-5 mobile apps; 16.88 percent responded with 6-10; 11.69 percent responded with 11-20; 1.3 percent responded with 21-30; 5.19 percent responded with 41-50; and 7.79 percent responded with 51+. No respondents had deployed 31-40 mobile apps in 2019.
• Although the numbers were slightly different, the ratio between each answer remained quite similar when survey respondents were asked how many mobile apps their enterprise was planning to deploy in 2020. 52.63 percent responded with 0-5 mobile apps; 13.16 percent responded with 6-10; 15.70 percent responded with 11-20; 3.95 percent responded with 21-30; 3.95 percent responded with 41-50; and 10.53 percent responded with 51+. No respondents planned to deploy 31-40 mobile apps in 2020.

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Maybe it is not surprising that most enterprises were deploying, or plan to deploy, only a few apps. There are so many new components to digital transformation and mobility—so much choice and information—that it is difficult for companies to prioritize and decide what is most important. Further, it is common for ideas to die early on in their conception, especially if a comprehensive strategy is not set in place.

How many mobile apps did your enterprise deploy in 2019?

How many mobile apps is your enterprise planning to deploy in 2020?

Unified endpoint management gains momentum

It is almost guaranteed that the number of different types of endpoints your enterprise manages is growing—whereas PCs and laptops used to be the extent of endpoints, there is now a much wider variety of devices. Additionally, the number and variety of devices is only expected to increase, especially as the Internet of Things (IoT) continues to emerge. This unprecedented level of diversity is a part of what typically keeps enterprise mobility management and mobile device management separate and can sometimes pose itself as a challenge for IT teams; the hope is that the rise of unified endpoint management (UEM) will eventually turn this challenge into a thing of the past.

When survey respondents were asked whether their enterprise had shifted to UEM, only 24.68 percent responded ‘yes.’ 19.48 percent reported that they don’t have plans to ever switch to UEM; 20.78 percent reported that they plan to switch to UEM in 2020; and 35.06 percent reported that they had plans to switch to UEM after 2020. Although some might insist that UEM is essential, many others believe that not every company needs a UEM solution; based on the latter assumption, perhaps it is not surprising that some companies have no plans to switch to UEM. And, given the complex nature of managing so many different types of devices, it may also be unsurprising that so many other companies are taking their time to properly make this transition.

Indeed, there are many benefits to switching to UEM. 25.97 percent of survey respondents noted that having an overburdened IT support team is one of the things that keeps them up at night. By consolidating enterprise mobility management and mobile device management, IT teams will, ideally, have a more focused and concise means of problem solving. Often, UEM software provides useful data regarding its users and devices; these insights can help to continually optimize users’ digital experiences as well as ease many burdens for IT teams.

Because digitalization is happening quickly, and because mobility has the capacity to transform the ways in which an enterprise operates, it will be critical for businesses to prioritize the right initiatives and make the right investments. All enterprises need to be operating on the cloud in order to tap into all mobility opportunities and to make meaningful progress with transformation. In 2020, enterprises must focus on developing comprehensive strategies for mobilizing their workforce and on making incremental yet substantial changes along the way.

Key takeways about digitalization & mobility

Because digitalization is happening quickly, and because mobility has the capacity to transform the ways in which an enterprise operates, it will be critical for businesses to prioritize the right initiatives and make the right investments. All enterprises need to be operating on the cloud in order to tap into all mobility opportunities and to make meaningful progress with transformation. In 2020, enterprises must focus on developing comprehensive strategies for mobilizing their workforce and on making incremental yet substantial changes along the way.

Also read: Digital transformation in 2020