Fragmentation of APeJ enterprise mobility market expected: IDC

By Digital News Asia August 20, 2014

Priorities and mobility needs differ between developed & emerging markets
General lack of understanding on differentiation between MDM & MEM

Fragmentation of APeJ enterprise mobility market expected: IDC

THE Asia Pacific enterprise mobility market is expected to become increasingly fragmented in the coming years, said research firm IDC, as mobility is beginning to be utilised differently across markets in the region.

According to IDC’s latest Enterprise Mobility studies, 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 realizing it’s no longer a question of why, but a question of how when it comes to mobility adoption in their organizations," says Ian Song, research manager for Enterprise Mobility at 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,” he added.

According to an IDC enterprise mobility survey, organizations are becoming increasingly aware of mobility, as well as becoming more accommodating to mobility in their organizations.

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, very few organizations 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.

Fragmentation of APeJ enterprise mobility market expected: IDC Song (pic) said that it was clear that enterprises have clued in to the fact that they have to adopt enterprise mobility.

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

The survey showed that how mobility is perceived and utilized in Asia Pacific could vary quite drastically.

Developed countries like Singapore or Australia put more focus on ensuring security and management of the enterprise mobility platform. 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. Whereas companies in developing countries have less legacy to deal with, and more customers leveraging mobility, so they must utilize mobility to stay competitive,” said Song.

IDC also found that across the region, more organizations are putting more emphasis on mobile security and management. About 80% of respondents who have mobility initiatives in their organizations have either implemented or are testing mobile security and management solutions.

However, IDC found that more organizations are still leaning towards device-only management solutions (MDM) rather than the more comprehensive mobile enterprise management (MEM) solutions that secure 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.

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