Nokia for
Business
The Myths of Mobility
Debunking the Common Misperceptions
Surrounding Workforce Mobility
In an era of breathtakingly rapid technological advances, where today’s leading-edge devices become tomorrow’s common business tools, it is not surprising that misperceptions about those technologies persist, even among the most knowledgeable of business decision-makers and IT professionals.
With constant pressure to achieve greater efficiencies and increased profitability, businesses continue to look at new
technologies for ways to leverage competitive advantages. Enterprise mobility offers organizations significant opportunities to improve the speed and quality of service, while encouraging collaboration and communication between employees, customers, and service providers. However, even with all the advances surrounding the newest breed of mobile solutions, numerous myths exist that call into question the promise of mobility.
This white paper will examine some of the most common misperceptions of mobilization, and expose the realities and benefits that these technologies offer businesses today.
Who Uses Mobile
Technology?
For many businesses there is often a
disconnect between the perceived importance of mobility for its workforce and the actual adoption rate of mobile devices by significant numbers of employees.
Perception: Mobilized workers tend to be a specialized subgroup of employees who represent a very small fraction of any organization’s overall workforce. Reality: Mobile technology is no longer simply a tool for corner-office executives. Mobile usage is steadily rising within most organizations, and tends to be consistent across professions. For those employing mobile devices, research has shown that the types of applications being used are consistent across office profiles, suggesting broad recognition of the efficacy of these tools by workers throughout an organization. In fact, IDC projects that by 2009 there will be more than 878 million mobile workers worldwide, demonstrating that mobility is going mainstream. Perception: Only a select group of businesses are in a position to capitalize on the benefits of mobility.
Reality: Organizations of nearly all types and sizes can benefit greatly from mobility through increased flexibility and responsiveness. For example, a small business can achieve competitive advantage by capitalizing on its nimbleness. Through the use of mobility, employees can work while on the road, on-site with customers, or at home, increasing availability and productivity. For large organizations, the benefits of a highly mobile workforce are also significant. Once an IT infrastructure is put in place to support mobility, employees can use mobile applications to improve work processes and information exchange. Occupations that can benefit the most from mobility include field service jobs, and sales and marketing representatives.
Mobile Device Usage
As mobile devices gain wider acceptance within the workforce, businesses are faced with the challenge of effectively integrating these new technologies into existing infrastructures and work processes. Perception: With fixed-line phones being standard equipment for nearly all businesses, most organizations have no real need to supplement those phones with mobile devices in order to properly meet their existing business needs. Reality: According to a January 2006 study by Strategy Analytics, on average, workers will spend nearly 40 percent of their time away from their desks, which suggests that supplementing fixed-line phones with mobile devices would dramatically increase the availability of these employees (“Mobile Business Application Outlook”). Providing workers with mobile access to vital information such as voice mail, email, text messaging, and other mobile applications allows for increased productivity.
Perception: Mobile technology has a
negative impact on employees, forcing them to work longer and harder as a result of always being “connected,” whether at home in the evenings or away on the weekends. Reality: Mobility makes work life simpler. Employees who use mobile devices at their jobs claim it allows for more control over their lives, providing flexibility and the opportunity to achieve a better balance between work and leisure time. Mobile applications, such as email and vertical applications like calendars for scheduling, offer real convenience for workers. With that convenience can come greater job contentment.
Weighing Costs
Against Benefits
The cost of implementing new technologies is of paramount concern to most any organization. However, gaining a complete understanding of those costs and the potential benefits that can be achieved is necessary to effectively determine the relative merits of that implementation. In the case of mobilization, several myths persist around the expense of implementation and usage.
Perception: Mobilizing an organization’s workforce is costly due to equipment and infrastructure expenditures. And these costs may not be offset by the savings from resulting efficiencies.
Reality: Enterprise mobility can be highly cost-effective, helping to streamline work processes, reduce dependence on paper, and encourage and enhance automation. Each year Deutsche Telekom invites guests and ticket winners from around the world to various company-sponsored sporting events. During FIFA World Cup 2006, Deutsche Telekom employees at 12 venues used Nokia 9300i smartphones—compact, handheld devices that offered the secure connectivity they needed to access and update the company’s guest management system while on the go. By providing flexible use of the online guest management system through its wireless LAN capability, user-friendly form factor, and encryption technology to protect confidential guest data, Nokia 9300i smartphones helped Deutsche Telekom achieve smoother processes, more efficient coordination, and ultimately, better services for its guests.
Enterprise mobility is also affordable. One such example: For the cost of a single Intellisync Wireless Email server from Nokia, an unlimited number of employees with supported Nokia devices are able to use free client software that empowers them with mobile email.
Perception: Wireless technology only delivers “soft” benefits, which cannot be quantified.
Reality: Wireless technology is highly capable of delivering both “hard” benefits (such as increased sales and reduced operational costs) and “soft” benefits (timely access to information and improved business efficiency). According to IDC, some “hard” benefits of mobility include increased revenue and reduced spending; for example, when employees that are more efficient are better able to offer good customer service, there is potential for increased revenue. In the current tight economic environment, contribution to the bottom line is important, as is the ability to achieve rapid ROI.
A “soft” benefit includes employee efficiency or productivity—a frequently mentioned argument for mobility in general. For instance, responding to email takes up an increasing amount of the corporate user’s time. Being able to respond to email when out of the office makes the employee more efficient and allows them to use the time gaps in their daily work schedule. Perception: Purchasing mobile devices for the entire workforce of an organization can be a costly endeavor.
Reality: Today, companies often justify IT investments (computers, printers, networking, and the like) through a coordinated strategy that factors in cost, potential ROI, and productivity and efficiency gains. This same well- thought-out, coordinated approach should be applied to mobile device procurement. Viewing mobility as part of a company’s overall IT infrastructure lets businesses unlock benefits today, while creating a platform for achieving mobilization goals tomorrow.
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Wireless Enterprise Strategies
On-Premises Approaching 50% of All Worker Mobility
Can Anything
Top A Laptop?
Since laptop computers often duplicate the functionality of their desktop brethren, it only stands to reason that many organizations view them as the most viable extension of office capabilities. However, when it comes to convenience, portability, and connectivity, that view may prove to be flawed.
Perception: Laptop computers are the most effective mobile devices for employees on the go. Laptops provide remote access to a company’s network, as well as advanced applications that other mobile devices cannot offer.
Reality: A whole new generation of mobile devices offers similar remote capabilities to laptops, while providing even greater convenience and mobility to the user. Employees can now access advanced applications through their mobile phones, giving them virtually instant connectivity to their office, further streamlining their “on-the-go” workstyle.
Support for popular business applications on mobile phones is on the rise, increasing employees’ interactions with colleagues, partners, and customers, and providing them access to key company information. Leveraging a mobile phone for remote access to email and other essential business tools such as Instant Messaging, calendar, and contacts, as well as access to the Internet, intranet, databases, and files, can greatly empower employees.
Perception: Laptops are unrivalled in terms of power, functionality, and convenience when working away from the office. Mobile phones simply cannot replace laptops.
Reality: Mobile phones continue to get “smarter.” Most already offer many of the features employees have come to expect from their laptops, and more and more organizations are beginning to recognize that smartphones are highly effective replacements for laptops. Today’s mobile phones provide key attributes of a laptop, such as a full keyboard, a color screen, and a rich attachment viewing experience.
In addition, these devices offer conference calling, speakerphone capabilities, and the opportunity to surf the Web while on the phone.
Having the ability to carry such a device virtually anywhere means it is far easier to stay on top of important business and personal issues, which is not always possible with a laptop. Today’s professional who regularly works on the go is an ideal candidate for a mobile phone because of the device’s portability and connectivity. The need to provide simple, affordable mobility will likely make the mobile phone a popular thin client device for staff that requires occasional access to business applications. Analysts predicted the sales of these devices would outstrip personal handheld organizers by 2006, and according to statistics Gartner released in October 2006, smartphone sales have already increased by 75.5 percent during the last year, and will grow by an additional 66 percent during 2006. Conversely, personal handheld organizers continue to be eclipsed by more voice-centric smartphones, and growth of 6.3 percent is predicted for 2006. Nokia has discovered that a “hidden mobile
workforce” exists at most companies. A global survey showed that while business decision-makers think just 24 percent of their employees use mobile phones for work, in fact, 50 percent of employees actually do. And many of these employees are clamoring to leverage the built-in power of many phones today, for example, to manage their company email.1
In addition, corporate mobile operator rates are typically lower than consumer rates, allowing companies to negotiate the best package for their business, achieving further cost savings.
Perception: The cost of a mobile data plan is prohibitive.
Reality: With each passing day, technologies that help to control the data costs associated with mobility achieve wider availability. The growing prevalence of Wi-Fi technology represents a prime example of this trend. By using Wi-Fi technology in tandem with Voice over IP technology, for example, companies can take advantage of “least cost routing”—the ability to use the least expensive route available for a call. For example, when driving, individuals are likely to leverage a cellular network for their mobile device. However, once they enter an office, the network may switch them to Voice over WLAN for device connectivity because it is more cost-efficient. This technology is becoming increasingly accessible to businesses today.
Further cost savings are attainable through combined voice and data plans, which are being offered by corporate mobile operators. Taking an innovative approach, Intellisync Wireless Email allows organizations to control the cost of their mobile email. Unlike other offerings on the market, Intellisync Wireless Email does not use a third party network operations center (NOC). This approach drives down costs because data remains securely behind an organization’s firewall and within their trusted corporate network. Nokia Business Center also allows a company the flexibility of switching between GPRS and Wi-Fi networks when sending and receiving email.
Mobile phones today offer capabilities that rival those of laptops. The latest models allow users to read and edit office documents such as documents, spreadsheets, and presentations, as well as Adobe PDF files. In fact, out of the seven most popular applications for laptop use, five are readily available on many mobile devices (email, Internet access, intranet access, calendars, and address book/contacts). The remaining two (word processing and spreadsheets) are available on a growing number of business devices. As the capabilities of mobile phones continue to expand, many organizations are considering replacing employee laptops with the powerful functionality of mobile phones.2
Examining the Impact
of Mobility on IT
As mobility continues to be a growing part of many businesses, concerns arise over how
these technologies will impact existing IT infrastructures. Numerous misperceptions abound surrounding issues of security, integration, and cost.
Perception:Many employees use their own personal mobile phones for work, and are already paying for these devices. Therefore, there is no real need for IT organizations to be involved, as these devices have no impact on the company’s overall IT infrastructure.
Reality: It is true that employees are often using their own personal mobile phones for work without reimbursement for the cost of the device or the service. Despite this trend, IT should be taking a more active role in the selection and usage of employee mobile devices. Without proper IT oversight, companies are risking a variety of unexpected cost and security issues. For example, employees often leverage these devices for data applications, which can cause security concerns when an IT infrastructure is not properly set up to handle such access. Under IT guidance, standardization on specific devices can result in significant cost savings for the organization because corporate mobile rates are typically far lower than consumer rates. Additionally, cross-network rates may be as much as 10 times more expensive than a call on the same carrier and corporate contract. Therefore, a policy that restricts access to the corporate contract not only results in higher overall rates for personal contracts, it also may incur higher call charges between colleagues.
IT involvement can have a big impact on successful device management too, resulting in a decrease in workload for the support team. For example, an organization that is standardized on specific devices can apply security and application updates remotely over the air, quickly and efficiently—effectively extending their existing IT infrastructure to include the mobile workforce.
2. Attributed to Nokia, “The State of Workforce Mobility,” September 2005
Perception: Employees using mobile devices cannot securely connect to the company network to access corporate data. The types of connections possible today are not secure and threaten the integrity of a company’s most critical information.
Reality: Security measures are available and prevalent to protect virtually all aspects of a mobile device’s connection to a company network. Every function of a mobile device can and should be completely secure, from the information on the device itself, to the transmission of data, to the point of access at the network center.
Basic security for Nokia business devices includes keypad and device locks, a password for the memory card, and remote locking ability, for example, locking the device via a text message.
For securing over-the-air transmissions of information, organizations have a choice of secure sockets layer (SSL) or IPSec Virtual Private Network (VPN) offerings to address their diverse security needs. In addition to virtual private networking technology, end-point security tools for the device such as firewall, antivirus, and data encryption software all contribute to securing vital corporate data on a mobile device. When proper measures are taken, mobile devices offer a safe, secure, and reliable means of communicating sensitive information and provide businesses with a mobile infrastructure that can be as secure as any organization’s “traditional” IT infrastructure.
Perception: When employees use mobile devices for work email and company data access, they are creating a management and integration headache for IT.
Perception: Mobile workers are limited by what they can do and where they can operate their devices due to a lack of consistent network access from block-to-block and business-to-business.
Reality: Today, people can take advantage of mobile devices from practically anywhere. As
discussed, the capabilities they provide closely resemble those of laptops. In fact, most mobile devices today work on traditional IP networks, allowing them to connect to information through connection methods such as Wi-Fi technology. In the rare instances where a connection cannot be maintained, such as when flying in an airplane, the offline mode enables employees to still be productive, even writing email that is sent upon the first reestablished connection to a cellular or Wi-Fi network. Wireless data networks using a protocol like GPRS are widely available almost everywhere in the world, with faster networks using EDGE and other 3G technologies appearing in more places every day. These high-speed networks further improve business mobility, making it a cinch to download large files and email attachments.
Perception: Businesses should avoid investing in mobile technologies as they are still in their infancy. Companies would be better served to wait until these technologies are more mature before deploying them throughout their organizations.
Reality: By its very nature, technology is constantly evolving and improving. Mobile technologies are no different. Existing mobile technologies have a proven track record and continue to mature rapidly. As business
applications are mobilized, the integration of voice and data is delivering real bottom-line benefits and significant competitive advantages. For this reason, it makes good business sense for companies to develop a robust mobile technology strategy. Perception: Mobility tends to be complicated and is particularly confusing to manage.
Reality: Revolutionary new technologies are making it easier than ever to deploy and manage mobility. Today, organizations have the opportunity to standardize their workforce with a series of select devices, allowing IT to apply security and application updates remotely, over the air, quickly and efficiently. In effect, mobility then becomes an extension of the existing IT infrastructure, eliminating additional, potentially time-consuming work for IT.
For example, using Intellisync Wireless Email, an employee’s mobile phone number can be input online, and then a text message can be sent to the device with a link. By simply clicking on the link, the Intellisync Wireless Email client is installed. Businesses can also leverage the mobile technology deployment expertise of companies like Nokia—along with that of experienced resellers, system integrators, and operators— leverage investments already made in the
network. Mobile email can be enabled with the addition of a simple server that sits behind the firewall, keeping data safely within the organization, while device management tools allow simple over-the-air administration and updating of mobile devices without disrupting employees. Through the implementation of a sound mobility strategy, management and integration of mobile devices can be a seamless and hassle-free process.
Perception: Implementing a mobile solution typically involves re-engineering the internal processes of a business.
Reality: Organizations can leverage their existing investments by extending those resources out to mobile devices. In other words, it is not necessary to create an entirely new IT infrastructure to achieve enterprise mobility.
It is important for organizations to examine the varying needs of their workforce when developing an enterprise mobility strategy. Because different employees have different responsibilities, and therefore different needs, clearly they should not be provided with the same set of tools. When it comes to mobile workers, each has their own specific device and connectivity requirements. A careful balance must be struck so that workers have the mobile devices they need and the remote applications necessary to make the devices effective. Organizations can mix and match technologies to custom-create a mobile solution that best suits the needs of its workforce, while still balancing IT requirements.
Are There Limitations
to Mobile Technology?
to develop a corporate mobility strategy and identify solutions that best meet their needs. Regardless of the complexity, solutions are available that make integration simple and seamless.
Conclusion
Through analyst reports, customer case studies, and Nokia data, this white paper paints a valid picture of today’s mobile workforce and the potential opportunity that mobility affords organizations. While there are undoubtedly further myths of mobility that exist, this report serves to encourage organizations to investigate mobile technology for themselves to gain a better understanding of the opportunities it presents. Mobility can in fact be secure, cost-effective, manageable, easily integrated, and valued by all levels of employees, across a range of industries.
No longer simply a tool for the corner office, mobile technology usage is rising within most organizations. Mobility is not just for road warriors either. According to Strategy Analytics, “Nearly 50 percent of worker mobility now takes place in-building or on-campus.” And employees who use mobile devices at their jobs say it gives them more control over their lives, providing flexibility and the opportunity to achieve a better balance between work and leisure time.3 Enterprise mobility is also cost-effective, capable of delivering both “hard” and “soft” benefits. Approaching mobility as part of the company’s overall IT infrastructure results in benefits today, and creates a platform for achieving mobilization goals tomorrow. Security and mobility can and should be synonymous. It is realistic to expect that every function of a mobile device should be secure, from the information on the device itself, to the transmission of data, to the point of access at the network center.
3. “The Battle for Supremacy in Wireless Email: Market Update,” November 2005
The management and integration of mobile devices into a company’s overall IT infrastructure is simple and straightforward, often requiring an organization to just “extend” their existing network out to mobile devices. And by standardizing a workforce with select mobile devices, remote, over-the-air management is both easy and effective. Embedding mobility into the fabric of an organization involves changes in the definitions of and relationships between work, the worker, and the workplace. Mobilization is an evolution of capabilities— not a revolution. The capabilities are readily available; it is up to each organization to determine how the various areas of mobility can best work to provide their company with a cohesive and comprehensive mobility solution.
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For More Information
If you would like to learn more about how Nokia Services can help your organization prepare for and implement business mobility solutions, please contact the nearest Nokia office listed below:
Nokia Inc.
102 Corporate Park Drive White Plains, NY 10604 USA
www.nokiaforbusiness.com
Americas
Tel: 1 877 997 9199
Email: mobile.business.na@nokia.com
Asia Pacific
Tel: +65 6588 3364
Email: mobile.business.apac@nokia.com
Europe, Middle East, and Africa
France +33 170 708 166 UK +44 161 601 8908
Email: mobile.business.emea@nokia.com
About Nokia
Nokia is the world leader in mobile communications, driving the growth and sustainability of the broader mobility industry. Nokia is dedicated to enhancing people’s lives and productivity by providing easy-to-use and secure products like mobile phones, and solutions for imaging, games, media, mobile network operators, and businesses. Nokia is a broadly held company with listings on five major exchanges.
