Enterprise Mobility: IT's New Elixir

Mobility and BYOD are the next revolutions in enterprise IT. The system integrators too are looking for a share of the pie

The gigantic slowdown of 2008-09 left a huge impact on the global corporate scenario with cost reduction becoming the sole objective of companies as a result of decreasing sales and revenue in its tryst to keep its margins under control. IT governance, HR facilities, employee morale development activities, system upgrades and logistics were the hardest hit in the time of crisis which saw numerous hasty amendments post the slowdown. Now that the situation has improved drastically, the tremors it left on most of the IT policies of the corporate houses can still be felt today.

It was in this backdrop that two crucial developments took place in India which shaped IT as we know it today; the inception of cloud computing and the rapid adoption of smartphones with the shift towards consumer mobility. With smartphones becoming a trend not just with corporate employees, but with the low income group, as well as student segment, mobile phone manufacturers entered into one of the most competitive price and market share games India had ever seen. Apple, which had so far maintained its targeted segment closely (higher income group) was also drawn into the battle with the company reducing its prices considerably to bag a larger market share.

The mobility scenario itself underwent a dramatic change with Nokia losing its status as the single largest market leader and the inception of 3G network (amidst a heap of controversies) which increased data flow across the networks. The result being network operators positioning data plans tailored for the rapid shift of consumers on 3G networks and an increased surge in wireless data traffic. Google, Microsoft, BlackBerry and many other players and software developers thereby entered the market with their own set of applications (Apps) trying to woo customers with a wide array of utilities ranging from chat applications, synchronizers and multimedia enhancers to live streaming, video calling and several mailing applications. The range of apps now has gone afar to track the solar system and universe (mostly based on GPS positioning).

In-house cost reduction has always been a priority for companies across all segments, and the enterprises as well as the SMBs were pretty fast in incorporating this changing dynamics into their fold thereby evolving as well as adopting the concept of Enterprise Mobility (EM) with the introduction of ‘bring your own devices' (BYOD). BYOD became the popular trend with most of the mid level corporate managers as well as the IT governors, as it allowed the user the freedom to use one's own device thereby allowing the individual better flexibility in the workplace and on the other hand it helped the CIO to cut down cost on IT purchases.

"Employees are increasingly demanding the flexibility to access corporate resources anywhere, anytime, from any device of their choice. End devices are also evolving rapidly, and it is becoming difficult for companies to keep pace and support all devices being used to access corporate assets. Hence, organizations are rethinking their IT architectures; areas of focus being application availability, network readiness, security, and policy frameworks," said Yedunandan S, principal consultant, mobility, Cisco India.
According to a report from the analyst firm Ovum on employee BYOD behavior and attitudes, 57.1% of full-time employees engage in some form of BYOD across 17 markets.

"While most enterprises are still contemplating a formal BYOD policy, given its informal prevalence, some organizations are introducing it to ensure seamless productivity and cost savings. They believe utilizing mobile trend will be an opportunity for enterprises," said Naveen Chopra, director, Vodafone Business Services.

Cisco's IBSG's Horizons study, which surveyed over 600 IT leaders from India, has also revealed that most Indian organizations are now enabling BYOD in the enterprise, with a staggering 94% of respondents from India acknowledging that BYOD is a growing trend within their organizations. In addition, Indian organizations spend a high percentage of IT budgets on mobility (22%), compared with the global average of 18%. This percentage is expected to reach 29% by 2014, second only to China globally.

As an example in the field of BYOD, iGate started implementing BYOD 3 years back with both mobile device management (MDM) as well as mobile security covering all major available platforms like iOS, Andoid, Windows Mango and BlackBerry.

"We migrated the apps we were using on the HTML file which could be accessed across all platforms and created an internal gateway to prevent unauthorized access. Initially, we extended BYOD across 3000 platforms across the globe but laws in EU and US prevented us from implementing full scale BYOD. As a result, we cut down the device numbers at 800 which is implemented in India where laws are absent in this segment," said Chella Namasivayam, CIO, iGate.

The company, which uses Symantec solutions for MDM as well as security and Windows Azure for its cloud integration is now all set for upgrading the MDM platform and implement BYOD across the globe (now in tune with laws in EU and US) in a timeframe of 6 months.

Clearly, the inception of smartphones and the adoption of BYOD have triggered a change in corporate IT governance and emerging issues pertaining to data security and access as well as network optimization has come up. Incidentally, Apps integration and management (which was previously thought to be the biggest challenge) is under control and not a major question now.

"The BYOD phenomenon calls for relevant alignment of organizational policies to business, technology, people and operational roadmap of the enterprise. Formulation and enforcement of policies and processes involving stakeholders from all departments is highly recommended for a sound start," said Amar Agarwal, VP, mobility, Tech Mahindra.

Since personal devices are being used for professional purposes, the organization must have well defined mechanism (network, security and operational) to deal with bandwidth, data or device loss, security breaches and malware. Application and security architectures must closely align with the blueprint demanded by the policies. There might also be legal hurdles in terms of privacy concerns of the user, data ownership as dictated by regulations of the region or security standards which the enterprises need to be aware of and seek appropriate advice from legal teams.

"BYOD enables new ways of information handling; organizations would need to carefully choose the infrastructure and providers keeping after having done a cost benefit analysis. Multiple devices mean multiple form factors and hence the solutions being delivered should cover majority of them. Solutions would need to be developed and tested for multiple form factors for effective user experience. The operations and infrastructure support teams would need to additionally support newer policies and trouble tickets across varied user and device segments from the organization," Agarwal added.

Growth in initiatives promoting mobility and flexibility also affect data security, access control, platform maintenance, application support, and much more, so CIOs will need to ensure that the cost for enabling a secure and seamless BYOD experience does not spiral out of control. Moreover, educating and ensuring that the workforce complies with this shift in policies is also a challenge in itself.

"To enable a successful BYOD environment, an organization's IT operations should focus on scaling up to support an array of gadgets, operating systems, bandwidth and most importantly the security to ensure safe access and usage of company data," recommends Yedunandan.
With BYOD a reality now in the Indian context, mobile network operators and device manufacturers are the key players poised to gain the most out of the changing dynamics. Operators have tailored their service plans and enterprise data plans (often playing in price points) to garner maximum clients possible; at times, the corporate 3G plans are lower by half the rate than the existing consumer price in the market.

On the other hand, device manufacturers like Samsung, Sony and others are integrating applications often with enhancements and moving over to Push Mail services rather than the normal sync modes. BlackBerry has been the earliest player in this space with its trademark BlackBerry Enterprise Service which has been upgraded to version 10 facilitating the management and integration of Android, iOS as well as BB platforms on the same server.
However, mainstream IT firms have now entered into device management space with their own customizable suites which has seen a recent traction with major corporate houses. Cisco was among one of the first vendors to develop and offer an architecture to enterprises based ‘Smart BYOD' solution.

"BYOD Smart Solution provides a comprehensive approach to enable organizations to effectively design, manage, and control the access of a BYOD network. The solution enables them to offer a seamless, secure and robust BYOD infrastructure to enhance user experience and productivity. For organizations, the main benefit of the BYOD Smart Solution is being able to facilitate a consistent experience across locations and devices, with the Cisco Unified Access portfolio of products. Solutions under the Unified Access portfolio are designed to further simplify IT operations and user experience by deploying a One Policy, One Management and One Network framework approach," Yedunandan stated.

Tech Mahindra and Mahindra Satyam have a dedicated subsidiary CanvasM focusing on mobility solutions and services. Its offerings in EM cut across the gamut of identifying what, why and how to mobilize (mobility consulting), choice and integration of right platforms (MEAP, MDM, M2M), ready and custom mobility solutions (thin, thick and native client across all leading platforms) for multiple enterprise verticals, mobile application testing managed services for mobility (platform deployment, L1, L2 helpdesks).

"We also have technology frameworks for mobility enablement, location based enablement, mobile payment, enterprise app store, content delivery, mobile coupon, mobile application testing," Agarwal stated.
Interestingly, Tech Mahindra has lined up its solutions in accordance to verticals addressing specific and most important demands. The range includes, BFSI, retail, healthcare, telecom and several others. Also, it has launched Mobile App Testing framework at the Mobile World Congress 2013.

Citrix provides the EM suite through the Citrix Mobile Solutions Bundle, which is comprised of the recently launched XenMobile MDM and CloudGateway which provides a comprehensive solution for securely delivering applications on mobile devices. Employees have quick, single-click access to their entire mobile, web, SaaS and Windows apps from a unified app store, thus providing seamless integrated user experience.

Commenting on its range of solutions, Kaushal Veluri, director, channels and alliances (India Subcontinent), Citrix said, "The Mobile Solutions Bundle provides identity-based provisioning and control for all apps, data and devices, policy-based controls, such as restriction of application access to authorized users, automatic account de-provisioning for terminated employees and selective wipe of device, apps or data stored on lost devices. With the Mobile Solutions Bundle, IT can give users device choice while giving IT the ability to prevent data leakage and protect the internal network from mobile threats."

Moving on to the network providers, companies in this segment are not only having mere data plans and act as data facilitators but these companies are working closely with mainstream IT vendors to come up with integrated solutions.

"Last year we launched Vodafone Secure Device Manager VSDM for corporate, which allows employees to work with their smart devices without compromising your company's security," Chopra stated.

According to Chopra, VSDM provides CIOs a secure management console allowing them to gain visibility to and remotely configure as well as secure their organization's device estate.

"VSDM empowers IT administrators by allowing them to remotely manage security policies, device settings, certificates, applications, operating system, etc. Vodafone's solution can prove to be invaluable in the event of mobile device loss, it allows users to remotely lock or wipe all information from their smart device," Chopra added.

The new trend in corporate governance hasn't just opened up newer avenues for mobile operators, vendors and phone manufacturers alone, but for system integrators (SI) in the tier-2 segment also.

According to Citrix, consumerization will force more IT change over the next 10 years than any other trend. As innovation happens are a frantic pace in the end point devices world with more and better smart phones, tablets and access devices, employees will start to demand that the organization incorporate them seamlessly into the IT infrastructure and give them access to working off these devices. This change will drive the organization to think and implement a consistent and effective mobile strategy for them.

"This offers a great opportunity to the partners to align with the right vendor to offer complete end-to-end mobility solutions to the customers. Customers will need not just provide pure MDM offering to manage the end devices but will also look across the board to have an enterprise mobility strategy. Partners need to start building their skills on the EMM front to become a strategic partner to their customers," Veluri stated.
Citrix works with approximately 60 partners in the market, split into their Citrix Solution Advisors by Silver, Gold and Platinum levels and SI partners. Citrix operates through three value added distributors in the country.
Cisco, like most of the EM deployers, has also seen drastic changes in the recent years. SIs are now looking for an end-to-end solution framework in their journey towards automation.

"As part of our Borderless Networking approach, we ensure that our partners are equipped with the expertise and necessary tools to handle the market requirements. We have also incorporated this specialization in our certification programs, and have made it a compulsory inclusion for the Cisco Gold accreditation. With increased adoption of BYOD, organizations will need to add new wireless access in branch offices, stores, and other remote locations. This proves to be a great opportunity for partners to help their customers approach these new deployments with a converged approach," Yedunandan concluded.

However, even as we talk about growth and the emerging scope for the channel partners, particularly those dealing with solution deployments and not just supplies, major tier-2 SIs have already made in-roads into this space.

For Delhi-based Team Computers, the current share of enterprise mobility in the company's overall business model is about 5% and by the next year it aspires to take this solution space to much higher orbit. "With the inclusion of tablet device in the enterprise space and the availability of services related to it, the whole market dynamics has changed. It has also opened up a plethora of opportunities for us to grow. For us the mobility stands for smartphones, tablets, and applications that come bundled with it," a spokesperson from Team Computers said on a previous occasion.

Another tier-2 SI, who is betting big on this space, is Gujarat-based Enjay IT Solutions, which has been focusing very strongly on these areas in this year and designed a strategy where it will be developing integration applications that will help mobile to talk to mainstream business applications, which are traditionally desktop or cloud based. Although the current share of enterprise mobility is very low, the company believes that it in the next couple of years, it will grow to more than 20% of its total overall revenue.

"We understand that mobile applications alone will not do the whole trick, we have to couple it with cloud applications and also desktop applications, then the whole basket of business application emerges. The enterprise mobility as a solution area is growing extremely fast, and with the advent of low cost tablets and ultra low cost internet access, it is going to increase further. It has also evolved to a great extent in terms of the depth of solutions and way it has been used. Now most of the ERP and CRM solutions have a mobile version as well. I don't see enterprise mobility in isolation, but it will be a total package of mobility, cloud and desktop applications - everything will blend together seamlessly," added Limesh Parekh, CEO, Enjay IT Solutions.

However, Mumbai based Techygyan has been most active as so far, the most successful in this segment. Suresh Ramani, director, Techgyan, said, "Initially, till about 3 years back, we were offering only On Premise MS Exchange. But now, we have increased our portfolio and offer various components which goes into an enterprise mobility solution. Currently, the share of enterprise mobility is close to 40% in the company's overall business model."

According to the findings of research firm Gartner, the mobile device market remains strong throughout 2013 and the use of smartphones and tablet will continue to surge in the enterprise, changing the way they do business. According to estimates, 821 mn smartphones and tablets have been purchased globally in 2012. The number is expected to exceed the one bn mark in 2013 and by 2018, 70% of the professionals globally will be on the BYOD mode. Further, Gartner has stated that tablets (tabs) will drive the enterprise mobility scenario.

Also, according to a report released by Nasscom, in association with Deloitte, the global enterprise mobility (EM) market opportunity is expected to be $140 bn by the year 2020, growing at a compounded annual growth rate of 15% and the key factor driving this increased adoption of enterprise mobility across organizations in consumerization of IT, led by the abundance of smart devices at affordable prices, among others.

"In the coming years, we speculate a big adoption level of BYOD by organizations. There is a rise in need to connect with inter-departments and to offices located in different cities. Like, an automobile company would take up the mobility solution to get connected with their several dealers or their partner offices. So we see, tremendous or exponential growth of the enterprise mobility market in India," Chopra added.

The recent surge in EM solutions resulting in the increased adoption of smartphhone is deemed to be further augmented by the incorporation of tabs which has gained a momentous consumer sales response. However, the differentiator between tabs and smartphones is gradually narrowing down with the advent of the ever-upgrading Android based systems and the iTab which so far, has been the most popular. BlackBerry tabs, on the other hand has clearly failed to draw the deserving attention from buyers mainly on account of the market positioning as a serious smartphone player.

However, although the adoption of tabs has been marvelous, tabs still remain at a nascent stage when it comes to EM integration as most of the action is centered on the smartphones and notebooks (with a USM data card). On one hand, EM still reflects its preference for traditional mode (with notebooks and data cards) and on the other a super-modern approach (in form of smartphones).

Nevertheless, in the solutions space if any other solution except cloud needs close monitoring about its scope and adoption, it is definitely EM which, according to industry experts and analysts, is poised to bring about the revolution in IT and change it altogether as we know it today.

Avishek Rakshit
(avishekr@cybermedia.co.in)