What workers want from wireless: groundbreaking research shows that IT managers struggle to get employees what they really need

America's Network, April 15, 2004 by Randall A. Snyder

Most enterprise CIOs and IT managers today are balancing the technology demands of the employees they serve with the business needs and cost structure of their companies..

Mobile devices and their associated applications are, in many cases, below the radar of these decision makers. Executives and managers with the responsibility of providing company employees with the best electronic tools to be most productive tend to be risk averse, which may lead to slower mobile technology advancements than those desired by the workers.

In a recent survey performed by Telephia Inc., a provider of marketing and service quality information to mobile industry decision-makers, end-users from all different enterprise types and sizes were asked which devices they preferred for wireless voice and data services for business-related activities. The most prominent results confirmed a common belief: that larger company and corporate end-users preferred more sophisticated mobile devices, while small business users preferred more basic and ubiquitous mobile phones. Also, employees from all these companies were more interested in wireless messaging applications and push-to-talk services than other wireless applications. In general, the survey showed that larger enterprise workers desire wireless access to their corporate intranets, while smaller enterprise workers are typically more interested in generic wireless Internet access and voice calling.

HIGH EXPECTATIONS

According to Kanishka Agarwal, director of product management for mobile devices at Telephia, in addition to these results, a significant percentage of small enterprise employees tend to desire the same types of sophisticated wireless applications as large enterprise employees. Among the issues facing corporate decision makers with respect to these desires is that "users' expectations of network quality of service (QoS) are quite high." High QoS implies high reliability, high availability and high performance. "These expectations are more important on the data side than the voice side," Agarwal says. A good way to realize this is that we are all used to wireless phone calls dropping, and the behavior is to instantly try to re-establish the call. But if there is a complex wireless data transaction occurring, and the connection breaks, a great lack of confidence sets in as to the status of the transaction.

Agarwal says the top two challenges that corporate IT decision makers face are infrastructure investment and ongoing cost, and network security, especially for industries like financial services. Part of the infrastructure complexity is service level agreements (SLAs) between enterprises and network service vendors and providers. These SLAs "will be a driving issue for device and application adoption."

Bob Egan, president of Mobile Competency, a mobile business and technology consulting firm, agrees. "Surveys like this provide both good news and bad news," he explains.

The good news is that CIOs and IT managers are thinking about wireless solutions and that "mobility is instinctive," and there is a real need for devices to be mobile to increase employee productivity. "The purpose of mobile enterprise technology is to accelerate innovation and link business units, which is directly correlated to efficiency and productivity. User desires need to fall within the context of corporate business initiatives," Egan says.

The bad news is in the fact that enterprise employees are not already given access to the best mobile enterprise technologies that are available today. Egan says that this tends to indicate "a lack of skill in determining how to invest in mobile technology. Wireless technology investment, along with users' wants and needs, must be aligned with the needs of the business. Decision makers are struggling with exactly how to do this." The survey results also show that there is a definite stratification in the types of applications that users desire. As Egan says, "this shows that many enterprises don't yet know exactly what they really need."

ROI CONCERNS

A key issue, of course, is return-on-investment (ROI). ROI for mobile technology infrastructure can be traced directly to the convenience of devices and applications. Convenience implies more use, which indicates that employee time is freed to produce more and become more efficient. As desk phones become more idle, investments in traditional wireline technologies (such as PBXs) provide a lower return than investments in mobile technologies, even generic wireless voice services. Large companies typically require a large infrastructure investment, re-use of existing infrastructure and more customized applications. Small companies typically need a minimal infrastructure investment and turnkey solutions. Also, most enterprises have made large investments in network security technologies. These technologies can easily be usurped by wireless devices, the security needs of which are not aligned with those required for typical wireline data networks.