India's mobile workforce numbers set to explode

face="Times New Roman, serif">A
new report released by Springboard Research predicts that India's
mobile workforce will grow 53% over the next 4 years to reach 205 mn
by 2015, out of which as many as 65% will be equipped with smart
mobile devices. Although India has one of the world's largest and
fastest growing mobile subscriber bases, enterprise adoption of
mobile strategies is still at a nascent stage.

face="Times New Roman, serif">Sponsored
by salesforce.com, the report states that improving productivity is
the single most important factor for enterprises to adopt mobility in
India, while employee accessibility follows next. And as awareness of
the tangible benefits gained from mobility grows, enterprises are
actively pursuing the technology. Besides, the sheer size of India's
mobile subscriber base, coupled with the country's economic growth
will increase smart mobile device penetration among enterprise mobile
workers by more than four-fold between 2010 and 2015.

face="Times New Roman, serif">Highlighting
a few details of the report, Sanchit Vir Gogia, associate research
manager, Springboard Research said, “In India, CXOs are gaining
more awareness about enterprise mobility. These CXOs are realizing
that mobility is not just about providing portable communication
devices to employees but also represents a cultural shift with a
360-degree impact on the enterprise.”

face="Times New Roman, serif">Gogia
further added, “The true power of enterprise mobility is realized
only when enterprise devices are coupled with the most relevant
business applications. These software solutions enable enterprises to
achieve tangible benefits in terms of cost, employee productivity,
and enterprise efficiency. However, costs and decision on which
applications to mobilize, hinders implementation of the enterprise
mobile strategy.”

face="Times New Roman, serif">The
new report titled, 'Moving Towards a Mobile Enterprise-Journey of
India Inc' suggests a four-phased roadmap for companies embarking
on a mobile enterprise strategy:

• face="Times New Roman, serif">Conventional Mobility:
  basic applications such as email, messaging, contacts, and calendar

• face="Times New Roman, serif">Automated Workforce:
  critical applications like ERP, CRM and salesforce automation. This
  allows mobile workers to minimize paperwork, reduce back-to-office
  visits, improve productivity, and achieve higher sales closing ratio

• face="Times New Roman, serif">Always Connected:
  applications that extend real time communication and collaboration
  capabilities to employees anytime, anywhere, and on any device

• face="Times New Roman, serif">Pervasive Mobility:
  applications that integrate function-specific applications to enhance
  brand image and bring efficiencies in internal operations such as
  finance and human resources.

“ face="Times New Roman, serif">We
are in the post-PC era where the most important applications are
being developed on mobile platforms first. Sales, customer service,
marketing, finance, HR teams need access to real time information to
meet the demands of today's business environment. Salesforce Mobile
and Chatter Mobile keep customers connected to people, data, records,
and dashboards straight from today's most popular mobile devices
including the iPad, iPhone, BlackBerry, and Android,” said Steve
McWhirter, SVP, enterprise sales, salesforce.com, Asia Pacific.