It states that even one dropped connection or poorly performing application per shift can translate into almost $20,000 in annual support and productivity loss costs per mobile worker. The consequence of each failure incident can result in up to 100 minutes in lost productivity or 23 per cent of a daily shift.
The study found that the top drivers for investment in business-critical mobility solutions were:
- Improving worker productivity (36.4 per cent)
- Increasing sales/revenues (28.6 per cent)
- Improving real-time decision making (27.0 per cent)
- Improving competitive advantage (26.2 per cent)
- Reducing paperwork (26.2 per cent)
While it was hard to spot any big surprises, the above coupled with the report’s analysis of the key drivers behind investment in business-critical mobility for several major sectors (healthcare, retail services, manufacturing and transport/distribution) may be of interest to those targeting or looking to sell mobile working solutions to those sectors.
The survey also asked respondents to list their major business-critical mobility investment challenges. These were:
- Data and file security (46.5 per cent)
- Employee mobile training (40.8 per cent)
- Interoperability with existing legacy systems (38.7 per cent)
- IT leadership buy-in/support (38.2 per cent)
- Lack of resources to fully support mobility objectives (31.9 per cent)
- Lack of sufficient ROI from mobility (30.1 per cent)
- Lack of clear mobile strategy (29.4 per cent)
“Frankly, we were shocked to learn that 30 per cent of respondents reported that they couldn’t determine ROI from mobility,” said Shash Anand, Vice-President of Product Strategy at SOTI. “This suggests that IT teams and their internal business partners need to do a better job of showcasing the role that mobility plays in driving revenue and increasing productivity. Once ROI has been determined, there should be no barriers to making mobility investments.”
The report also listed the ‘leading’ causes of mobile solution failure:
- Network/connectivity issues (49.3 per cent)
- Software issues – application (40.6 per cent)
- Mobile battery failure (36.8 per cent)
- Software issues – security and access control (36.5 per cent)
- Software issues – operating system (34.1 per cent)
- Mobile hardware damage – non-battery related (25.9 per cent)
- Mobile peripheral/accessory damage (20.2 per cent)
- Unauthorised configuration changes by employee/end users (18.3 per cent)
