Enterprise can no longer afford to overlook the opportunities that the mobile market provides, said Julie Tomlinson, director for mobile business at Sybase.
Tomlinson was speaking at the BMI-TechKnowledge Mobility Forum, which took place in Midrand, this week.
She said SA has a higher penetration of mobile subscribers than PC subscribers. "There are four million Internet subscribers in SA; compare that to 35 million mobile users, it is a medium you can no longer ignore."
She said Vodacom tracks 600 million "Please Call Me" messages per month, which provide big opportunities for new revenue streams. The advertising space the company sells with 'Please call me` messages has been sold out.
MTNLoaded also does brisk business, with 100 transactions per second, she said. "Coupled with the dramatic success of cellphone banking, the sophistication of the market in SA becomes clear."
Tomlinson also said 81% of consumers under 35 years old want to interact with service providers on their mobile; however, only 2% of service providers offer some form of mobile service.
Steve Preston, sales executive at Yeigo Communications, said many mobile handsets now connect to WiFi networks, which is the ideal platform for business to start using VOIP, he said. "The penetration of smartphones with network available technologies in SA is around 10%.
"The cellphone`s existence is already intrinsic in us. Many of us have cellphones and we use them."
He said business must start leveraging mobility options to remain competitive. "It is easy to use, it saves money."
Workforce mobility
Deon Liebenberg, commercial director of Research in Motion, said South African corporates that have implemented some form of mobile workforce have saved up to R35 000 per user per year.
However, they also face the challenge of making mission-critical information available on a device and allow employees to walk around with it, posing security risks. And there is a challenge of managing the employee`s time, as they want the flexibility to allow them to attend to personal and family endeavours.
Liebenberg said the best method to address the challenge is to ensure business approaches implementation of a mobile workforce holistically. "Decide what solution you want, which devices you will use and choose how they will integrate."
Nashua Mobile MD Mark Taylor said companies should not over-regulate access to organisational ICT infrastructure, including access to facilities such as Facebook. He suggested that companies set policies that allow them to pay for a limited portion of the connectivity cost, with the employee shouldering the rest of it.
"If you want to use mobile devices to full capacity in your company, show your employees how much you`re prepared to invest," he said.
Tomlinson said the market`s success is creating a mindset change within enterprises. Creating a mobile workforce is no longer about "if", but about "when", she said.
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