Contents - Connect-World

Mobility and Small Business
Mobile enterprise: big opportunities for smaller firms
by Mats Victorin, Regional Head, Asia-Pacific, Ericsson Enterprise
As the business world becomes more global, enterprises need to be more responsive,
more available, more flexible and more efficient than everthis is especially true for
smaller enterprises that compete with large corporations on the world stage. Mobile
enterprise solutions and services have a key role to play in levelling the playing field for
small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) addressing these business challenges. For
operators, such services represent a great opportunity to gain competitive advantage and
address the valuable enterprise segment.
Mats Victorin, is Ericsson Enterprise ABs director for the Asia-Pacific region. After a number of years
in the IT industry he joined Ericsson Enterprise in 1993. Mr Victorin has since held numerous managerial
positions in the companys sales and marketing division, including Regional Business Director for
sales in UK, Ireland and North America, head of EMEA Sales (Europe, Middle East, Africa) and Director
of Global Marketing.
Mr Victorin holds an MBA DHS from Stockholm School of Economics, where he specialised in Marketing
and Finance.
Mobile operators in the Asia-Pacific
region are doing business in some of
the most fiercely competitive markets
in the world. They are typically experiencing
falling levels of Average
Revenue Per User (ARPU) and rising
levels of subscriber churn, as the mass
market for mobile services expands
and the popularity of prepaid services
grows.
One key way mobile operators can
address this situation is to attract and
retain business users through mobile
enterprise services. This should be
good news for SMEs throughout the
region, which will have a greater range
of more easily accessible services on
offer from operators.
According to market analysts ARC
Group, the number of mobile enterprise
users in the Asia-Pacific region
will grow from 61.4 million today to
163.8 million by 2008, overtaking
Europe (which, currently has the highest
number). The penetration of enterprise
data users in the region is set to
grow from todays 54 per cent to 74
per cent by 2008, according to ARC —
over which time the Asia-Pacific
region will become the largest mobile
enterprise market, accounting for 40
per cent of global revenues.
So how can SMEs take advantage of
these developments and punch above
their weight in the global business
arena
The growth of the mobile
enterprise
There is a growing trend for enterprise
workforces to become more mobile as
markets and businesses become more
global and flexible working practices
spread. It is not just outside the office
where mobility is importantindoor
mobility is also a key to becoming
more accessible and responsive, so
that productivity and customer service
are enhanced.
While voice telephony still predominates
in business communications
particularly outside the officeother
forms of communications are increasingly
complementing it. Fixed and
mobile telephony, e-mail and mobile
computing are all converging and
beginning to interwork more successfully
to support enterprises wherever
their employees happen to be working.
Enterprises are keen to mobilise their
existing investments in office applications
and it makes sense to start with
the applications that are most beneficialand
simplestto adapt to the
mobile world.
While enterprises adopt mobile enterprise
solutions at different rates and in
a variety of ways, there are three
major phases of evolution taking place
in the market today.
The first phase involves adding mobility
to horizontal enterprise applications
like corporate telephony, voicemail,
automated attendant, e-mail,
messaging and intranet access. This is
already happening with the deployment
of mobile extension and push e-
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