New Mobility

GLOBAL INVESTOR 2.13 — 25
from around the world work on a single picture. While this
does not (yet) replace meeting in person, it enables people
to acquaint themselves with their counterparts and to lay the
foundation for relationships.
Another box that a successful firm’s mobility strategy
needs to tick is the ability to share large digital files and
provide intelligent digital work platforms to bridge the physical
gap and share both work and ideas immediately on a
global basis. Tele- and video-conferencing solutions should
be accessible from a variety of mobile devices. According to
IT research firm IDC, one interesting trend is the use of more
web-based software solutions, such as Microsoft Lync, over
traditional ones that require special hardware in cases such
as video-conferencing. In this context, two IT infrastructure
trends support the increasing use of software-defined mobility
solutions. First there is the already well-known Bring Your
Own Device (BYOD) trend. It enables an employee to stay
connected with family and friends, while also with the company’s
network by using their own mobile devices. Second
is the Bring Your Own Application (BYOA) trend whereby
employees can use cloud-based applications from external
providers and the corporate network at the same time on
their own devices. For example, a single department of a
firm could decide to use a meeting application, such as
CloudOn, GoToMeeting or Asana, downloaded from an external
provider to arrange or attend meetings virtually, share
files or collaborate on projects. This could turn out to be
Collaboration, video, mobility drive value in the IoE economy
In the Internet of Everything (IoE), there continues to be exponential
increase in the connectivity between people, processes, data and things. By
2020, the number of such connections is predicted to grow from 10 trillion
to 50 trillion. Cisco foresees that an incredible USD 14.4 trillion will be at
stake in the new IoE economy, as the ever-changing capabilities of collaboration,
video and mobility will facilitate the sharing of insights and data
while cutting costs, accelerating innovation and reducing time to market.
Source: Cisco
M2M
USD 6.4 tn
People-to-people
Machine-to-machine
Machine-to-people
M2P
USD 3.5 tn
P2P
USD 4.5 tn
Uwe Neumann, CEFA, joined Credit Suisse Private
Banking in 2000 as an equity analyst responsible
for the telecom and technology sector. He has
28 years of experience in the securities and banking
business, including 18 years in research. He holds
a Master in Economics from the University of
Constance, Germany.
much more efficient compared to the company’s own collaboration
tools, which may not be specialized enough for
the department’s own purposes. In addition, employees can
even create their own applications, which they can use or
share with others over the companies’ communication networks.
However, these initiatives on the part of companies
to encourage employees to take advantage of a highly connected
virtual world require investments in IT infrastructure.
Companies are thus setting up cloud-based and virtualized
IT infrastructures that make their operating systems independent
of the hardware.
But there is also a flip side. The BYOD and BYOA
business practices also leave companies vulnerable to
cybercrime. With the proliferation of data communication in
the virtual world, the number of cyberattacks is increasing
exponentially. According to a United Nations report, more
than USD 1 trillion was lost in cyberspace in 2008 due to
online fraud, identity theft and loss of intellectual property
globally. In addition, demand for privacy is rising, as not
only can people’s online activities be tracked and monitored,
but also their offline ones as a result of location
signals from mobile devices.
Swifter data processing, greater efficiency, independency
of location, instant information retrieval and cost reductions
are all benefits waiting to be reaped and are likely
to outweigh the risks and disadvantages. The new opportunities
allow us to become smarter in everything that we are
doing together – from receiving medical care to developing
ideas and realizing their benefits – be it in a virtual space or
face-to-face in the real world when we move beyond the