Telecoms and Media Lead in Adoption of Mobile Solutions in Western Europe, But Transport and Utilities to Catch Up in 2004, Says IDC
LONDON, June 10, 2004 Western European companies in telecommunications, media, transport, and utilities have a growing interest in mobile solutions, according to IDC's European Vertical Markets survey. Mobility-related projects are currently more common in telecoms and media than in transport and utilities, but the latter are expected to catch up with investments in mobile solutions in 2004.
The most common mobile solutions are mobile office applications (currently used by 34% of media and 33% of telecoms companies participating in the survey) and mobile salesforce automation (33% of media and 29% of telcos in the sample). In 2004, 17% of transport respondents plan to adopt solutions for mobile customer support, while 13% of utilities intend to deploy hot desking applications.
"The adoption of mobile solutions in transport, telecommunications, media, and utilities is experiencing steady growth, as the benefits derived from anytime, anywhere access to enterprise solutions become more evident to organizations," said Claudia Lonardi, senior research analyst with IDC's European Vertical Markets research group. "Another driving factor is the increasing number of personnel working outside company premises."
IDC's European Vertical Markets survey reveals that:
* Major mobile solution growth areas in 2004 for all four verticals are XML applications and mobile salesforce automation. For transport only, adoption is expected to increase in mobile customer support and mobile office products, while utilities are also looking at implementing hot desking initiatives.
* The range of mobile devices available in the market is ever expanding, but survey results suggest that only a few device types are commonly employed by enterprises in transport, telecoms, media, and utilities for mobile access to corporate information and IT systems. The laptop PC and mobile phone are by far the most widely adopted among mobile devices used by the great majority of companies in the survey sample.
* Regarding implementation strategy, the main message for IT vendors is that, although in general companies are favoring the acquisition of mobile solutions from external providers, in-house custom development still plays a part in the four verticals under analysis and especially in utilities (30% of the sample say they develop mobile applications internally).
* The two major obstacles to the implementation of a mobility-related strategy for all four verticals are that it is not part of the company's overall business strategy and that the ROI proposition is not strong enough to justify the investment.
Western European Telecoms, Media, Transport, and Utilities Mobile Solutions Adoption: An IDC Survey (IDC #PT03L, June 2004) draws on the results of IDCs European Vertical Market survey, carried out in the top 5 Western European countries (France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the U.K.) among 353 companies with more than 20 employees.
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