Businesses Budget For Mobility Solutions For 2016

By Christine Kern, contributing writer

According to a new poll by SOTI and IDG Enterprise about one-fifth of 2016 IT budgets are earmarked for mobility solutions. Respondents, senior IT decision-makers across a variety of industries, said they view mobility is a critical agent for business success. On average, 68 percent of those surveyed gave this response; among organizations of more than 1,000 people, the number jumped to 74 percent.

The survey also confirms that mobile technology transcends bring your own device (BYOD). Almost half (47 percent) of organizations polled said they are leveraging mobility as the platform to deliver new products and services, while an additional 45 percent are using mobility to drive business process transformation and competitive differentiation. Meanwhile, 39 percent are aggressively leveraging mobility to increase customer and partner engagement. The speed of mobility adoption is also now being driven by employees and IT departments.

“These survey results illustrate what SOTI’s known all along: mobility transforms how enterprises do business, continues to impact brand connections with customers and partners, and directly impacts the bottom line,” said Carl Rodrigues, SOTI CEO. “Enterprises must not expose themselves to gaps in their mobility investments and implementations. If they don’t catch up to the rapid pace of today’s mobility demands, they’ll be left in the dark.”

Among concerns related to mobility, 69 percent of survey respondents identify hacking, malware, and security as top enterprise mobility concerns. In addition, 47 percent are concerned about their ability to keep pace with rapidly changing mobile technologies, and 46 percent of decision-makers worry about integrating systems, data and applications with enterprise systems.