Enterprise information technology managers are badly underestimating the future demand for mobility devices and services in the enterprise arena, overlooking a new emerging class of mobile workers that rely on smart phones, where the traditional demand has been provided by traveling workers.
On-the-road executives or managers, telecommuters or field service employees currently represent 20 percent of the workforce, says Forrester analyst Michele Pelino.
Call the workers driving the demand "mobile wannabes," if you like. Already, nearly a third of smart phone users expense all or some of their monthly bills for wireless voice services to their employers, while 40 percent expense the cost of their wireless data access to their company. Forrester Research estimates that by 2012, 73 percent of the workforce will be considered mobile.
This new class of workers represents just six percent of the present workforce, but Forrester estimates that they will grow to 25 percent of workers within the next four years. In fact, Forrester estimates 73 percent of the workforce will be considered some sort of mobile worker by 2012.
Mobile wannabes include executive assistants, human resource workers and finance department employees who are generally at their desks most of the day but use smart phones to access email and other corporate applications while commuting to work or while away from their desks. Millennials, workers younger than 30 years of age also expect mobile support.
Most of this growing group of users buy their own devices, so the trick is to create new service plans that are affordable enough to encourage broader use of mobile data services, Forrester says.
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