Almost two-thirds (63%) of Australian enterprise leaders admit mobile technology is either only partially integrated, or not at all, which is holding their business back, a new global research report from SOTI has found.
The report revealed that half (50%) of Australian enterprises have invested in mobile technology or mobile security in the last year, and 71% said the mobile technology their organisation had invested in had provided a positive return on investment (ROI).
More than three-quarters (79%) of Australian enterprise leaders agree their organisation’s C-Suite realises the importance of mobile tech more now than before the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, indicating that it’s climbed up the boardroom agenda.
However, two-thirds (66%) said that their organisation’s portfolio of mobile devices has grown but managing the increased number of devices is proving difficult, indicating these Australian businesses might not have the right device management technology in place – or they have nothing at all.
Meanwhile, half (50%) say that their organisation is not using mobile technology to help adjust to the challenges of the post-pandemic marketplace. The challenge for these Australian companies is to fully integrate mobile technology into their core workflows to capitalise on the technology’s potential to provide flexibility and intelligence across the whole enterprise.
Australian enterprise leaders acknowledge that they need better business intelligence to help navigate future unforeseen issues (77%), better tools to diagnose issues (75%), improved security and user authentication across all mobile devices (73%), ways to better manage mobile devices (66%) and better data analytics and troubleshooting (62%).
In the immediate future, the recent pace of change looks like it will continue. Over the next 12 months, almost three quarters (73%) of Australian organisations are considering increasing their expenditure on mobile devices, systems and/or security, while more than half (51%) of Australian organisations are considering increasing their expenditure on technology for better device and system integration and/or replacing legacy systems.
The pandemic has forced businesses to become more reliant on mobile and internet-connected technologies, to support a new way of working and operating, SOTI vice president of sales for Asia Pacific, Michael Dyson said.
“The challenge for many businesses was that the speed of transformation meant that these mobile technologies were often not integrated properly,” he said.
“The use of mobile technology will continue to serve as a lifeline for keeping operations moving in a post-pandemic world, so businesses will need to focus on improving integration to get the most out of their investments. Properly integrated technology will also prove crucial in helping organisations meet the changing demands of consumers.”