This year's research also examined how mobile is used within organizations and how strategies may change. We looked at special needs at the enterprise level and how that's driving device choice. The report shows many of the challenges and how that's affecting relationships with support partners.
Organizations Usually Own Devices Overall, 86 percent of organizations provide corporate-owned mobile devices to employees—whether individually assigned, shared, corporate-owned/personally enabled, or choose your own device. Fifty-eight percent of the total are corporate-owned/business-only (see figure 3.1).
When you break it down by industry, manufacturing organizations are significantly more likely to provide individually assigned devices vs. shared—followed by transportation and then retail. Overall, Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) policies account for just 14 percent of device ownership. Field services organizations are the most likely to rely on BYOD—coming in at 36 percent.
BYOD drove a lot of buzz in the IT world for a while as pundits proclaimed that users demand technology that they're most comfortable with and that personal tech had—in many cases—surpassed that given out by employers.
That's flipped in recent years because of security concerns, support challenges, and privacy fears when employers demand full control of personal devices to ensure they're protected, and data is secure. The equipment provided by employers has improved too—and now rivals what end users have in their personal lives.
While shared devices make up just 20 percent of the total—and 89 percent stay with one employee for their entire shift—there are significant issues with management such as getting the devices back to the charging cradle, check-in/check-out processes, battery life, and more (see figure 3.2).
When you break it down by industry, two-thirds of retail organizations struggle with getting devices back to recharging stations. They also see issues with battery life and employees waiting to use equipment (see figure 3.3).
Figure 3.3: Challenges When Sharing Mobile Devices
Additional Resources
What is Mobile-First?
Most now accept that mobile-first leveraging mobile technology is a key component of digital transformation. Stratix Chief Strategy Officer, Alex Kalish, provides a quick explainer and more on why it's important when you consider new technology solutions and purchases.
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"Mobile solutions increase automation, improve workflows, and create better user and customer experiences."
The disproportionately high shared device problems in retail add up in lost productivity. Transportation organizations say their challenges revolve more around storing devices and checking them in and out.
The shared device problems mean two-thirds of organizations are looking to evolve their strategies—including moving to devices with a longer lifecycle, updating procedures and security, upgrading the operating system, and shifting to personally assigned devices (see figure 3.4).
Enterprises Rely on High Levels of Customization
The 2022 Enterprise Mobility Outlook shows that buying off-the-shelf mobile solutions is not an option for most organizations. Two-thirds say they need customized devices, with 20 percent characterizing that as "extremely customized." (see figure 3.5).
The research shows how that's driving operating system selection (see figure 3.6).
Nearly half rely on the Android operating system, and that number increases to more than 50 percent in the manufacturing and transportation sectors. There are multiple Android device types available for those segments—especially rugged devices—and the operating system has more flexibility for customization. Retail and field services are more likely to choose iOS for employees who have Apple devices in their private lives and are often more comfortable with them. In overall primary use, iOS trails Android by only 12 percentage points.
Customization can extend beyond operating systems and applications. Many enterprises require custom peripherals and accessories. For example, Stratix has a whole department devoted to solving the unique challenges customers bring us.
When corporate-owned devices break down, organizations primarily have relationships with Mobile Managed Service Providers (MMSPs) for repair or replacement (see figure 3.7).
Some rely on external repair services, but very few do it in-house. If organizations use multiple OEMs to repair different technology solutions, juggling all of them creates unnecessary and frustrating complexity. That goes back to the value of centralized decision-making in mobile-first organizations that are always considering the bigger picture.
Figure 3.7: How Broken Corporate Owned Devices are Repaired
IT Department Challenges Three-quarters of organizations say the IT department is primarily responsible for managing mobile technology. Of our industry segments, field services are more likely to rely on their customer service operations than the others (see figure 3.8).
We quizzed our respondents on the amount of time IT teams devote to managing mobile technology. The breakout is significant in that one-third of in-house IT departments spend all week on mobile technology security, and a further 20 percent spend all week on end-user support. That's over 50 percent of IT time dedicated to supporting mobile—time that is NOT spent on transformation initiatives.
As with all IT functions, finding qualified resources to manage mobile isn't easy. And, by all reports, it's getting harder to recruit and retain every day (see figure 3.9).
Almost all organizations currently have some kind of partnership with an MMSP. Nearly half outsource support, while 40 percent use MMSPs for deployments and telecom expense management. Far fewer manage in-house or rely on OEMs (see figure 3.10).
Very few organizations do not currently use an MMSP to support their mobile devices. Over half of these organizations use an in-house department (56%) and nearly half say it's faster to train their own employees (41%).
2022 Enterprise Mobility Outlook, Hanover Research
Field services organizations are far more likely than retail or transportation to rely on an MMSP for device support. The high overall MMSP reliance levels aren't surprising. Few organizations have the expertise and scale to manage mobile solutions effectively. Partnering with organizations that work with mobile every day, know all about the latest technology, and can help customers avoid many of the common pitfalls gives organizations the confidence they need to launch projects, and rest assured they'll deliver the expected experiences and ROI.
Because of that, the research shows enterprises value MMSPs that "can do it all" with solutions that manage all aspects of mobile technology (see figure 3.11).
Although enterprises see value in a total solution—for various reasons—they tend to approach mobile management piecemeal. As their internal IT teams are spending 50 percent of their time on end-user support and security—while often outsourcing logistics and repair—more holistic solutions from outside partners would enable IT teams to focus better on transformation initiatives, and there's clearly an IT appetite to do so.
