Mobile enterprise value-added services are on the radar of information and communication technology companies as one of the most promising revenue streams over the next several years.
VAS such as location-based services, voice VPN, mobile office, mobile cloud computing, application-to-peer, short message service and others are being improved and expanded in order to increase average revenue per line and improve customer experience.
Telcos want to offer integrated solutions in order to optimize the adoption of mobile enterprise services by small, medium and large businesses. These solutions also drive an increase of data services and voice services of carriers’ infrastructure, thus providing a base to preserve the traditional telecom business.
The ecosystem in Latin America is being developed and the availability of different mobile applications is expected to increase heavily over the next several years. Companies are likely to adopt applications under mobile device management solutions, in order to guarantee security and deal with the phenomenon of “consumerization” as personal smart device adoption in enterprises continues to grow.
Frost & Sullivan estimates that the mobile enterprise services market revenue for Brazil, Colombia and Mexico will grow from $11.84 billion in 2012 to $17.84 billion in 2018.
Regional major telcos – Movistar/Vivo, Claro, Oi, TIM/Personal and Nextel – all have a strategy to foster the development of VAS for mobile enterprise services. Sometimes this strategy is designed to add mobility to data communications network solutions, such as IP VPN MPLS, and engage the clients in the whole portfolio of an integrated convergent telco.
However, many solutions are still tailor-made for special projects. For further adoption it is important that “shelf products” are provided by telcos with easy contract options for clients as a few telcos have been doing with cloud services applications stores.
We expect that with the evolution of “4G” networks and Wi-Fi hotspots, the experience with cloud services will be enhanced and will allow for the development of more advanced services, including video.
For the client, the return on investment needs to be calculated in large projects. However, the “as a service” model provides an easy access for small and medium enterprises to adopt applications and services. The evolution of this model is resulting in an increase of productivity and efficiency in this segment as users make real-time decisions; even if they are away from their physical locations, they still have access to systems that allow better management of operations, such as CRM, accounting, supply chain management, etc.
However, there is still lack of awareness of the benefits that enterprise mobile solutions can deliver. Therefore the challenge is to educate customers and make the service more tangible. Other key industry barriers that need to be addressed are consumer trust on security and low penetration of data-capable devices.
Carina Goncalves began her professional path within GMattos, a consulting company specialized in the electronic commerce industry. She then acquired further experience in the Telecommunications sector working for Axoon Telecom in different areas such as strategic analysis, product development and Marketing (her area of specialization). Since August 2013, Goncalves is a Research Analyst at Frost & Sullivan´s Telecom practice in Latin America.
