Not long ago, enterprises began adjusting to the rapid growth of mobile devices in the consumer market. But BYOD (bring your own device) policies were often an unhappy compromise, as organizations struggled to incorporate collaboration and security features into a centralized telecom platform.
Now, the pendulum has swung in the other direction, as mobile-first strategies are vital for meeting the communication needs of remote and hybrid work models, while supporting frontline, manufacturing, sales and distribution employees.
Permanent increases in remote and hybrid working are likely to boost demand for mobile services due to the cost and hassle associated with provisioning phones and circuits to residential locations, according to a recent Frost & Sullivan analysis, “Evaluating Mobile Communications Solutions for the Hybrid Workforce.”
The Frost report found that companies’ increasing adoption of mobile-first communications helps them achieve crucial goals, such as empowering diverse workforces and retaining employees. Technology advancements, including 5G connectivity and robust device capabilities, enable better user mobile experiences and increase decision-makers’ comfort in adopting mobile solutions.
“Organizations are expected to adopt mobile-forward strategies whereby future communications investments will be aligned with permanently shifted work styles and a strong appreciation for the benefits of mobility,” said Elka Popova, connected work vice president, Frost & Sullivan. “Among other approaches to workforce mobile enablement, all-inclusive UCaaS seat licenses that provide mobile access to calling and UC features will drive further fixed-mobile convergence (FMC) adoption.”
Popova added that emerging and evolving native, IP multimedia subsystem (IMS) core-based mobile calling solutions will find strong appeal among users. “In many cases, native mobile calling may be deployed alongside collaboration apps that already provide flexible access to meetings, messaging, and calling on a variety of connected devices,” she added.
Finding the right approach
The move to cloud-based platforms, such as AvayaOneCloud™ has accelerated the adoption of mobile-first and FMC strategies. However, the report noted that the core PBX feature set and PSTN access remain important requirements for organizations of all sizes, even as they adopt new solutions to enable multi-modal peer-to-peer and group collaboration.
Therefore, IT leaders still must determine where to apply a mobile-first strategy to support the wide range of use cases in their organizations. For example, demand for communications and collaboration capabilities is strongly correlated with the proportion of desk workers in an organization. For large-scale enterprises, presence management, corporate IM, video meetings, persistent team spaces, mobile business calling apps and configurable user experiences are becoming must-haves for communications providers.
In addition, IT leaders recognize the importance of empowering frontliners as well, and put a priority on mobile calling applications, which can add significant value to their organizations. While frontline job roles are often more suited for asynchronous communications, the Frost report noted that 77 percent of surveyed organizations would like to have PBX functionality as part of their frontliners’ tool sets. Mobility features and/or mobile UCaaS are a great fit for desk-less frontline workers, said the report.
Summing up the findings, the Frost report said mobile-first strategies will find a stronger appeal among certain countries, industries and worker demographics. However, the flexibility to work from anywhere, anytime is likely to have a long-lasting impact on all types of organizations around the world.
