Dating back from the industrial revolution of the 1700s to the scientific revolution of the 1900s, revolutions have always refabricated humanity’s social and cultural DNA. With automobiles, airplanes and radio heralding the commencement of the digital revolution, technology has always propelled civilization onward. In the throes of the pandemic, amid accounts of supply chain disruptions and healthcare constraints, digitalization was the only beacon of hope. While the pandemic did disrupt the rhythm of our otherwise conventional life, we were quick to find alternatives to get back to business. Cloud computing, proprietary remote work software and sophisticated endpoint became the new normal.
With an impressive acceleration in technological breakthroughs, staying in line with upcoming mobility trends is a necessity for corporates. This article intends to throw light on the enterprise mobility trends businesses must look out for in 2022.
Joining the BYOD bandwagon
It took a pandemic to make BYOD (Bring Your Own Device), a contentious experiment popularised by millennials, a reality. While the pandemic has been taking a smooth turn, with hybrid workplace becoming the new normal and businesses facing global chip shortage, the BYOD notion has been capable of ingraining itself into the corporate network’s fundamental ethos. While BYOD offered businesses the benefit of saving budget on corporate devices; privacy, security, and productivity concerns stopped corporates from adopting the practice. However, the concept of containerization was capable of drawing a fine line between work and personal.
With corporates and employees widely embracing BYOD, the Unified Endpoint Management (UEM) solution assisted IT admins in mass deployment and management of the device. Through containerization, organizations can push applications, transfer data, and remotely perform actions such as locking the container. While the BYOD market is estimated tobe worth $367 billionin 2022, the notion remains a topic of debate among stakeholders. Offering the right education will help alleviate the fears of both employees and corporates.
Connecting beyond borders
IoT (Internet of Things) devices have taken the Machine-to-Machine (M2M) communication a level higher. However, the conventional digital infrastructure wasn’t equipped enough to deal with the 13 billion devices spread across the network. With tonnes of data packages being transferred across multiple networks, enterprises require a different network strategy. While edge computing was a solution to the data storage concerns, the recent technological advancements of 5Gand Wi-Fi 6 answer the connectivity concerns. The combination of 5G and Wi-Fi 6 offers higher speed, lower latency and increased capacity, overtaking their predecessors. Harnessing the duo’s power, businesses have been capable of leveraging a variety of enterprise mobility solutions taking connectivity to the next level.
While both these technologies have differences of their own, their complementary collaboration assists businesses in networking efficiently. The adoption of 5G remains at a nascent stage, and when exploited to the utmost potential, web collaboration across multiple platforms will witness a new era.
The omnipresence of AI
The ability of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to analyze and predict data has always been a subject explored and exploited by businesses in a wide context.The possibility of AI taking over communication proved true when Apple's Siri and Amazon's Alexa made their debuts in every household. Since then, corporates have been attempting to figure out ways to delegate mundane customer service jobs to AI by implementing self-learning algorithms. However, while digital assistants tailored for household purposes rely on the wide-open source to gather answers to the questions posed to them, corporate chatbots require access to corporate data to take communication forward. Tackling the challenge, various software vendors have come up with virtual assistants and AI chatbots.
Claiming its foothold in B2B collaborations and customer services, digital assistants have seen wide application within sectors of retail, banking and healthcare as well. While chatbots seamlessly automate and simplify customer service processes like customer interactions, provide basic details and other important information, stakeholders have leveraged virtual assistants in creating tasks, reminders, and workflows. As a result, AI bots and virtual assistants will see higher adoption within businesses as a result of the benefits they offer.
The Cloud goes hybrid
From mainframe computers to client-server architecture and virtual machines, the way data has been handled has been ever-evolving. In today’s modern world, with the amount of data generated exceeding bounds, an even more effective solution to host data has been developed- The Cloud. With the availability of the public, private and now the hybrid cloud, the question lies in investing in the right cloud infrastructure. Nowadays, corporates find themselves storing their data on-premise, in the cloud or behind layers of customized network security.
Bringing together the features offered by both public and private clouds, the hybrid cloud offers diverse storage, flexibility and cost-efficiency, helping enterprises dynamically manage their cloud workloads. Furthermore, the combination of on-premise and off-premise helpsIT seamlessly manage the security of devices and thwart untoward incidents quickly. With the work culture going hybrid, hybrid cloud has risen to prominence in the business world.
Final thoughts
Businesses need to move in tandem with technological advancements to stay ahead of the competition. The acceptance of BYOD and the adoption of hybrid work have catalyzed the adoption of enterprise mobility solutions. Alongside, enterprises will have to analyze the impact these technologies might bring if integrated with their business models. With enterprise mobility witnessing wide adoption, the need to address security concerns will grow parallelly. Therefore, it will be imperative for businesses to adopt Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM)solutions.
The EMM Market is expected to be worth $63.6 billion by 2026. Given the trajectory, EMM vendors are open to customizing features as per the needs of the stakeholder. Going a step further, vendors offer Unified Endpoint Management (UEM) solutions that bring endpoint and enterprise mobility management under a single canopy. Along with adopting the latest technologies, enterprises must equip themselves with the best solution to thwart threats these technologies might face.
