BYOD, WiFi Shape Future of Mobile Workforce, Survey Reveals

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There's some good news for managed services providers (MSPs) following the bring your own device (BYOD) trend closely. A recent iPass Inc. (IPAS) survey unveiled a relationship between BYOD policies, smartphone use by region, and worker productivity, finding that mobile workers are using connectivity to be more productive and work longer hours, and most of this work is being done over WiFi.

iPass CEO Evan Kaplan said in his prepared remarks that businesses can increase employee productivity by providing them with mobile devices to work from remotely.
There's some good news for managed services providers (MSPs) following the bring your own device (BYOD) trend closely. A recent iPass Inc. (IPAS) survey unveiled a relationship between BYOD policies, smartphone use by region, and worker productivity, finding that mobile workers are using connectivity to be more productive and work longer hours, and most of this work is being done over Wi-Fi. What else is the company's report? We'll reveal the key takeaways.
Take a trip across the globe, and you'll find that North Americans are working longer hours each week, on average, than their peers in other regions, the survey revealed. North Americans, in addition to working longer hours, find smartphones as a productive tool, opening up more opportunities for these workers to be more productive with BYOD policies in the workplace.
In fact, 70 percent of mobile workers are leveraging company BYOD policies, the survey stated. North American workers are more than likely to work at companeis with BYOD policies, unlike workers in other regions, and they tend to look for employment with businesses that implement such policies. Around 35 percent of respondents said a company's BYOD policy can sway their employment choices.
iPass CEO Evan Kaplan said in his prepared remarks that businesses can increase employee productivity by providing them with mobile devices to work from remotely.
But where does WiFI access fit into this equation? Unproductive hours in a workday. The majority of mobile workers reported that they spend the majority of their business days within a range of a WiFi hotspot. On the other hand, however, 41 percent of workers claimed that the lack of wireless coverage renders them unproductive at least 10 percent of their workday.
"Although BYOD and WiFi aren't everywhere, this survey indicates that mobile workers want access to reliable, cost-effective connectivity whenever and wherever they need to work," Kaplan said.
Other key findings from the iPass Mobile Workforce Report include the following:
Fifty-nine percent of mobile workers have paid more than $20 for one-time use of WiFi. Twenty-four percent of workers have paid $30 or more for one-time access to WiFi;Seventy percent of mobile workers are allowed to use their personal mobile devices for work (BYOD). North American workers were most likely to work for a company with a BYOD policy, followed by Asia Pacific workers and then European workers. Of workers who do BYOD, the majority said they currently do or would expense WiFi costs from their personal mobile devices;Mobile workers spend their remote work time in a range of places. The most likely locations are their homes or some type of office but 75 percent also work remotely from hotels; 40 percent report working from airplanes and coffee shops; and 29 percent report working on public transportation, such as trains, buses and subways; andNearly three out of four (71 percent) mobile workers research WiFi hotspot availability before they travel. Asia Pacific workers are most likely to do this type of research, followed by European workers and North American workers.
The company's report was based on a survey of 1,150 mobile enterprise employees worldwide between March 28, 2013 and April 19, 2013.
iPass announced a new version of its iPass Open Mobile for iOS, a WiFi client for iOS devices, back in January of 2013.

How MSPs can monetize effectively managing mobile devices

Mobile device management is growing among the companies with policies to bring-your-own-device in place. But the benefits of BYOD also come with headaches. Here's how MSPs can help customers ensure devices and data while at the same time by adding your own profitability.

The service sector is all about understanding the customer's needs and offering the best possible solution in a given situation. It is absolutely essential to understand the trends and changing needs of the marketplace for customers of the service. One such trend is the management of mobile devices.  Although MSPs have actively provided and solutions for infrastructure management, growth in the use of employee-owned devices such as Smartphones or tablets in the workplace, more commonly called BYOD, has created new challenges for organizations to manage.

Gartner predicts that by 2017, half of the employers in the world requires employees to bring their devices to work. According to the report, "BYOD is occurring in companies and Governments of all sizes, is more prevalent in organizations of medium and large ($ 500 million to $ 5 billion in revenue, with 2,500 to 5,000 employees).

BYOD also allows smaller companies to go mobile without a huge device and service investment. Adoption varies widely throughout the world. Companies in the United States are twice as likely to allow BYOD like those in Europe, where the adoption BYOD lowest of all regions. In contrast, employees in India, China and Brazil are more likely to be using a personal device, typically a normal mobile phone, at work. (Here's a link to the Gartner information).

This is the right opportunity for MSPs?

Compared to desktop computers, mobile devices have shown a strong growing market worldwide, which made the workforce more mobile today than ever before. The concept of a BYOD created challenges for organizations in terms of data security, application management and network security. Msp can play an important role in providing MDM as a service, and removing the load from the enterprise.

It is important for MSPs to analyze and interpret customer needs to ensure that the opportunity for MDM is ripe. Some of the questions may ask before pitching MDM might include:

Customers any mobile management challenges?Are there any mobile based on requests from customers? If the answer is Yes, then what is the reason.It will be a sound business opportunity?

If MSPs can find satisfactory answers to these questions, you could easily cash in on the opportunity. As evident from the forecasts of market analysts, organizations began to look for MSP that can offer end-to-end services for systems and mobile device management.

Create awareness:MSPs must play an active role in educating users about security issues that are involved in managing the device and how the MSPs can meet these demands.

As a consultant, MSPs must understand the challenges and propose solutions that can meet these challenges. For example, some of the pain points for customers who may have data security, access to information and provision of BYOD. Find the area of interest and start a conversation to clear their doubts and questions and propose the right solution.

Pricing and packaging strategy:         

More medium-sized MSPs limit their range of desktop management services/anti-virus management and patch management services. There are several other services such as mobile device management and content management that may not yet have been explored.

The biggest problem for most organizations is data security in Device Manager. Create a package with different levels of functionality. Introduce a package of integrated management that can help in the management of desktop and mobile devices. A basic package may contain maximum desktop management features and device management functionality needed as security management including pass-code policy, remote data deletion and blocking, etc.

Flexible packaging: The Service Pack must be designed with the 80 per cent of the core features such as security management and the 20 percent by adding features such as application management. Msp can provide further layers as the mobile application management, configuration profile or report generation and their package as an Advanced Edition.

The advantage lies in broadening the range of services and this expansion enables MSPs looking for new opportunities to increase revenue, while using know-how gained from the operation of specific vertical markets.

Prices: Create a value based on the pricing strategy and then let customers perceive the importance of the services that offer MSPs. For example, create different editions of price points, each variation with its offerings/hallmarks along with desktop management features that should be available in every Variant.

For example, a form might have the necessary security management, and another variant could you add on modules such as application management. These packages of different sizes can increase your chances of MSPs to serve customers of different sizes.

In order to grasp the opportunities in the market today, MSPs should study and analyse future trends to understand how the growth in the mobile industry is going to affect them, how to deal with the change in the nature of customer needs, such as going to the workload by companies and organisations to concern them.This knowledge will help MSPs address the growing challenges on the client side.

Vijay Saradhi, is offering a Marketing Analyst at ManageEngine, a division of Zoho Corp., where he manages the product marketing for its Desktop & Managementsolution Mobile Device. Has expertise on it, services and products with 4 years experience. You can contact him