Mobility will Capture a Large Share of Transformational IT

By Anand Sam, Analytics Practice, Blue Star Infotech Ltd

Anand Sam, Analytics Practice, Blue Star Infotech Ltd

In recent years, technology has grown more irregular with emergence of Social Media, Mobile, Analytics and Cloud (SMAC). Gartner’s Survey predicted them to be worth $104 billion, contributing one fourth of business software revenue with 26 percent in 2017, up from about 10 percent at present. As a result, enterprises of different scale and size started embracing the SMAC considering its evident impact on lives of people, businesses, entire industries and even global political realities in a larger context. Big Data, Internet of Things (IoT), Social Collaboration and ramification are some other key trends that are emerging and will act as catalyst in shaping the future of IT industry.

Understanding the importance of Business Intelligence (BI) analytics and focus on mobility appears all set to remain constant over the next few years.

According to Gartner, the Indian market for BI stands at about $121.2 million and is showing a strong growth rate of 16 percent to reach $139.5 million in 2014. The devices market on the other side, which includes mobile phones, PCs and tablets are expected to peg $15.6 billion in 2014, a 12.9 percent increase from $13.8 billion in 2013.

Focus on Mobility

Mobility, on the other hand, has now evolved as a mainstream technology driving strategic investments of organizations that are looking forward to bring in better operational and process efficiencies, open up new business opportunities and provide superior customer service through a connected and agile workforce. Mobility will capture a large share of transformational IT focus of Indian enterprises in the coming years where it will emerge as key tool for differentiating themselves in the market. Together with Cloud, Analytics and Social media, it will drive significant monetization opportunities for enterprises where large number of SMBs will also gain through evolving ecosystem of internet and mobile.

SMEs today are playing a vital role in the growth of economy and currently contribute nearly 22 percent to the country’s GDP as on 2012. While SMBs are potent economic forces that often miss out on new technology adoption for improved operational efficiency due to lack of basic IT infrastructure, lack of resources and skilled staff. Thus, to ensure business sustainability in today’s highly competitive market, SMBs are looking forward to adopt ERP and CRM solutions based on cloud platform for automating and optimizing their business processes. Apart from operational benefits, Cloud based services have made technology affordable for SMEs in the form of pay-per-use or SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) engagement models. Mobility and Social Media, on the other hand, have opened up new channels for SMEs to reach consumers in a cost effective way as compared to expensive advertising/ATL campaigns that large enterprises pursue within the B2C space.