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Friday, 14 September 2007 |
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Studies say if enterprise FMC is to fly focus should be on productivity gains rather than cost saving…
According to new analyses from Yankee Group fixed-mobile convergence (FMC) has strong potential to shake up the communications market for enterprise voice and mobility, but the marketing focus must shift from cost-savings to productivity in order for adoption to take-off. Today, says the market research company, FMC is sold with a focus on reducing cost for the enterprise, but with the subtext of productivity benefits for the end user. A consequence of this feature-focused approach is that FMC will not be the growth driver many carriers expect. Instead, it will be a necessary feature in carrier portfolios.
According to the recently published Yankee Group Note, ‘Productivity Is the Prettier Face of FMC’, enterprise adoption of FMC remains low. And, in the Yankee Group ‘Anywhere
Enterprise? Large: 2007 European Fixed-Mobile Convergence Survey’, only 2% of enterprises have deployed FMC. This number is even lower in the
USA and
Canada. Competition from alternative mobility initiatives, technological immaturity and reduced priority placed on voice communications by IT decision-makers have contributed to this perception and low adoption rate. In addition, 29% of IT decision-makers surveyed in the second Yankee Group survey consider the technology nice to have, but not a critical application on their IT/networking road map. When combined with an adoption rate of less than 2%, this statistic does not bode well for FMC as it is currently configured and marketed concludes Yankee Group.
“The FMC hype was a bit premature, but the day is not far off when FMC will play a major role in the way many people work,” judges Brian Kotlyar, research associate in Yankee Group’s Enterprise Research group. “Integrating voice into mobile applications will be the new frontier for FMC. This will enable true differentiation between the FMC offerings of today that revolve exclusively around voice and the FMC applications of tomorrow that will enrich mobile data and increase Anywhere Enterprise™ productivity.”
Despite the foregoing, Yankee Group acknowledges that vendors are moving forward with FMC offers. As a result, service providers must make FMC part of their road map or be left behind. Yankee Group recommends FMC vendors revamp their FMC products and marketing to include a focus on worker productivity benefits. In addition, building partnerships with application and integration specialist will help vendors drive FMC into enterprises more effectively because it will be part of the toolkit they bring to bear on real business problems of enterprises.
And in other FMC news Israel’s largest mobile operator Cellcom has tapped Nokia Siemens Networks to supply it with an NGN that will enable it to offer its 2.9mn customers FMC services, while Sweden’s Ericsson has supplied and integrated its IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) solution into mobile operator Vodafone's network in the Czech Republic to bring FMC services to business customers.
John Williamson |
