The Global Market for Mobile Managed and

2014 | Enterprise Mobility & Connected Devices
The Global Market
for Mobile Managed
and Professional Services
DIY Mobilization to Give Way
to Managed Mobility
Part of the Strategic Insights 2014 Enterprise Mobility and Connected Devices
Research Program: Track 5, Topic 4
By Eric Klein, Senior Analyst, with David Krebs, Executive Vice President
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Inside this Report
This report discusses and analyzes the opportunity for organizations to outsource mobile IT
services to their internal end users and external customers and partners. The desire to utilize
mobile devices for an increasing range of workflows has brought to light the complexity and
challenges that IT must contend with as the range of mobile solutions they support continues to
expand. The increased usage of mobile devices also has IT departments reconsidering how to
best deliver increasingly business-critical mobile IT services. As these trends have become more
visible, enterprise mobility vendors have begun to optimize their solutions to be delivered as a
managed service. Professional services firms have also seen mobility becoming a factor in most
of customers' deployment environment; this has created an expanded service opportunity
beyond traditional mobile hardware support and break-fix services. Mobility-oriented services to
support expanding deployment environments, application and database integration, as well as
security, asset management and logistics services are key areas of focus for professional
services firms. Market analysis and critical considerations are offered across service categories
and industry sectors. The report integrates selected findings from VDC’s recent managed and
professional services survey of IT decision-makers in both midmarket and enterprise
organizations. (Full survey data is provided as a separate Excel spreadsheet.)
What questions are addressed?

What is the market size and opportunity for enterprise mobility professional services?

How are participating vendors expanding their enterprise mobility service offerings?

With which mobile solution components are vendors having the most success?

How are CSPs positioning themselves to compete with professional services organizations?

Which vendors are succeeding with a managed service approach to enterprise mobility?
Who should read this report?
This report is for written for a diverse audience. Decision-makers across an organization can
benefit from reading it. Anyone participating directly or indirectly in the development, marketing,
or distribution of solutions to manage mobile deployment environments is a suitable audience.
© VDC Research, 2015
Page 1
Contents
Executive Summary
Key Findings
Global Market Overview and Forecast
Exhibit 1: Global Mobile Professional Services Revenues, 2014-2018 (US $M)
Exhibit 2: Current and Forecast Global Enterprise Mobility Solutions Professional Services Revenues by Service
Offering (US $M)
Exhibit 3: Current and Forecast Global Enterprise Mobility Solutions Professional Services Revenues by Vertical
Market (US $M)
Regional Forecasts
Exhibit 4: Global Mobile Professional Services Revenues by Regional Market (US $M)
Americas
EMEA
APAC
Competitive Trends
Complexity is Driving Mobile Professional Services
Exhibit 5: Core Enterprise Mobility Managed and Professional Services Opportunities
Recent Developments
Competitive Landscape by Vendor Class
Mobile Initiatives Spur Services Opportunity
Dominant Handset OEMs Make Their Services Move
Apple + IBM
End-User Trends and Insights
Exhibit 6: Ideal Partners for Implementing, Maintaining, Supporting Mobility Deployments
Capabilities That Matter Most to Decision-Makers
Exhibit 7: Rationale for Using Third-Party Services in Support of Mobile Deployments
What Decision-Makers Look for From Prof. Services Partners
Exhibit 8: Service Most Critical to Influencing the Success of Mobile Deployments
Exhibit 9: Most Important Capabilities in the Selection of a Mobile Integration Partner
Vendor Insights
CSPs Must (Still) Avoid Being the Dumb Pipe
Systems Integrators
Vendor Insights
Specialty Solution Providers
Vendor Spotlights
About this Report
© VDC Research, 2015
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Executive Summary
Expanding mobile workforces have led to an increase in demand for more sophisticated mobile
solutions. This in turn continues to expose the complexity and challenges for IT organizations as
they try to support their growing deployment environments themselves. When considering the
evolutionary stage of mobile IT in the enterprise, we see organizations recognizing that mobility
can be a differentiator worthy of investment. However, even forward-thinking organizations are
being held back due to the desire to run a lean IT organization and the inability to demonstrate
the return on their mobile investments. But line-of-business users are successfully championing
mobile projects; this has many CIOs looking to third parties to integrate mobile solutions and help
standardize their IT assets, particularly in managing heterogeneous mobile deployments. In order
for vendors serving the enterprise to capitalize on the business case their customers see in
“going mobile,” they will need to architect and optimize their solutions accordingly and
demonstrate that they can reduce the time-to-value (TTV) of these mobile initiatives and help
their customers achieve a higher ROI.
Mobilizing and integrating manual business processes and workflows with modern mobile
platforms is not only complex but can be costly, as many legacy applications are not being
abandoned and new mobile applications require a high degree of specialized skills. For this
reason, VDC sees end-to-end “as a service” mobility solutions as the de facto choice for
enterprises going forward. Considering the early stages of true mobile enablement in the
enterprise, managed mobility services from managed service providers (MSPs), communication
service providers (CSPs), and systems integrators (SIs) are poised to benefit from the current
mobile boom. Due to limited mobile IT support capabilities, organizations are expected to expand
their relationships with third-party solution providers that specialize in mobile solution support and
integration. These vendors have proved their ability to deliver strategic business impact to their
customers, not just operating cost reductions.
© VDC Research, 2015
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Key Findings

The global enterprise mobility professional services market reached $7.6 billion in 2014 and is
forecasted to grow to a $11.0 billion market opportunity by 2018, a compound annual growth
rate (CAGR) of 9.5%.

Systems integration and deployment and system maintenance and break/fix services were
the largest mobile professional services categories in 2014, accounting for 30.7% and 30.1%
respectively. Mobile managed services accounted for 7.4% of professional services revenues
in 2014.

Our forecast indicates a double-digit CAGR for four of the five key vertical markets we
tracked, with health care growing the fastest (13.2% CAGR). Government sector spending
accounted for more than 25% ($2.8 billion) of the enterprise mobility professional services
market opportunity in 2014.

Countries in the APAC region lead global demand for enterprise mobility professional services
and are forecasted to grow at an 11.0% CAGR through our forecast period.

Implementing a mobile strategy is complex. Determining the appropriate policies and tools for
the use of mobile devices and applications within an organization requires significant
expertise, flexibility, time, and capital. Organizations are demonstrating a willingness to invest
in mobility management but increasingly prefer to outsource these efforts, particularly as the
ranks of mobile users they are supporting increases.

Mobile continues to be more strategic, with two-thirds of organizations indicating the support
requirements for their frontline mobile workers are similar to those of their knowledge workers.

VDC estimates that between 10 and 15 million mobile devices are actively being managed in
enterprise environments. This has led to expanded managed mobility services across the IT
landscape and throughout the channel (e.g., network infrastructure providers, SIs, and CSPs).
Telecom expense management (TEM) remains as a key starting point for organizations as
they adopt mobile managed services due to the tangible ROI it can deliver. We expect to see
a shift to more sophisticated managed services in 2015 with security, application, and content
management becoming more prevalent.
© VDC Research, 2015
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Global Market Overview and Forecast
VDC’s forecast indicates that the global market for mobile professional services (inclusive of
mobile systems design, application development, help desk, maintenance, depot services –
repair and replace – hardware configuration, software provisioning, and training) will grow by
9.5% annually through 2018, reaching $11.0B. As shown in Exhibit 1, the market for enterprise
mobility solutions for professional services reached $7.6B in 2014. Systems integration and
deployment and maintenance (inclusive of depot services) accounted for 61% of the enterprise
mobility professional service market in 2014, reaching $4.6B.
The competitive landscape for mobile professional services remains very fluid. Solution providers
span large system integrators, CSPs, and vertically oriented specialty solution providers. As the
market for these services evolves, we see new partnership models emerging, especially from
hardware OEMs who are keen on expanding their service footprint to offset the ongoing
challenges they are encountering with their hardware business. With the exception of traditional
break/fix services, making this transition will be a significant challenge for most vendors;
however, they have a significant opportunity ahead of them if they partnership effectively due to
the complexity that organization must contend with as they pursue their mobile enablement
initiatives.
Exhibit 1: Global Mobile Professional Services Revenues, 2014-2018 (US $M)
© VDC Research, 2015
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Mobile enablement has and will continue to have a profound impact in the enterprise, with the
most visible area being the need to invest in solutions to manage and support mobile
deployments. Organizations have been scrambling to ensure their devices are secure and have
been investing in EMM and enhanced security solutions that can bring peace of mind to expand
mobile deployments and enable access to corporate content behind their firewall. However, as
depicted in Exhibit 2, several key mobile IT infrastructure elements as well as support and
training issues must be considered as mobility strategy becomes formalized.
Exhibit 2: Current and Forecast Global Enterprise Mobility Solutions Professional Services
Revenues by Service Offering (US $M)
Exhibit 3 shows the revenue allocation for mobile professional services across several key
verticals where mobile solutions are seeing continued adoption and maturation. The growth rates
of the service categories VDC tracks is relatively even, with the overall CAGR of 10% in our
forecast period. However, the wide majority of revenues remains in traditional and core
professional service offerings such as systems integration, maintenance, and break/fix services.
© VDC Research, 2015
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Vendors offering mobile professional services are seeing similar demand for a wide range of
mobile service offerings in these same vertical markets. However, these vendors are finding that
the mobile applications for these environments require significant customization, integration with
application platforms, and with legacy systems (such as mainframes). While an ecosystem of
integration partners focused on mobile solutions that work with these large ISVs thrives,
significant challenges and complexities associated with these activities abound. Professional
services vendors are challenged with delivering a broad range of mobile IT and process services
to multinational firms. Most find this to be difficult due to their lack of having a local presence in
all of the regions of their large multinational customers.
Exhibit 3: Current and Forecast Global Enterprise Mobility Solutions Professional Services
Revenues by Vertical Market (US $M)
© VDC Research, 2015
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Regional Forecasts
Exhibit 4: Global Mobile Professional Services Revenues by Regional Market (US $M)
Americas
Modernization Activities Driving Mobile Professional Service Opportunity
Organizations in the Americas region are actively investing in modernizing their IT infrastructures
to accommodate mobile enablement. We expect revenues to grow from $3.2B to $4.7B in our
forecast period (9.2% CAGR). See Exhibit 4 above.

Committing to significant up-front CAPEX investments continues to be the primary barrier for
organizations, as most are challenged to keep up with the rapidly changing mobile market. Tight
IT budgets, along with the persistent challenge of recruiting skilled personnel, are common pain
points across all of the regions we surveyed but particularly among the organizations we
interviewed in the Americas region.

Organizations in this region were the most active in investing in mobile IT infrastructure
upgrades to meet the requirements of today’s changing work environment. Forward and reverse
logistics support such as staging and kitting, depot repair, advanced replacement, and recycling
are also service areas we see vendors continuing to have success with.

Respondents in the Americas region demonstrated more interest in mobile applications-as-aservice and network-as-a-service in comparison to other regions.
© VDC Research, 2015
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EMEA
Service Expansion Opportunity
Maturing mobile deployments have created an opportunity for service expansion, and as a result,
VDC forecasts revenues to grow from $2.6B to $3.6B in our forecast period (9.0% CAGR). See
Exhibit 4 on Page 8.

The European region’s strong focus on manufacturing and government mandates for mobile
solutions that provide compliance and traceability. Manufacturers (along with the transportation
vertical) represent attractive targets for vendors offering enterprise mobility professional
services. This is largely due to these organizations’ need to improve visibility and
responsiveness within their supply chain.

Network service activation and portal-based service catalogs with self-service capabilities are
also in high demand in the EMEA region. Forward and reverse logistics support such as staging
and kitting, depot repair, advanced replacement, and recycling are also service areas with
which vendors are gaining traction.

VDC believes that mobile solutions will continue to play a larger role in these sectors moving
forward and lead to service-oriented revenue opportunities.
APAC
Strongest Mobile Professional Services Growth
VDC forecasts revenues in APAC to grow from $1.8B in 2014 to $2.7B by 2018 (11.0% CAGR).
See Exhibit 4 on Page 8.

While much of the APAC region’s economy has been reliant on debt-fueled growth, the
seemingly unquenchable consumer thirst for mobile technology throughout much of the region
makes enterprise mobile professional services the fastest-growing market we track.

In China and other regions, urban renewal and technology infrastructure investments will lead to
broad opportunities for mobile-oriented vendors. The technologies underlying these projects will
enable a broad range of constituents in the mobile ecosystem to engage with enterprises with
mobile advisory services, provide consulting, and offer opportunity for more strategic customer
relations regarding mobile enablement.

Many organizations in the APAC region are turning to partners for basic sourcing and logistics
management. Partners are playing a critical role in speeding up mobile initiatives for key
services including purchasing, provisioning, and activating devices.
© VDC Research, 2015
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Competitive Trends
Complexity is Driving Mobile Professional Services
The complexities associated with mobile implementations are expansive and range from device
selection and provisioning to application and security management. One of the most complex
requirements in deploying mobile solutions in enterprise settings is integrating with back-end
systems and databases. While highly customized mobile applications can tightly integrate with
enterprise systems, prepackaged applications often require either third-party software
(development platforms) or custom installations to make them work. Enterprises developing
applications that require tight integration with back-end systems will generally find that custom
mobile solutions are best suited to their needs; however, even the largest and most sophisticated
IT organizations lack the mobile acumen to design, develop, and integrate mobile solutions. Our
research shows that there is a mobile deficit in the wide majority of IT organizations (meaning
that lack skilled mobile expertise). Organizations are also quickly learning that the custom
application development is costly and time-consuming.
For mobile applications to truly become the new face of a business, choosing the right partner(s)
is critical, as third parties can reduce the complexity of managing and securing mobile
deployments while delivering the level of service required for business-critical deployments. We
believe that customization will be the key to more successful mobile applications moving forward,
from both an adoption and usability perspective, as well as for achieving the scalability required
in an expanding mobile environment. Traditional managed service providers (MSPs) are honing
their mobile managed service opportunity, advancing solutions and building out global
partnership networks to support their mobile service capabilities. These vendors have also
proven that they can quickly modify their solutions and keep up with the rapid pace of
technological change in the mobile ecosystem, However, competition in this rapidly expanding
market continues to grow. As large technology vendors worldwide (from leading CSPs and SIs to
traditional ISVs and OEMs) detect and evaluate this sizeable market opportunity, they will need
to demonstrate their ability provide a relevant portfolio of services that complements their existing
capabilities and leads to sustainable and profitable growth. While challenging, differentiation and
long-term viability can be achieved by demonstrating clear mobile expertise, providing solutions
that simplify the mobilization process, and developing industry-specific expertise and
partnerships to deliver the service quality required in enterprise deployment environments.
Exhibit 5 depicts the broad range of enterprise mobility solutions vendors are delivering to the
market.
© VDC Research, 2015
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Exhibit 5: Core Enterprise Mobility Managed and Professional Services Opportunities
Recent Developments
Device-centric services, such as maintenance and break/fix, are core to the enterprise mobility
professional services opportunity; however, as mobile deployments expand, we continue to see
organizations gravitate toward solution-oriented value propositions. We see a marked shift
toward more strategic mobile enablement around collaboration and customer engagement. As
demand for more sophisticated mobile solutions grows, professional services vendors will begin
to see traction for vertically oriented mobility consulting services. Differentiation will be
challenging and will be best achieved through domain expertise and customer references. These
service opportunities are being furthered by a variety of constituents in the mobile ecosystem.
Vendors offering enterprise mobility management (EMM) solutions are having success offering
EMM as a managed service; however, new opportunities have emerged for organizations to
outsource their BYOD management. These services can speed new user activations and device
provisioning and complement established help desk and depot services as new devices are
deployed. TEM is still front and center in many mobile service discussions and provides very real
cost savings opportunities (particularly for large enterprises with corporate liable programs).
Integrating TEM with mobile managed services or other mobile professional service suites
represents an increasing and interesting dynamic that will become increasingly attractive moving
forward. For example, SAP and Tangoe have agreed to collaborate on software development,
which has resulted in the integration of Tangoe's Mobile TEM software suite with SAP's Mobile
Secure (EMM) solution. We expect to see other EMM vendors enter into similar partnerships and
to sharpen their focus on positioning their products for partners to offer as a managed service.
© VDC Research, 2015
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In this vein, we advise professional services firms to focus on augmenting their value proposition.
Below are some of the critical success factors we recommend:

Rapid deployment services – the ability to fast-track projects while helping customers
understand the ROI potential of their investments.

Establishing a global service footprint – a critical element to being able to cater to multinational corporations.

Developing vertical industry expertise to cater to the variable requirements that are
typical across industries.

Advance monitoring and analytics capabilities – the ability to leverage cloud service and
deliver real-time remote monitoring capabilities will be a key area for competitive
differentiation moving forward.
© VDC Research, 2015
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Competitive Landscape by Vendor Class
As organizations expand their mobile deployments and increase their investments in new mobile
technologies, new services opportunities will continue to emerge. The ecosystem of participating
vendors has quickly expanded and includes a broad range of constituents, from CSPs, mobilefirst ISVs, traditional enterprise ISVs, and SIs to hardware OEMs and smaller SIs that specialize
in enterprise mobility. While mobile-first ISVs have been very influential innovators in this space,
these vendors rely heavily on channel sales through CSPs and SIs to get their software to
market and, for the most part, lack the resources and brand to compete alongside leading mobile
MSPs. Rather, SIs and CSPs are leading the market, delivering holistic suites of mobile services
to market and having success in leveraging mobile solutions to further their existing relationships
with their customers.
VDC sees CSPs, ISVs, SIs, and OEMs as needing to sharpen their messaging around their
mobile professional services capabilities. These vendors are missing a growing revenue
opportunity and need to be aware of the traction that smaller mobile specialists are seeing in the
market. Vendors such as Denali, Peak/Ryzex, Stratix, and Vox Mobile continue to demonstrate
their adeptness at moving swiftly and winning important contracts. While CSPs such as Verizon,
Sprint, and T-Mobile have capitalized on their strength in services such as telecom expense
management (TEM) to enter the mobile services market, others who have developed more
robust solution portfolios and partnership networks, such as AT&T and Vodafone, need to
continue to productize their own solutions to emerge as leaders in the growing mobile
professional services market. VDC sees CSPs continuing to feel constant pressure on their voice
and messaging revenues from over-the-top providers. This trend makes succeeding with mobileoriented professional services critical for continued growth.
Among traditional ISVs, Oracle and Microsoft have been slow to cultivate mobile service
capabilities, while SAP and Infor continue to make significant strides in mobile service offerings
(largely on the backs of large SIs such as Capgemini, Cognizant, HCL Technologies, iGATE,
Infosys, Mahindra Satyam, and TCS) as well as partnerships with the services arms of
technology vendors such as Dell, HP, and IBM. VDC’s research indicates the majority of these
aforementioned SIs (and technology vendors) are increasing their investment levels in their
mobile-oriented capabilities (around products as well as services). Finally, in the OEM space,
traditionally rugged players such as Motorola Solutions and Intermec have transitioned to
broadening their mobile services portfolios. However, these vendors are challenged to expand
outside their traditional rugged client base to service organizations using multiple device types or
platforms. As the mobile services space matures, mobile expertise and the ability to target the
right segment of customers with customized mobile service offerings will help to unlock
significant (and largely untapped) value and revenues.
© VDC Research, 2015
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Mobile Initiatives Spur Services Opportunity
VDC sees the IT function within the enterprise as having much to gain from mobility investments
and initiatives. Not only can the deployment of new services be simplified by taking advantage of
cloud-based solutions that are available from their existing ISV partners, but mobilizing ERP
applications can provide enterprises with the opportunity to re-engage and re-invigorate their
relationships with their employees and customers, in addition to offering their suppliers new tools
to improve communications and get closer to sales and customers. Inevitably, the continued
expansion of mobile deployments and new application scenarios will make the market
opportunity for enterprise mobility professional services more pronounced, particularly for those
vendors who have global reach via partnerships with local professional services organizations.
Dominant Handset OEMs Make Their Services Move
Samsung introduced its Global Enterprise Services, dubbed Samsung 360 Services for
Businesses, earlier this summer. The offering includes technical support and management for
enterprise and security applications as well as for the devices themselves. Wisely, Samsung has
designed the program to accommodate BYOD environments and mobile device ecosystem writ
large (i.e., mobile platforms such as Apple and competing Android hardware will be supported).
While the move is in direct response to Apple’s partnership with IBM (see below), the move does
speak to the growing trend toward enterprise mobility professional services as a more primary
means of competitive differentiation for hardware vendors.
The service is anticipated to launch to a select group of pilot customers this quarter, with a full
market launch in Q1 2015. Expansion into the EMEA and APAC regions is planned, as well as a
broadening of the solutions portfolio beyond the initial offerings. Theoretically, the benefits for the
enterprise will be straightforward – faster deployments, and reduced cost and complexity. With
Samsung providing consulting services on top of support, firms will have the opportunity to focus
on more strategic tasks. Many enterprises have limited mobile IT expertise and lack the
infrastructure, management and application development platforms required for mobile
enablement. Samsung can capitalize on the increasing acceptance of Android as a viable mobile
platform for the enterprise from both a hardware and services perspective.
Apple + IBM
IBM has transitioned toward the cloud, big data, and enterprise mobility, having moved away
from the personal computing hardware in the past decade and now making key acquisitions in
mobility, analytics, security, and cloud computing to position itself for inevitable IT modernization
activities. The clearest signal that IBM continues to demonstrate its mobile aspirations came
earlier this summer, when the company announced it had entered into an exclusive partnership
with Apple. In the agreement, IBM will bring its MobileFirst solutions to the iOS platform and
allow the former rival to sell iPhones and iPads with industry-specific solutions.
© VDC Research, 2015
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Considering the enterprise-grade features that continue to be augmented with each successive
update to iOS, the announcement makes it abundantly clear that Apple is keen on transitioning
from consumer trendsetter to enterprise powerhouse. By teaming up with IBM, Apple has further
augmented its presence in the enterprise and is likely to find its way into new and large
deployment environments. To date, the company’s ability to penetrate the enterprise was via its
massive consumer popularity; however, the company was hindered by a lack of professional
services, support, and distribution channels. In addition to the engineering of native, industryspecific applications for iOS, Apple seeks to overcome this with the combination of AppleCare for
enterprise that is supplemented with on-site technical support and service that will hold
considerable appeal for CIOs worldwide. By offering support service capabilities ranging from
break/fix support and onboarding to asset and application management and security services,
Apple has laid down the gauntlet and has made it clear that it is playing to win.
News of Apple and IBM’s new partnership is having a visible effect on other OEMs, particularly
BlackBerry and Microsoft. For the former, this will likely mean forging an even closer relationship
with competing platforms (where the company has hesitated in the past). BlackBerry’s recent
collaboration on enhanced security with Samsung is a good example of the need for creative
partnering to augment market positioning and remain relevant in the market. Meanwhile,
Microsoft is in the midst of its own re-positioning as it is poised to announce the largest round of
layoffs in the company’s history. Microsoft has struggled to bring its devices into the era of
mobility and only made its Office suite available for the iPad in March 2014. With Apple and
IBM’s exclusive new partnership, and Samsung’s services strategy, both BlackBerry and
Microsoft will be increasingly challenged to gain traction in enterprise deployment environments.
© VDC Research, 2015
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End-User Trends and Insights
As the mobile technologies that are used to empower employees and make them more
productive continue to evolve, IT must decide whether it will buy and integrate solutions
themselves or outsource. It is a decision about where and when to invest a company’s time,
money, and other resources in products. Considering the constrained budgets IT organizations
must deal with, the opportunity to save this capital via outsourcing can be highly attractive.
However, trusting an external third party with managing mobile deployment environments comes
at a price – the potential for loss of control. The main argument against outsourcing is that IT
departments may have built a strong competency around certain technologies that support a
company’s core business. Few IT departments have built a strong competency in mobility, and
even fewer view mobility as core to their business. While mobility is starting to become a
necessity for business activities, many companies are really just beginning to develop a mobile
strategy. For this reason, as employees are demanding support for their mobile devices, IT is at
a crossroads: either develop competency in mobility or outsource it to a managed mobility or
professional services firm. Considering the continual pressure to do more with less, outsourcing
is becoming increasingly attractive. Exhibit 6 shows the types of organizations that IT
departments are turning to for outsourcing the management and maintenance of their mobile
deployments.
Exhibit 6: Ideal Partners for Implementing, Maintaining, Supporting Mobility Deployments
© VDC Research, 2015
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Organizations indicate that CSPs are their first choice as a mobility partner. CSPs have wellestablished brands in the enterprise and are the beneficiaries of long-standing customers that
are accustomed to working with them for infrastructure updates and maintenance. Moving
forward, organizations will be well served by appropriately vetting their managed mobility vendor
partners’ training capabilities to ensure that these parties can demonstrate the ability to develop
and update training material content as well as provide pre-packaged online training and
documentation. VDC data shows that training all end users, administrators, and developers on
the mobile solutions is critical for the success of a deployment. Additionally, vendors must
demonstrate they have expertise in integrating a variety of mobility solutions into existing IT
infrastructure as organizations’ needs are almost certain to evolve as deployments (and mobile
application usage) expand.
Capabilities That Matter Most to Decision-Makers
Feature and functions aside, stability and experience in working with large enterprise customers
are key capabilities for vendors to succeed in furthering their mobile professional services
revenues. As shown in Exhibit 7, decision-makers view technical expertise as the most important
criteria when choosing a partner to support their mobile deployments and integration strategies.
Exhibit 7: Rationale for Using Third-Party Services in Support of Mobile Deployments
© VDC Research, 2015
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What Decision-Makers Look for From Prof. Services Partners
Several organizations with rather sizable mobile deployments stated they have noticed increased
failure rates occurring within the rugged mobile deployments that were 3 years old or more. This
is to be expected and validates the need for speedy replacement and repairs. Many of these
same organizations are beginning to invest in support services to their modern mobile platform
(e.g. iOS and Android devices) deployments. We believe that these expanding deployments
represent sizeable opportunities for OEMs who can partner effectively to service organizations
running multiple mobile platforms.
The deployment environments that are most likely to be utilizing professional services, and that
invest in support and maintenance services, tend to feature well-paid personnel who need to be
productive (and happy). As shown in Exhibit 8, these enterprises are keen on not just reducing
the complexity that comes with supporting an expanding mobile workforce but that are also
interested in retaining the services of vendors that can help to reduce deployment time.
Exhibit 8: Service Most Critical to Influencing the Success of Mobile Deployments
Vendors who have productized mobile professional services must articulate the benefits of
outsourcing the support elements of technical mobile solutions and make cogent sales
arguments to their prospective customers. Setting aside price sensitivity (which typically ranks
highly for IT decision-makers); timely repairs, and/or replacement of non-functioning or damaged
mobile devices ranked at the top of the criteria that were most important in the selection of a
support services vendor. Technical support capabilities and help desk services also ranked
highly. Exhibit 9 shows the most important capabilities that organizations look for from a mobile
integration partner.
© VDC Research, 2015
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Exhibit 9: Most Important Capabilities in the Selection of a Mobile Integration Partner
Vendor Insights
CSPs Must (Still) Avoid Being the Dumb Pipe
CSPs must find a way to broaden their role in the enterprise mobility value chain. This requires
striking partnerships with numerous mobile-oriented partners; most recently, this includes
partnering with vendors that offer competing solutions. While CSPs have recognized the need to
be more than data wholesalers and have engaged with several prominent mobile-first ISVs
(typically via revenue sharing arrangements), they should continue to ramp up their services to
participate more broadly in the value chain. CSPs have been augmenting their systems
integration capabilities and can take advantage of these assets to offer required managed and
professional services components, such as application management and enhanced security as
well as other end-to-end service management capabilities, such as managing multiple tiers of
end-customer billing. Ultimately, we see CSPs benefiting from their partners because they can
bundle mobile solutions with their connectivity and facilitate billing and distribution.
© VDC Research, 2015
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AT&T
The ability to deliver devices and applications is central to AT&T managed mobile service
offerings. The company’s API strategy further complements its ability to provide greater network
visibility for organizations looking to manage their mobile workforce. AT&T has developed strong
relationships with several prominent handset OEMs and is a major channel partner for sales to
both consumers and the enterprise; this has translated into winning large-scale device lifecycle
management services into the large corporate deployment environments.
AT&T has developed its own prepackaged apps for fleet management as well as for field service
and sales force automation. For organizations looking to develop custom applications, the
company offers app development tools that provide easier, repeatable processes for rapid
application development. As a managed service provider, AT&T is able to supplement or replace
an organization’s helpdesk by providing tier-two to tier-four support for all of these offerings.
VDC Outlook: AT&T has a strong list of partners in providing its managed mobility services,
including mobile-first vendors such as AirWatch, Good Technology, MobileIron, and OpenPeak.
For application development, the company continues to retain partnerships with Pegasystems
(Antenna Software), Kony Solutions, and Verivo, and AT&T resells these vendors’ tools to its
customers. AT&T is in a formidable position when considering its large customer base. This
allows the company to cross-sell a number of business services. AT&T continues to hone its
mobility solutions and is demonstrating a strong willingness to partner and collaborate with
vendors to augment is professional services capabilities. To date, most of the company’s
success is within the US. AT&T has yet to capitalize on its increasingly global footprint.
Like competing CSPs, AT&T is seeing pricing pressure on traditional voice and data networks –
these vendors are also augmenting their managed and professional services offering with a
strong emphasis on mobility.
Sprint
Sprint was a late mover in productizing its enterprise mobility services offerings as compared to
rival CSPs; the company launched its cross-carrier Mobility Management platform in 2011 and
has incorporated it into its Sprint Professional Mobility Services platform, a suite of service
solutions. Sprint is primarily targeting the mid-market (100-10,000 device environments), which is
not as competitive as the large enterprise market has become. Additionally, Sprint offers carrieragnostic services, a key capability given the broad array of devices entering organizations
through more liberal BYOD policies.
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VDC Outlook: Sprint’s expansive network infrastructure and partnership network allows the
company to compete in the market for mobile and professional services. The company has
elegantly productized its mobile solutions and allows for customization based on customers’
unique needs. In order to compete more effectively in the market, Sprint must invest to
continually innovate and evolve its offerings and build out a strong channel to target smaller
organizations. We expect Sprint’s mobility services to provide a strong foundation for future
growth and expansion of its mobile managed and professional service offerings.
Verizon Business
Verizon’s services strategy centers on development of a comprehensive, end-to-end solution for
mobility management. The company has developed a comprehensive set of enterprise mobility
services, including strategic lifecycle and support services. Verizon is focused on capitalizing on
its broad network of customers and partners to provide increasingly industry-specific solutions to
cater to these customers’ variable needs.
VDC Outlook: Verizon has established a strong brand name as a reliable provider of wireless
connectivity for the enterprise. The company is well positioned to be able to successfully use its
brand and relationships with multi-national mobile organizations to expand its services footprint in
the enterprise. Verizon Wireless should invest in expanding its mobile solution portfolio to build
awareness of its enterprise mobile service offerings and build confidence in its expertise to
consult and service organizations’ full set of mobility needs.
Vodafone Global Enterprise
Vodafone Global Enterprise (VGE) provides IT services for large enterprise customers in
countries worldwide. Like competing CSPs, Vodafone has made notable investments to expand
its device and data management capabilities through build-out of its TEM capabilities (including
the acquisition of Quickcomm and TnT Expense Management). Additionally, VGE is
strengthening its professional services portfolio in higher-margin growth areas such as cloud
computing, unified communications, and business consultancy.
VDC Outlook: VGE plans to continue to invest in its broad mobile managed and professional
services portfolio through 2015. We expect to see increased attention to channel development
and the formation of global partnerships to facilitate growth. While TEM and MDM remain core
competencies for VGE, the company needs to expand its solution range, particularly around
mobile application, content, and security management. To date, the company has lagged and
has not been innovative in evolving its enterprise mobility service; for this reason, we see future
mobile-oriented acquisitions as likely, as VGE has clearly stated its intention to grow rapidly in
2015.
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Systems Integrators
The complexity associated with rollout, support, and management of multi-vendor enterprisegrade mobility solutions presents a clear and attractive market opportunity for SIs. These
vendors have served as trusted advisers for enterprises worldwide, facilitating technology
adoption, implementation, integration, and deployment. For the SIs, managed mobile services
are a natural progression of the infrastructure services these vendors typically offer. This is
primarily due to the acceptance that workplace productivity solution portfolios they maintain have
expanded to include mobile enablement. As the market matures, the focus will shift to
management of corporate data and mobilizing workflows and customer applications.
Many tier-1 SIs were slow to develop and productize mobile solutions. More recently, vendors
such as Accenture, IBM, and TCS have doubled down on enterprise mobility initiatives and are
embracing mobility as a core competency. SIs will continue to make this shift internally in terms
of mobile expertise, and externally, building brand awareness and strong partner networks.
Conversely, smaller SIs such as Enterprise Mobile (acquired by Honeywell), Stratix, and Vox
Mobile have focused exclusively on developing mobile-first solutions. This has enabled these
firms to establish a leadership position in deliver innovative and technologically advanced mobile
solutions to the market. However, these vendors lack the infrastructure, global capabilities, and
marketing budgets required to directly compete with larger competitors such as Accenture, Atos,
Dell, HP, and IBM. To remain viable and expand their footprints, small SIs must forge
partnerships in the channel and target tier-1 SIs, CSPs, large ISVs, and OEMs for help in
bringing their unique (and often advanced) service offerings to the market.
Vendor Insights
Atos
Atos has typically offered mobility management services alongside its workplace services
solutions. The company has been slow at shifting from focusing predominantly on supporting
BlackBerry and Windows Mobile deployment environments, but Atos has developed
comprehensive cross-platform mobile support capabilities. Atos manages both applications and
devices by elegantly integrating business policies around tools. Its offerings are modular and
typically highly customized for their customers’ requirements. Atos’ Anytime Workplace and
Anytime Mobile Device offerings are cloud-based services, whereas Managed Mobile Device is
an on-premises approach.
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VDC Outlook: Atos’ systems integration practice has developed mobility offerings into a broad
range of business-related functions – from machine-to-machine (M2M) telematics services in
manufacturing and insurance, patient services and clinical records in health care, to field
workforce management solutions. Atos has the developed the ability to deliver customized
mobile applications and can support all prominent application styles. The company’s Context
Broker Platform (real-time analytics and content provision platform) along with a private
application management solution (Atos My Market) have made Atos a viable partner for mobile
enablement services.
Cognizant
Cognizant has been leading with and expanding its mobile capabilities to its customers since
2013. While historically strong in offering outsourcing and development services, Cognizant has
positioned itself as a business consultancy vendor. Like several of its competitors, the company’s
mobile, social, analytics, and cloud competencies are maturing and are key areas for innovation.
With solutions such as Enterprise App Hub, an app store for the enterprise, Cognizant is
developing internal IP and solutions capabilities to differentiate itself in mobile. Large enterprises
remain the core target market for Cognizant.
VDC Outlook: VDC expects the company to have continued success with its mobile professional
services offerings, especially in its core vertical markets such as financial services and health
care. We also expect Cognizant to expand its regional market focus to better address areas
outside the US and to expand its solution portfolio with enhanced mobility solutions throughout
the next few years.
HCL
HCL’s end-user computing portfolio has evolved to incorporate mobile workplace services and
the ability to support all prominent mobile platforms. The company has also productized key
service and support functions for the provisioning and management of app stores, catering to
variable ownership models and new-user support models.
Key partners for the company include Airwatch, GoodCloud, MobileIron, and SAP. HCL also
offers consulting services that span assessment, migration, build and design, deployment,
application rationalization, and proof of concept. HCL’s application support and management
model for mobility is typically facility-based due to changes in infrastructure that are increasingly
common to accommodate expanding mobile deployments.
VDC Outlook: HCL’s Enterprise Application Services division has recently extended its overall
partnership with SAP by signing a new global managed mobility agreement, which will now
permit HCL to resell, implement, and host SAP offerings, including the SAP Mobile Platform,
SAP’s Mobile Secure offering, and SAP mobile applications.
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As part of its assessment and testing consultancy offering, HCL frequently gets involved with pretool evaluation, where the current and planned service-consumption model is considered. It then
generates a recommendation report for the client, advising on cloud deployment vs. on-premises
deployment. Consulting engagements are typically conducted with the IT department, which
often does not have a mobile specialist. Often the company finds that its customers have already
engaged with an EMM vendor but need help in areas such as policy development and
application management. Clients often need help in determining their support requirement, which
is an area where HCL’s operations-optimization services will play well in our view.
IBM Global Services
IBM Global Services Organization (IGS) has done well in positioning itself to provide its
customers with a path to transform their business and help modernize their IT infrastructures for
the future. The company has expanded its portfolio of cloud-oriented solutions with analytics, big
data, and mobile solutions and focuses on four specific service components that it sees as
critical to capitalize on the mobile professional services market opportunity:

Infrastructure services, such as those from Softlayer

Business services in the more general SaaS portfolio

Defined pattern services, such as its PureApplication services

Composable services (PaaS), such as BlueMix
VDC Outlook: IGS will use its enhanced mobile solution set to push both managed and
professional services solutions into the large enterprise market. IGS is well positioned to deliver
these services due to key mobile-oriented acquisitions such as Fiberlink, Softlayer, and
Worklight. The company’s IP and strength in applications, security, and enterprise-grade support
delivery will provide IGS with strong growth and expansion during the next few years. However,
we hear customers regularly complaining about the engagement process with IBM (particularly
around mobile initiatives); the company must work at simplifying the way it engages with
customers to make real progress.
Infosys
Infosys established its enterprise mobility practice in 2011 as a growth engine. The company’s
managed mobility and professional service offerings bring together mobile application consulting,
application
development and
management,
mobile
device
management,
and
mobile
infrastructure management within a comprehensive and integrated offering. Infosys has
capabilities to integrate the MDM dashboard with existing systems management tools. The
challenge is that interoperable provisioning and policy enablement is not currently part of most
end-to-end MDM platforms. Infosys is working on devising an offering using Microsoft’s Active
Directory policy to design such as solution and is also evaluating CA Technologies Client
Automation solution for similar capabilities.
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Infosys extends and integrates the security framework used within an organization in conjunction
with the capabilities of the MDM platform to create a certificate-based process. The company
also uses identity and access management offerings recommended by its security team that can
support data classification for mobile distribution. Infosys application management is offered in
conjunction with its white-label mobile application marketplace, Flypp. With Flypp, Infosys can
provide a digital ecosystem for enterprises and mobile operators as well as improve customer
stickiness by providing operators with access to a repository of applications, an application
storefront, and third-party partnerships for application programming. Infosys sees Flypp helping
to connect consumers, enterprises, retail brands, media companies, and advertisers. The Flypp
ecosystem provides roughly 250,000 applications and content services spanning global, crosssector items as well as local and industry-specific applications.
VDC Outlook: Infosys has the capability to develop a strong managed mobility and professional
services business but will need to appeal to the more tactical enterprise-buyer requirements that
currently exist around enterprise BYOD plans. Its Flypp marketplace can be deployed as an
enterprise app store and also offers white-label growth potential with mobile operators in the
telecom supply chain.
Specialty Solution Providers
Mobile-first vendors that specialize in delivering mobility solutions to the enterprise entered into
the market as rugged mobile computing specialists. BYOD trends along with increased mobile
application usage in the enterprise has provided these vendors with an opportunity to offer a
wide range of services required to support growing mobile deployments. Core mobile IT
management areas such as expense and asset management, and logistics (including recycling,
return materials authorization management, ordering and provisioning the help desk) are the
areas in which these firms excel. By only focusing on mobility, these vendors have amassed
specialized industry knowledge and are having success in the market due to their ability to help
organizations with the planning stage of their mobile initiatives through deployment and support.
The technical experience in mobility has allowed these firms to compete with large systems
integrators as they have proven that they can help organizations mitigate project risk, save
valuable time and keep costs in check.
Vendor Spotlights
Enterprise Mobile (Honeywell)
Enterprise Mobile has been focused on expanding its mobile professional services capabilities
since being acquired by Honeywell in 2011. The company has established broad managed
service capabilities, providing managed MDM, TEM, support services, and application
management services for both rugged and consumer-grade mobile devices. Enterprise Mobile’s
largest customer is the USPS.
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VDC Outlook: The challenge for Enterprise Mobile will be to expand upon its existing service
platform to develop a more cohesive, end-to-end and differentiated mobile service suite. While
the company continues to operate independently of Honeywell, Enterprise Mobile is now actively
being sold by Honeywell’s global sales organization.
Enterprise Mobile is developing new services around application and content management. We
see these services as enabling the vendor to viably cater to a broader buyer market, since
standardized services should enable it to more comfortably provide services to the high end of
the midmarket. The company’s Windows expertise should also play well with large swathes of its
existing customer base. The company has struggled with efficient service delivery; however, it
has recently further integrated with Honeywell and is seeing benefits (better response times and
higher levels of customer satisfaction). The company is the market leader in mobile devices
under management due to it being the primary service provider for the USPS.
Stratix
Stratix is a 20-year-old company that has moved well with the fast-paced mobility market,
primarily by targeting the Fortune 1000. The company’s strength has been in the ruggedized
devices domain, where it supports and maintains approximately 300 active deployment
environments. Stratix has been shifting its focus away from its rugged service capabilities to
enhance its consumer-grade service capabilities. One of Stratix’s larger customers is American
Airlines, which is using the company’s services to support its deployment of more than 16,000
Samsung devices for in-flight services. Providing cradle-to-grave support for mobile devices,
Stratix works with HR, finance, and IT departments to support end users. The company has
proven to be agile and has invested to expand its product roadmap with strategic services
around application management, device management, and services to facilitate lifecycle
management of device deployments.
One of Stratix’s main value propositions is its capability for reverse logistics. In the initial stages
of a customer engagement, Stratix helps to build use cases for deployment – understanding what
each business unit’s mobility needs are, running blueprint sessions, validating use cases, and
then formalizing requirements for mobile management. MDM partners include AirWatch,
MobileIron, SAP, and SOTI.
VDC Outlook: As Stratix has expanded its mobile managed services investment, the company
has developed more cohesive, end-to-end management capabilities, beginning with more
consultative offerings regarding mobility roadmap development, system design, and long-term
strategy definition. Stratix’s positioning as an agile and nimble vendor will be key to the
company’s growth in this market. It must also cultivate deeper relationships with leading CSPs
and distributors to strengthen its current go-to-market positioning and white-label market
opportunities. Stratix lacks a true global footprint, which has limited the company from winning
deals with large multinational organizations.
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Vox Mobile
Vox Mobile has emerged as an innovative systems integrator in mobile managed services. The
vendor’s competitive market position is largely derived from its strong partner network. It partners
with a broad range of mobile solutions vendors to facilitate partners’ integration into appropriate
deployments but has also established a strong strategy through channel partnerships.
VDC Outlook: The company is focused on expanding its partnerships with CSPs, facilitating
delivery of niche services and global deployment capabilities. These global delivery capabilities
have emerged from Vox Mobile’s integral role as a founding member of the Global Enterprise
Mobility Alliance (GEMA), in which members work together to deliver a suite of mobile services
under a single service-level agreement (SLA) across multiple geographies worldwide. While Vox
Mobile has a deep history supporting BlackBerry and corporate handheld devices, it is now
shifting to support consumer-grade deployments and modern enterprise mobile architectures.
Vox does well in engaging with customers and is very visible in the market. We see the company
as a likely acquisition target due to its brand strength and growing customer roster.
Zebra Technologies (formerly Motorola Solutions/MSI)
Consumer-grade technologies and a commoditizing hardware market were pressuring Motorola
Solutions’ (MSI) bread and butter of hardware for rugged markets. The company had invested to
complement these technologies with robust software and services targeted at these markets but
was not executing well, and Zebra saw an opportunity to cement its position in the market with its
bold acquisition of MSI announced earlier in 2014. Zebra will leverage MSI’s established global
infrastructure, support service capabilities, organic growth, and channel network and maintain the
organization’s mobile managed service platform.
VDC Outlook: Similar to Enterprise Mobile, with MSI, Zebra has a unique market position and
opportunity to deliver an expanded mobile service portfolio to its existing customer base. As a
leading vendor in the rugged hardware market, Zebra can leverage the well-developed and
strong customer relationships MSI had built and be viewed as a trusted adviser for organizations
looking to manage and support deployments of devices supporting business-critical workflows.
However, Zebra will be challenged to maintain MSI’s services business as it was finding it
challenging to maintain its focus on traditional rugged markets while expanding its support
capabilities to embrace consumer-grade, corporate-owned devices.
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About this Report
VDC Research’s i2: ideas & insights reports provide clients with deep insights into product,
market, channel, and competitive strategies and tactics. Using deep and rich datasets based on
extensive primary research, the i2 reports provide clients with the insights they need to make
strategic decisions for their business about the markets they are in and the markets they want to
be in. Coverage includes a combination of market sizing, segmentation, forecasting, end-user
requirements analysis, competitive analysis, and more.
For more information, contact us at [email protected] and visit our website at
www.vdcresearch.com.
© VDC Research, 2015
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