MENA's business-leaders were today urged to wholeheartedly embrace an “unprecedented enterprise mobility boom" or risk rapid competitive stagnation. The stark warning was issued by enterprise mobility market leader SAP on the eve of region's largest mobile solutions and technology event. “2013 will be the biggest year yet for enterprise mobility, and the MENA region needs to be ready and able to embrace an unwired ‘anytime, anywhere' mentality," said Deniz Kilyar, Head of Line of Business & Mobility Solutions, SAP MENA, who is set to deliver several keynotes at the Mobile Show Middle East this week. “More data was generated in the last five years than in the entire history of mankind. There are now more mobile devices than people on the planet. Everywhere you look, enterprise mobility is undergoing an unprecedented boom, making it an unavoidable imperative for businesses that want to lead. Increasingly, those that cannot operate with nimble and efficient ubiquity will face competitive stagnation. “ Enterprise mobility has evolved into an immensely lucrative playing field. Global research company MarketsandMarkets suggests that the Global BYOD and enterprise mobility market will soar to $181 billion by 2017, up from $67.21 billion in 2011. According to IDC, the tablet market is set to grow by at least 42 per cent this year, with smart mobile devices set to generate 57 per cent of overall IT market growth. It also stated that the enterprise app market could grow to $7.7bn by 2015, up from $2.7bn in 2010. Over at Gartner, analysts said that the proliferation of machine to machine (M2M) smart technology will drive a 25 per cent increase in software spending by 2014. What's more, accelerated uptake is likely to occur across all business segments – Garner predicts that SME mobile connectivity to enterprise business will grow 25 per cent this year. “Today, businesses need to tackle explosions of big data and act in real time. This cannot be achieved without mobility," added Kilyar. “With the widest range of mobile business apps and the most robust mobile platform around, we are hopeful of strong growth in MENA's enterprise mobility market this year." SAP currently holds an 85 per cent share of Fortune 100 mobile enterprise activity and its solutions are trusted by over 60 million users worldwide. SAP Mobile Services helps businesses process 1.8 billion messages per day, reaching more than 980 operators and 5.8 billion subscribers across 210 countries In April 2012, SAP bolstered its enterprise mobility standing by acquiring Syclo, adding industry-leading expertise in building and selling mobile solutions in industries such as utilities, oil and gas, life sciences and manufacturing. The move also accelerated the adoption and deployment of new mobile asset management and field service solutions on Sybase® Unwired Platform, part of the SAP® mobile platform and the company's infrastructure for developing and managing mobile apps. SAP and its partners currently offer 70 mobile applications to customers and there are more than 200 in the development pipeline. According technology analyst IDC, SAP Afaria (data protection using enterprise mobile device management from SAP) is currently number one in the Mobile Device Management market with 20 per cent share, while the Sybase Unwired Platform ranks number two in the Enterprise Application Platform market. Gartner has also stated that SAP is the most proactive vendor in the mobile enterprise applications space. SAP's end-to-end mobility solutions, which encompass thousands of applications created by over one million developers, runs on all popular devices, offering instant mobilization capabilities, a full service platform, as well as extensive support for SAP and third party apps/databases. Popular solutions include apps that revolutionise day-to-day workplace activities such as SAP Leave Request, SAP Employee Lookup (instant smartphones access to detailed employee details) and SAP Travel Expense Approval. In addition, SAP offers a host of game- and life-changing industry solutions, including apps that give doctors instant access to patients' medical records, utility companies the chance to transform customer engagement, and citizens the power to better connect with public authorities. SAP is also standing out in the financial sector via pioneering mobile wallet solutions and inclusive apps capable of empowering both the banked and unbanked. Further adding to SAP's credentials is its global Mobility Design Centers, which address demands for custom-built mobile apps with consumer-grade experiences. Since opening in September 2012, the initiative has helped customers, including ExxonMobil, to keep up with the consumerization of IT trends. Another trump card is SAP's ability to connect mobility to HANA, a revolutionary real-time platform on which real-time applications can be developed and deployed. In the market since June 2011, the technology has enabled many customers worldwide to speed up business processes by as much as 100,000 times or more. Earlier this year, SAP launched SAP® Business Suite powered by SAP HANA, which stands as the only business platform to successfully combine transactional applications with analytics in-memory.
