Wireless Deployment Strategies In Small Companys

Wireless technologies are proliferating through small and midsize businesses as the cost of handsets along with voice and data plans plunge to attractive, commodity levels. At SMB organizations, higher demand for mobile technology coincides with rising perceived business value of the technology. In the study, four out of five companies report that wireless voice and data networks are highly important and another 16% believe they are somewhat important. Not surprisingly, nine in ten companies with above-average deployments of wireless voice and networks rate those networks as highly important to their organizations. Companies with above-average deployments also tend to be more committed to mobility as a business and technology investment. This surge in importance is also reflected in SMB spending on mobile technology. Three out of five small and midsize businesses report that their spending on mobile technology increased compared to last year, and 36% report it stayed the same. Only 4% of companies report a decline in mobile technology spending – and that may be due to costsavings more than a decline in use. Companies with above-average wireless deployments are helping to drive this push. By a 66% to 55% margin, companies with above-average wireless deployments will invest more in the coming year than those firms with below-average wireless deployments. Clearly, satisfaction is helping to drive increased investment. Generally, small and midsize organizations feel that their investment in wireless technologies is paying off. Sixty-two percent of the companies in our study are highly satisfied with their investment in wireless voice and data technology and services. Significantly, a higher percentage of companies with above-average voice and data network deployments report an even higher level of satisfaction than their peers with smaller deployments. Sixty-nine percent of those widely deployed sites report that they are highly satisfied with their investment in wireless technologies, compared to 57% for below-average deployments. The more widely deployed networks appear to be generating more business value. In 2007, it's hard to imagine a company opening a new office with a strictly wired infrastructure. Wireless networks are now pervasive - with 42% of SMBs deploying a wireless network across the whole office or campus and 36% deploying in a limited manner, for example in conference rooms. Among companies with a wireless network, two-thirds offer wireless Internet access to guests such as business partners and contractors. Yet if companies are largely satisfied, why isn't deployment more widespread? Three out of five companies report that less than half of their employees use mobile technologies for work-related purposes. In most cases fewer than one-in-four employees use wireless for work-related purposes. The reasons for this limited deployment can be chalked up to several factors, we believe, such as: • Most use is ad hoc. In many small firms there are lots of users with different plans or devices
• Lack of custom or dedicated business applications
• Lack of management or administrative controls
• Security concerns
• Cost – mobility is a commodity for some companies but overhead for others. Cost is a gating factor when a company lacks plans to accrue revenue from its mobile networks or devices.
• Unlike larger enterprises, many smaller companies are used to having all personnel visible on site and may be less comfortable with a truly mobile workforce.
This report comes from CMP Technology