The mobility priorities of small and medium-size businesses (SMBs) are increasingly similar to those of enterprise organizations. Results from Forrester’s survey of IT decision-makers in SMB organizations with between 20 and 999 employees in North America and Europe show that 3 of the top 10 telecom initiatives in SMBs this year are related to mobility. More specifically, 43% of SMBs identify supporting more mobile devices or smartphones as a key telecom initiative. Supporting more smartphone devices includes increasing the number of employees who use smartphones for work activities, as well as broadening the types of smartphone devices and operating systems supported by the organization.

When it comes to mobile application initiatives, 44% of SMB firms identify supporting more mobile applications for employees who work out of the office as a critical priority to help these workers remain more productive while they are on the road. It is more interesting that 33% of surveyed firms identify supporting more mobile applications for employees who work in the office as a key priority. These employees are not traditionally the focus of mobile application deployment because they spend a majority of time working at their desks. However, they could benefit from productivity enhancing mobile applications such as document viewing applications, business unit reports, or access to mobile time sheet or expense applications when they are away from their desks. Examples of workers in this category include customer service employees, administrative assistants, and marketing personnel.

Enhanced small and medium-size business focus on smartphone devices and mobile applications opens new opportunities for a wide range of vendors, including device manufacturers, network infrastructure providers, application developers, middleware vendors, mobile carriers, and system integrators, all seeking to capture a share of the SMB mobility market opportunity.