SOTI Reveals Surprising Findings About Organizations' IoT Preparedness

By 2020, our global population of 7.7 billion will be connected by 30 billion IoT devices: that is nearly four devices for every living human. When everything that can be connected is connected, the enterprise market – home to a diverse array of devices, from smartphones and rugged laptops, to barcode scanners – is ripe for further disruption.

Our Panasonic Mobility partner SOTI is an industry leader in delivering products to manage, secure and track business computing devices. Recently surveyed organizations across industries such as transportation and logistics, retail and healthcare are looking for this type of technology to better understand how mobility will impact the future of our workforce. Many Panasonic Toughbook® computer, tablet and hahdheld customers who rely on SOTI’s enterprise mobile management (EMM) solution may be surprised by some of the findings contained in the SOTI report: Are you managing the mobility tsunami or struggling in the next technology tidal wave?”

We sat down with Shash Anand, Vice President, Strategic Alliances at SOTI to discuss what their research uncovered about how companies should prepare for the next generation of connectivity.

It seems as if we’re at a turning point for IoT connectivity. Are top enterprise executives prepared for this mobility influx?

That was one of the more interesting findings. We discovered key concerns for the C-suite: it seems many don’t understand how vital mobility has become in the basic business arsenal. Two in five (41%) remote workers say their bosses do not understand the importance of having the best mobile devices and apps, and yet three in five (60%) place the responsibility for getting good mobile technology squarely at the door of the CEO. As technology providers, it’s our responsibility to educate future business leaders about the importance of mobility in this innovate-or-die economy. 

Both SOTI and Panasonic Toughbook products equip mobile workers, so we know how much they rely on reliable technology solutions. What did your research uncover about device failure and its effect on work?

Technical failures in the field remain fairly common. Overall, 62% of those who rely on mobile devices when working remotely have experienced problems with device failure. Few have experienced no trouble at all (17%). We did find, though, that users of specialist gadgetry, such as rugged devices like the ones offered by Panasonic, are least likely to report incidents with performance (both 5%).

Although level of usage and reliance on enterprise mobility hardware raises the price of technical failures in the field, reliance and familiarity also breed competence: almost half (48%) of remote workers believe they can resolve problems with their mobile devices by themselves, but the number rises higher among those with 16–20 apps (54%) and over 21 apps (60%).

Join us at SYNC 17, SOTI’s annual user and partner conference in Niagara Falls on Sept. 25 – 27, where we will be showcasing our portfolio of rugged Android mobile devices, such as the Toughpad FZ-N1 handheld tablet, which SOTI recently certified.