CRMs at top of enterprise mobile app wishlist: IDC

Enterprises want customer relationship management (CRM) applications on the go more than any other business applications, according to analyst firm IDC.

In a study commissioned by enterprise applications vendor IFS, IDC surveyed 450 C-level executives worldwide, and found that 31 percent think that CRM would be the mobile app that would impact their businesses the most. Next was business intelligence (BI) apps, at 13 percent, which includes reporting tools, while approval and authorisation apps came in third, at 10 percent.

For Australia, of which 50 executives were surveyed, CRM was still at the top of the list, at 18 percent. Around 79 percent of Australian organisations are already investing in mobility to increase productivity and stay competitive. According to the IDC study, Australian businesses are already spending more on mobility compared with the other countries that were surveyed.

"Ensuring competitive advantage and enabling an even more productive workforce that gets access to correct data, even when they are on the move, is a critical success factor in the future, and a major focus for mobility solutions," IDC program director Jason Andersson said in a statement. "Mobility and mobile data solutions are part of the core foundation for ICT industry growth up to 2020."

The report also showed that 25 percent of respondents said their companies are integrating mobile customer care and sales components to their CRM systems as a key focus for their mobility investments in the future. This number is much higher for Australia, at 41 percent.

Security came up as the major barrier for Australian companies that want to adopt mobile applications, while 32 percent are already using mobile devices for business data capturing.