SAP Benchmarking Report Reveals Companies With Mature Mobile Best Practices Likely Double Operating Margins, Experience
Three Times Higher Revenue Growth
SAP NEWSBYTE — June 22, 2012 — To better understand the degree of mobile adoption, maturity of best practices and impact on enterprise performance
across industries, SAP AG (NYSE: SAP) today released a benchmarking report. The report found that companies with mature mobile best practices
double their operating margins and experience three times higher revenue growth compared to those with average
practices. The global study is comprised of more than 300 SAP customers of all sizes and across all industries such as
banking, consumer products, high technology, professional services, public sector, telecommunications and utilities.
The study’s analysis framework evaluated customers in four areas for competitive advantage, including mobile strategy,
creation of mobile apps, control of mobile devices and consumption of mobile apps. For each of the four categories,
participating companies were evaluated on the maturity of their best practices and greatest business impact and then
divided into five levels of maturity. The leading, most mature companies displayed a clear set of common characteristics
that include:
• A mobile strategy in place for all departments and relevant processes; input obtained from all external and
internal stakeholders
• Established operating system standards and a reliable platform deployed; all security and scaleability issues
addressed
• A strong, well-documented security policy, centralised device monitoring and an excellent device authentication
mechanism in place
• End-user involvement early in the development cycle and feedback phase; training on new applications and all
wireless issues; mobile access to all enterprise applications.
The leading companies from the study reported that 37.5 percent of users with mobile access to cross-functional
applications experience more than 43 percent higher productivity compared to companies in the bottom tier. On average,
survey participants were most mature when managing and controlling mobile applications but least mature when developing
a mobile strategy.
While the average company reported that less than 32 percent of its workforce is mobile, 97 percent of those companies
have centralised IT departments managing their mobile solutions. In addition, the leading companies experienced almost
28.6 percent decrease in IT spend as compared to less mature companies. Of more than 25 industries represented in the
survey, insurance companies have the highest maturity for enterprise mobility while postal services are least mature.
“While mobile is now the primary way people communicate, connect and transact, our latest benchmarking report supports
the fact that mobile adoption in the workplace is still in the early stages,” said Nick Brown, senior vice president,
Mobile Strategy and Market Development, SAP. “The benefits of mobile are well documented and understood by most
organisations, but a successful implementation requires a clear strategy and comprehensive platform. SAP mobile platform
is the only unified mobile solution capable of meeting all mobile app needs, and we expect to reach millions of
developers that will create thousands of applications for more than 1 billion people by 2015.”
SAP business performance benchmarking serves as a forum for SAP customers to understand current and emerging trends in technology and business processes,
identify drivers of performance, and understand implications of adopting best practices. More than 10,000 participants
from more than 3,000 companies have participated in SAP performance benchmarking studies to date.
SAP is attending Mobile Connect 2012 this week in Boston. Visit booth 200 to learn more. For more information, visit the SAP Newsroom. Follow SAP on Twitter at @sapnews.
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