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1) The Telecom Expense Management (TEM) proposition continues to consolidate
in the USA and finally starts to gain ground in Europe and Asia, driven
partly by economic conditions but also by additional pressure from senior
management to control costs.
TEM is such a good purchase for enterprise that the reasons behind its
slow uptake outside of North America are still a matter of debate. With
telecom suppliers regularly over-billing at the rate of up to 20% and mobile
devices running up even larger charges if roaming is inadvertently left
switched on, the potential for major savings is huge.

2) A major data loss from a smartphone or other mobile device, or a malware
attack on an enterprise’s servers via a mobile appliance, temporarily halts
the Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) trend. However, the huge proliferation of
mobile devices re-starts the whole process again within weeks.
A recent report from security specialists McAfee highlighted a 37 per cent
increase in malicious Android phone attacks over the last quarter. Combined
with a 76 per cent rise in Android malware for the second quarter, this
makes grim reading for the average BYOD house. Although the iPhone is
relatively unaffected at the moment, the US trend of jail-breaking - opening
the device to apps designed for other operating systems - means that
thousands of iPhone users who choose to jail-break or gain root access to
their handsets are potentially vulnerable to the same risk, as hackers start
creating malware for the iPhone.
Despite frequent warnings, with so many IT departments not yet set up to
guard against such an attack, it’s only a matter of time before a major data
loss hits a large enterprise player hard.

3) Greater integration takes place between the TEM and Mobile Device
Management (MDM) propositions, as smartphone penetration in the enterprise
market continues.
MDM is one of the hottest topics around at the moment. Once the province
of BlackBerry alone - who insisted you not only purchased their expensive
server solutions but their priced-above-average handsets, too, for the
privilege of controlling your users’ devices - there are now a number of
players offering comparable if not better MDM solutions.
However, an MDM solution in isolation from a comprehensive system for
managing and controlling ALL your telecom expenses is only part of the
story. 2012 will see providers start to offer integrated TEM-MDM solutions
that will not only manage the business’ entire telecom estate, seamlessly
and from a single console, but which will equally seamlessly integrate with
the business’ other internal systems (SAP, ERP etc) to fully control all of
the telecom lifecycle.

4) Further TEM vendor consolidation takes place as competition on price
forces more companies into the red, as a consequence of non-commercial and
unviable pricing bids for new business.
The pressure to deliver even more with less will accelerate in 2012, as
will the inevitable attempt to squeeze the suppliers in turn. Some TEM
vendors - particularly those with weak wireless businesses - will go to the
wall as the economy flatlines and the European business sector continues to
stagnate.

5) The Mobile Application market continues to grow unabated. Meanwhile, a
power consumption breakthrough will take place, driven by consumer demand,
as power-draining applications make phones unusable after a couple of hours.
If Santa could bring me a smartphone whose battery that lasted more than a
day, I’d stop charging him for parking his reindeer on our roof. I’m tired
of carrying around spare batteries, so it was good to hear recently that a
team of scientists at the McCormick School of Engineering & Applied Science
appears to have cracked one of the thorniest problems of modern electrical
engineering - batteries which actually work.
The team’s products, using a hi-tech mix of sheets of carbon and silicon
to supercharge today’s lithium-ion batteries, hold up to 10 times as much
power and charge up to ten times faster. They reckon the technology could be
on the market within as little as three years, providing someone else
doesn’t pip them to the post.

6) Real-time usage alerts for both domestic and international voice, data
and text usage become the norm, to avoid customer "bill-shock".
I heard the other day of a delegate who attended a conference in
Switzerland over a weekend and came back with a roaming bill in 4 figures. A
once-off data charge like that could cripple a small company if one of their
employees went on a prolonged international trip and forgot to turn off data
roaming, but even large enterprises can be affected if hundreds or - in some
cases - thousands of staff make the same mistake.
As more and more staff turn to mobile devices to access corporate data on
the move, and in the absence to date of consistent action to make the
carriers reduce their charges, these bills could run into hundreds of
thousands of dollars. 2012 will be the year in which the issue is addressed.

7) Pre-paid Pay-As-You-Go (PAYG) price plans gain ground in the business
user market, as customers seek greater control over their choice of handset
and greater flexibility in their choice of price plan.
Smartphone handset prices may be coming down but no-one could yet call
them cheap, particularly compared to the cost of standard devices. It looks
as if thrifty organisations are already following the consumer market and
forgoing long-term contract commitments in favour of their own SIM-free
handset plus cheaper, more flexible PAYG price plans - which they then chop
and change as new offers come on the market. Next year we can expect to see
this trend grow.
It will be interesting to see how this affects the mobile carriers, whose
business models rely on a heavy user-subsidy up-front which they then recoup
over the life of an 18 or 24-month contract. No wonder Vodafone, at least in
the UK, is playing catch-up in the PAYG market and targeting a more
affluent, up-market type of user. I wouldn’t be surprised to see some
leading edge company going with Tesco Mobile! At least you’d get loyalty
points - but would the company let you keep them?

8) The Mobile VoIP calls proposition gains ground. Meanwhile, Fixed Line
VoIP installations increase and start to gain wider acceptance, while Voice
costs themselves become less transparent and more difficult to manage.
Mobile VoIP is maturing to the extent that dropped calls, other parties
who sound like they’re calling from the bottom of a Chilean mine and lost
calls are (if not yet completely a thing of the past) at least more unusual.
However, as VoIP gains popularity due to the significant cost-savings
available, and POTS Voice traffic becomes a simple commodity, we can expect
the carriers to respond by making it increasingly difficult to track the
cost of a standard Voice call and carry out the cost comparison.
. Meanwhile, there are some interesting cost-allocation implications for
those enterprises deploying VoIP implementations across multiple territories
and operating companies.

9) Enterprise senior management becomes better informed and more tech-savvy,
to keep up with mobile developments as more and more business is managed in
a mobile environment.
Example: demand for call tracking and auditing is already increasing, as
compliance regulations require financial firms to track who owned what
cell/desk phone number(s) at any given point in time, and be able to produce
call detail data on request. With new EU regulations just imposed this month
data integrity, it’s now down to the management team to keep a well-informed
eye on developments or risk facing huge fines.

10) As a rule, data circuit pricing drops 5-10% every year. In 2012,
companies will learn to respond to this by keeping a close track of contract
expiry dates and negotiating better pricing at term-end.
This is more of a wish than a prediction. When you already know the rate
is likely to be lower at term-end than at the start of a contract, it’s only
sensible to diarise a "check contract" internal meeting 2 months before
contract renewal, with a view to negotiating a better price with your
vendor. Yet you’d be surprised how many firms fail to do so. Best practice
contracts have a price review clause built-in at the outset: we’ve even
heard of ones with a pre-determined annual discount clearly quantified.

Finally, one for luck and continuing the mobile theme: someone launches a
"Mobile Utility Belt"- to carry all the accessories you need just to keep your mobile device
working (including your four spare batteries). When you see everyone wearing
one and it’s next Christmas’ "must have" fashion item, just remember: you
read it here first.