New connectivity needs on the rise
With the rise of remote work and the need for rapid deployment, on-demand connectivity capabilities are becoming increasingly important in ensuring the agility and reliability necessary to support diverse use-cases across enterprise operations.
In today's digital age, connectivity is indisputably seen as a fundamental factor in enabling enterprise operations and driving value creation, as evident from this and previous reports in the series Future of Enterprises from Ericsson Industrylab. Enterprises increasingly recognize that creating agility, advancing operations and boosting resilience, are values depend on a highly performing connectivity.
As remote work has gained popularity and the demand for rapid deployment has increased, the role of cellular connectivity has become essential in promoting the agility and dependability required to support highly versatile digital use-cases across all types of enterprise operations.
Due to the wide-ranging applicability of connectivity, as illustrated as an example in the Motor City car wash case study, examined in this report series, enterprises are more reliant on mobile/cellular connectivity precisely when and where it's needed to drive digitalization initiatives and enhance business performance. The findings in this study indicate that globally 67 percent of enterprise decision-makers strongly agree that mobile/cellular connectivity significantly contributes to creating value for their companies, underscoring its pivotal role in driving business success. As can be seen in figure 9, the results vary somewhat across different markets, with markets like the US, Indonesia and India showing a much higher share of decision-makers assigning high value to cellular connectivity, while markets such as Japan, South Korea and Germany ends up at the lower end. At the same time, regardless of market, very few assign no value to cellular connectivity!
Figure 9: Percent of decision-makers that strongly agree, disagree or remain indecisive on whether cellular connectivity significantly contributes to the ability to create value for their companies [Self-reported]
Additionally, on average, 68% of decision-makers recognize that cellular technology significantly facilitates the investigated use-cases within their companies.
However, despite the stated importance of connectivity, a significant number of employees still experience disruptions and lag in their company's connectivity, impacting their efficiency both on-site and when working remotely. The survey reveals that 38% of employees regularly encounter disruptions on-site, and 36% experience similar issues when working remotely. These disruptions significantly affect operational productivity and employee efficiency, emphasizing the critical need for reliable and seamless connectivity in enterprise settings.
New connectivity needs on the rise
In response to these connectivity challenges many enterprises consider it important to have a dedicated portion of the network, or perhaps even a private network, to ensure guaranteed or higher performance when needed. Even though that close to 70 percent of decision-makers are very satisfied with cellular connectivity’s ability to provide dedicated resources there is more to be done. Empowered by the cloud paradigm, enterprises are increasingly dictating what they want, when, and where they want it.
Additionally, as shown in illustration 10, having tailored network capacity scores as the most important attribute when comparing different aspects of connectivity. This is indicating the need for a more performance-based model for connectivity.
Figure 10: Importance of different connectivity attributes
Moreover, 69% of decision-makers stress the necessity for employees to have access to a stable and consistent Internet connection to perform their work effectively, highlighting the indispensable nature of basic connectivity in facilitating seamless business operations.
Furthermore, the survey findings demonstrate significant variation in connectivity and performance requirements across industry segments, see figure 11. Asset-centric and society segments prioritize reliability to ensure uninterrupted operations, while site-centric segments emphasize cost-effectiveness to optimize connectivity investments. In service, consumer, and infrastructure segments, speed emerges as a top priority, facilitating efficient service delivery.
Figure 11: Level of satisfaction in different connectivity attributes per industry segment
These diverse connectivity attributes further underscore the need for tailored connectivity solutions to address the specific requirements of each industry segment and application at hand.
The role of aggregators
The research reveals a growing reliance on aggregators to provide comprehensive connectivity solutions, driven by the need to ensure seamless operations precisely when and where connectivity is required. This reliance is also influenced by the internationalization of enterprises with a growing number of transnational businesses, as discussed in Future of Enterprises #1 report . Enterprises increasingly want to scale up and down their business in response to market changes. Another reason also seen in the Motor City case study is the need for connectivity backup where two SIM cards were used in case of failure or poor network quality. In fact, no less than 62 percent of enterprises express a preference for purchasing communication services from global providers or aggregators.
In summary, these findings emphasize the critical role of connectivity in enterprise settings and the pressing need for reliable, seamless, and high-performance connectivity to enable value creation through digitalization.
Overall, the trend of on-demand connectivity and the challenges related to connectivity in enterprises can lead to significant changes in how connectivity solutions are designed, packaged, and managed to meet the growing demand for reliable and efficient connectivity in the workplace.
On one side this trend could lead to increased investment in building and maintaining private networks to meet the demand for reliable connectivity. This is something already seen in the Motor City car wash may lead to enterprises integrating various connectivity solutions to ensure that employees have access to reliable internet regardless of their location, leading to a more seamless and connected work environment. This is also related to the usage of aggregators enabling this connectivity integration. Something seen as interesting is the programmable public cellular networks designed to meet these specific connectivity needs.
Michael Rogers, Principal, Practical Futurist
