MTN Business launches exciting new range of enterprise applications - first for African market

MTN Business demonstrated its commitment to accelerating business innovation powered by IT, by launching 20 enterprise-specific applications focused on giving enterprises business control at their fingertips.

Says Nomalanga Nkosi, General Manager for Business Marketing at MTN Business: “If you can think it, someone's app'ed it. It's all the rage as smartphones and tablets become proliferated and consumers look for personalised, always-on-the-go connectivity. But what if we could turn the apps market on its head - and rather than focus on the consumerisation of such tools - use them to drive business efficiencies and change the way we do business? That's exactly what we are doing!”

Today's mobile workforce needs 'anytime, anywhere' access to corporate intranets and critical data and applications, and this is driving the growth of mobile enterprise applications. In fact, according to Forrester*, 30% of enterprises are using app stores to deploy some of their applications at some level.

In fact, Gartner has placed mobile applications and media tablets within the top 10 technologies to significantly impact businesses over the next three years. In developed markets, already 65% of workers use a tablet:

* Twenty-seven percent use a tablet for work; * Thirty-six percent to send and receive e-mail; * Thirty-five percent to surf the Internet; * Twelve percent to read newspapers, e-books and magazines; and * Seven percent to watch video content.

“We expect these international trends to soon be a local reality. The opportunity exists for local businesses to utilise these devices and platforms, not only to keep their workforce productive, but even to increase their productivity,” adds Kanagaratnam Lambotharan (Lambo), Chief Technology Officer (CTO), MTN South Africa.

“For example, a national public services provider saves up to R50 000 per day on date entry labour costs with one of MTN Business's mobile enterprise app, while in the healthcare industry, preliminary solution testing has shown that health practitioners could increase daily productivity by as much as 5 300 hours with MTN Business's Remote Medical Diagnostics enterprise application.”

Having started on the consumer side, applications are evolving, and fast moving into the enterprise space. However, having generic “enterprise” apps on an app store will not provide businesses with the capabilities and opportunities that complex, tailor-made enterprise apps have to offer. Says Lambo; “A lack of awareness about the availability of such applications and concerns about security and confidentiality, from the consumer legacy, are limiting their uptake, but today, through our seamless network and the significant investments that MTN has made in upgrading this network, we are demonstrating our commitment to growing a secure enterprise applications market, enhancing user experience and enabling our customers to get the most out of these apps based on business demands and efficiency needs.”

MTN Business's enterprise apps include, but are not limited to, the following:

* Remote medical diagnostics * Device security and call recording * Device backup and sync * Asset tracking * Transport and logistics * Mobile surveys * Mobile learning * Cost and expense management * Cloud storage

“Through real-time applications that drive business efficiencies and deliver to the market the ability to connect on an innovative platform - specific to the business sector - there is no doubt that the uptake of these enterprise applications will continue to increase and that businesses will start seeing the larger benefits and competitive market opportunities that can be derived going forward,” concludes Nkosi.

* Rise of enterprise app stores points to need for better applications marketplace services, Forrester Research, 2011, http://www.zdnet.com/blog/gardner/rise-of-enterprise-app-stores-points-to-need-for-better-applications-marketplace-services/4177