The survey was conducted amongst 50 companies in Bangkok that have over US$2 million (Bt74.7 million) in revenue, applying three criteria for mobility readiness index: people, infrastructure, and technology.

It also found that among Thai businesses, the top three mobile applications in popular use are mobile calendars and contact lists, applications related to office documents such as workforce details and sales automation, and mobile e-mail.

The survey also found that organisations in Thailand were looking for other key mobile applications, for example, customer relationship management applications, applications for personal delivery, and access to either intranet or corporate databases on mobile devices.

Imran Makmood, head of enterprise device sales at Nokia Southeast Asia, said that organisations realised that mobile phones were one of their business tools so they wanted to utilise them for greater profits.

Many of them had also provided infrastructure, both virtual private networks and wireless local area networks, and set up policies to facilitate employees to increase productivity through mobile devices.

However, he said organisations which intend to embrace the full benefits of business needed to increase their focus on security and device management as well as to get their IT infrastructure ready for mobile access.

The survey showed that organisations in Thailand are concerned about security when they roll out business mobility. Most of them use password protection and anti-virus software, and have a security policy.

The survey said apart from Thailand, other countries including Malaysia and India also have the potential for higher adoption of business mobility.

To adopt business mobility, organisations had not only to invest in mobile devices, but also needed to look at management, putting the right policy in place, and ensuring adequate resources and support.

Asina Pornwasin

The Nation