Warming Up to Tablets

Tablets are getting acceptance much faster than what expected with clear convergence of personal and professional usage, confides a veteran CIO. Clearly, the Indian enterprises have come a long way, from being conservative about allowing their users to bring in their personal devices to the workplace citing security reasons. CIOs are an intelligent community and are not averse to adapting themselves to the prevailing technological advancements and taking to tablets is no exception.

The Indian computing environment has undergone several changes in the last one decade or so but it is Apple that is credited with bringing tablets in vogue, thanks to their intelligent packaging of the hardware and the software and creating the ecosystem of the applications that made iPad what it is today.

CIO's, thankfully, are in no mood to repeat their mistakes that they made with the smartphones, labeling them as expensive but not useful executive gadgets. It is clear that employees will bring in their own devices to their workplace and a CIO needn't support every device that comes in the door.

No Longer the Untouchable

According to Gartner Research, around 69 mn tablets will be shipped this year, thereby registering a whopping 261% increase from the previous years number. The agency has further added that by FY15, the number of units sold will be 326.3 mn. In terms of the number of units shipped this year, the percentage is very small vis--vis the total number of application-packed mobile devices.

While the numbers may partly tell the story, it is the CIOs who are embracing tablets wholeheartedly. Arun Gupta, group CIO, Shoppers Stop says, I myself use a tablet and also allow employees to use their personal tablets across the enterprise with no restrictions placed on department or seniority but currently the use is limited since we are in the process of developing few applications.

Tablets are no longer the untouchable in an enterprise environment as more and more users are demanding mobility. Besides recession coerced enterprise to be agile, lean, and mobile when it comes to updating real-time data to stay ahead of competition and tablets fit the bill. Users can easily use them while on the field and key in real-time customer data like preference, sales cycle, etc. Dhiren Savla, chief information officer, Kuoni Travels agrees, In my view, tablets are certainly serious business gadgets. How many corporate users actually require extensive and complex computing on the machine? Tablets can do most of the things which your PC/laptop could actually do and more so, it also gives great user experience combined with some very useful applications.

More and more CIO's are now allowing users to bring in to work their personal mobile devices and the trend is towards the CIO figuring out the middle path and not putting up a fight.

Savla says, Tablets are primarily used as device for accessing emails, web, and other information for colleagues who travel too often. This is more from the ease perspective. However, actual potential of tablet would get leveraged when functions like sales/marketing would start using it to its fullest potential. In fact, Savla is currently formalizing clear roadmap for usage of tablets covering various functions.

In fact Zoeb Adenwala, CIO, Essel Propack too agrees that tablets are a popular device, especially in the senior management, for them to access data and reports during meetings.

Keeping a Tab on Challenges

Adenwala believes that the tablet ratio in India currently stands at 10:1 (as compared to the laptops) with the tablet adoption hasnt picked up like it did in the Western world. He offers a couple of reasonsfirstly, tablets are Android based and not iPad, and on Android not many applications are available. Also, the high price of the tablets are a deterrent vis--vis the laptops, users are not keen to spend a moolah on tablets when they can get similar features on a laptop.

Gupta agrees that with the price points being still high and as an add-on device, it does not replace the laptop.

Moreover, enterprise applications are yet to be enabled via the tablet, it will take some time before big ERP type applications provide user interface on tablets. Certain applications like utilities including GPS, data confiner, etc. are not present in tablets. Tablets are fine when it comes to retrieving information but its a no-no if one wants to type information and be interactive with it, says Adenwala.

But the biggest challenge when it comes to adoption is changing the mindset of a CIO. Even as some CIOs are embracing tablets, there are still a few who would still like to maintain a complete control when it comes to their IT infrastructure.

Savla adds that since tablets are not getting hooked to your enterprise network, you would need a Wi-Fi or mobile (say 3G) connection. And Adenwala says that the non-availability of the 3G services at a reasonable price is a deterrent. Moreover, the speed of 3G is poor.

Security, incidentally, is the highest priority for most CIOs. For instance, as the head, IT and director, Barclays Corporate India, Chandra Gupta, like his international counterparts, is very much clued in to the demands of resurgent technologies and is ensuring that we are able to leverage on them. However, there is a strong focus around ensuring that we carry out a strong assessment of information security model, usage, and data portability on these devices. There is a dedicated team incepted to run with this and we are in the process of doing internal staff rollouts and testing. Based on this analysis, policies and guidelines are being put in place, he says.

Maintenance is another niggling issue. Subramanya C, CTO, HGSL says that maintenance of devices is a challenge. However, there are enterprises/manufacturing/SCM companies who would be first movers to adopt these tablets. IT partners and corporate houses are working out strategies to ensure application development, deployment, and support to its tablet users. As the scale of operations is not large, the customization of process and policies are in the definition/direction phase.

Ready for Tablets

The form factor of the tablet, coupled with its user interface, makes it a convenient device to be used in the marketplace by the sales force and the mobile workers. For taking notes in meetings, checking the dashboard for information retrieval too, tablets serve the purpose.

Gupta of Barclays says that there is a growing trend around the BYO-PC approach. With strong competition and demand of selling products across, tablets have now moved from being a fashion statement to a clear niche advantage point.

In fact, most organizations are now preparing for the onslaught of tablets by actively testing and analyzing it for internal usage. With the recent security risks and data privacy laws gaining momentum, securing the enterprise environment is becoming more critical.

Almost every peer Gupta has spoken to, is either contemplating to test or has already started testing the product for organizational rollouts.

Subramanyan of HGSL is one of the CIOs who has already tested a few mobile applications and is in the process of ascertaining the benefits for the business users. He is also partnering with his clients to build and test applications to provide flexibility to users. We forecast a slower adoption on a mass scale in our business compared to any other standard devices/applications. There are a few verticals that would choose to adopt faster than the others as the availability and consumption of mobile applications are very high, eg, media and entertainment, education, news, press and print medium, and so on,

he says.

Tablets Versus Laptops

While we all may like to believe that tablets are not going to replace the good old ubiquitous laptop in the next 2-3 years timeframe; Gupta quips that it is still too early to say if tablet will sustain or remain a fringe device.

Subramanyan adds that after many failed attempts in the past to woo the enterprises to tablet PC, the media tablet category has only started to surge. And therefore, it is advisable to be risk-averse in the short run, and take a balanced decision. The shift from PCs to tablets, if done, will require substantial capex. Its only natural that most companies have decided to wait and watch. At this juncture, the PCs are safe and the tablets can only supplement them, not replace them, he says.

However this is not to say that all CIOs are rooting for laptops. In fact, some like Sandip Biswas, director, Deloitte believes that in the short to medium-term both laptops and tablets will co-exist but as the affordability of the tablet goes up, one would witness the tablet culture eventually taking over the PCs.

He then goes on to list possible factors that may aid in ushering in the tablet culture. Tablets will see a phenomenal growth especially as the price of the tablet comes down; price of connectivity (3G) goes down; and introduction of 4G and greater penetration of public-Wi-Fi.

Gupta of Barclays says that maybe not for mass processes, but for a few specialized areas like products, sales and marketing, tablets are definitely the way ahead and provide a competitive edge.

Clearly, the verdict stands divided between tablets and laptops, but one thing is for sure that it is the end-user who is going to have the last laugh with mobility at his fingertips.