Best-in-class enterprises rely on mobile messaging for success

Enterprise class MMS

Redwood Shores, CA Analyzing the use of push e-mail, enterprise SMS, enterprise multimedia Messaging Service (MMS), mobile Instant Messaging and mobile Voice over IP (VoIP) in over 150 organizations worldwide, this study found 85% of all organizations surveyed have at least one mobile messaging solution in place and 68% have two or more. "The need to react more quickly to environmental changes is driving organizations to adopt mobile messaging solutions.

Moving beyond push e-mail, companies are now also assessing other mobile messaging solutions such as SMS for their ability to improve workflow. The ideal is to have all these communication options available on one device", says Pieter de Villiers, chief executive of Clickatell, whose customers include John I Haas, Heart of Birmingham Primary Trust Care, Vodacom, First National Bank, and Oracle. Multimodal mobile messaging, combining voice, e-mail, SMS and fax delivery channels, ensures companies of confirmed delivery of mission critical information.

The flexibility of multimodal messaging further allows enterprises to stay in touch with staff, partners and customers anywhere, anytime by switching between the recipient's preferred communication mediums at any time. SMS's quick and cost-effective data delivery, together with its proliferation as one of the most commonly used and understood forms of non-voice mobile communications, has seen it emerge as the world's primary messaging service in recent years. According to Aberdeen's research, 48% of all organizations and 59% of best-in-class companies deploying mobile messaging applications are opting for SMS. The top factors driving SMS's uptake is the ability to satisfy customer needs (81%), to react quicker to change (67%), and to achieve operational cost efficiencies (57%). Best-in-class organizations use SMS predominantly in customer service and sales departments, while newer users of the technology still mostly deploy messaging in their IT departments or to communicate with colleagues.

While 69% of all organizations prefer to have their SMS solution either completely outsourced or hosted by a third party, 67% of best-in-class enterprises already have an infrastructure in place that supports a platform solution unifying their mobile messaging applications. "The technical experience and expertise of an established mobile data solutions partner and redundant connectivity makes outsourcing messaging worthwhile instead of re-inventing the wheel. Multi-channel solutions such as those provided by Clickatell get companies up and running quicker with less initial expense, providing a clear path towards a unified messaging environment across the enterprise," says De Villiers.