End Of Year Forecasts Look Promising For Field And Mobile Technologies

By Brian Albright, Field Technologies

With the end of 2016 in sight, industry analyst firms are rolling out their final forecasts and predictions for various mobile and field service related technology markets. We’ve reported on a few here already, but below is a quick survey of some of the most recent figures relevant to service companies.

* First up, Technavio has forecast the global field service management (FSM) software market to grow at a CAGR of more than 11 percent from 2016 to 2020. According to the company, that growth will be driven by developments in cloud, analytics, and mobile technologies. According to the company, integration of FSM solutions with technologies such as mobile wireless, geographic information systems (GIS), and remote asset monitoring is expected to further stimulate the growth.

There is also increased demand for SaaS-based FSM solutions; an increased need to control and reduce service costs; and an increased need to drive workforce productivity.

“Enterprises of all sizes are deploying SaaS-based solutions as it is economical, can be accessed from anywhere and provides all functionalities at the lowest total cost of ownership,” said Ishmeet Kaur, lead enterprise application research analyst at Technavio.

In addition to controlling operating costs and overhead, the quality of customer service has become an increasingly important criterion for enterprises to differentiate themselves in the market. As a result, large enterprises are focusing on how they deliver services and retaining customers.

“FSM solution helps enterprises to streamline their workflow as it gives a real-time view into the work status of the employees in the field, enabling the enterprises to allocate assets accordingly,” Ishmeet said.

* Another new report available at Research and Markets puts the global service lifecycle management application market at $1.2 billion this year. With an expected CAGR of 7.8 percent, it will reach $2.7 billion by 2026.

That particular market has experienced a significant amount of consolidation, while companies providing those solutions are focused increasingly on providing solutions for servicing heavy equipment and large capital intensive assets.

* Global Market Insights’ report on the enterprise mobility management (EMM) market forecasts a whopping 30 percent CAGR from 2016 to 2023.

EMM includes a combination of Mobile Application Management (MAM), Mobile Information Management (MIM) and Mobile Device Management (MDM) solutions. According to the company: “MAM controls the applications that are needed; MIM allocates only approved applications to access and transmits the corporate data, while MDM locks down mobile devices.”

* Scalar Market Research has published its “Enterprise Asset Management Market” report, which forecasts the space will grow form $3.89 billion in 2016 to $6.5 billion in 2022, experiencing a CAGR of 8.9 percent.

According to the company, that growth has been driven by increasing demand from the manufacturing, telecom, IT, and transportation sectors. There is also increasing demand to reduce asset management and maintenance expenditures, as well as a rise in government initiatives targeted at infrastructure development.

Software vendors in the space are also introducing cloud-based solutions which should also contribute to future growth.

Scalar also published a report on the global wearable technology space that suggests the market will reach $71.23 billion by 2021.