New Class of Mobile Workers Emerging

According to Forrester, mobile wannabes include executive assistants, human resource workers and finance department employees who are generally at their desks most of the day but use smart phones to access e-mail and other corporate applications while commuting to work or while away from their desks. Adding to these workers are Millennials, workers younger than 30 years of age who have come to expect mobile support.

"These Millennials are technology natives who enter the work force with the expectation that companies will support their mobile application needs whether they are formally classified as mobile workers or not," writes Pelino.

This dramatic growth of mobile workers, whatever the definition, over the next few years presents opportunities for vendors, device makers, application developers and network operators alike.

Since most of this growing class purchase their own devices, Pelino says network operators should market their services to appeal to both consumers and mobile workers. Mobile network operators, for instance, should offer pricing plans with a variety of price points for mobile and data service plans.

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"These service plans enable mobile worker wannabes who get mobile and/or data plans reimbursed by the company to select a plan that fits their usage profile and corporate reimbursement requirements," the report states. "Wannabes without a corporate reimbursement plan can use lower price point service options."

Device makers, the report contends, must consider dual usage needs during the device development process as it has "implications for battery life, keyboard requirements, device size and form factors."

Finally, enterprise application and software vendors should make mobile-friendly models.

"We believe that corporate IT departments are going to provide only minimal support to mobile wannabes because these individuals are not the high-priority mobile users in the organization," the report states. "As a result, application developers must design user-friendly, easy-to-use applications for wannabes and prepare to provide additional customer service and support for these application users."