Enterprise adoption of the Mac, iPad, and iPhone increased dramatically during the pandemic. Apple and its business partners want to consolidate this expansion in 2022, which is expected to be another important year for hardware investments.
Implement a growth strategy
We have seen Apple in business grow rapidly during the pandemic; 2021 was a banner year for hardware sales as companies invested in computers and devices to support hybrid teams. Apple has obviously benefited from this.
Apple in the enterprise sector now has more MDM providers than ever before, and competition among Apple-centric enterprise service providers is intensifying. Why? Because business demand for Apple products has never been greater, and driven by employee preferences, deployment continues to grow. At the same time, business spending on devices grew 15,1% this year and will maintain those levels (albeit with slower growth) through 2022, according to Gartner.
Apple surely wants to maintain its presence in this growing market. He knows the M-series Macs are gaining traction, even as corporate iPad sales continue to grow. To maintain this momentum, Apple Business Essentials is a strategically important step in making its solutions more attractive to business users. The program acts as a gateway to provide small businesses with an easy-to-manage entry point into the broader world of MDM solutions offered by Apple partners, including Jamf.
Get your lease
But improving the availability of support for Apple devices isn't the only trend in the corporate space that the company is trying to address. There is an emerging desire among corporate users to lease their technology equipment, says BNP Paribas.
The BNP Paribas study shows that 76% of IT equipment is still purchased in Europe, but suggests that companies are turning to access rather than ownership. This is not surprising, given that 77% of companies already rent vehicles. Leasing computers makes sense, especially when managing limited budgets during an international crisis.
Apple may be quietly working to satisfy the growing desire to lease technology. We recently learned of an agreement between Apple and its financial partner CIT whereby US companies can rent their Macs starting at €30/month/machine. The program makes it easier for companies to deploy Apple devices across their enterprise, and can also help them deploy devices to remote teams as hybrid workplaces become more standardized.
We don't yet know if this push reflects a broader global strategy to enable business users to access Apple as a service, or if it reflects a single offering from one place. But even that is not the end of the story.
What follows the deployment?
In fact, even with effective rental programs and MDM solutions, companies still have a lot of work to do to take advantage of the opportunities of digital transformation. Before the pandemic, a Deloitte survey showed that despite huge mobile device deployments, many companies continue to use outdated business practices.
This report outlines simple yet essential key tasks that can't yet be handled by mobile devices: 59% of employees can't complete timesheets, for example; 39% cannot submit license applications; and only 41% can approve invoices on mobile devices.
This reflects a reality that many companies have not yet changed their thinking enough to change existing business practices, and changing them places additional demands on technology budgets. Gartner says that 65% of board members want to accelerate digital transformation projects.
There is a need to confront these issues head-on, especially when companies are juggling a large basket of challenges, not limited to but including: the Great Resignation, office space downsizing considerations, and the need to implement new kit. to support the new workplace.
This cornucopia of challenges fuels the recognition that investing in new digital business processes can be critical in helping companies overcome these sometimes conflicting issues.
While Apple Business Essentials and the new commercial leasing program may help address some of these issues, the next step in solidifying Apple's gains in the business market will depend on partners like IBM, Cisco, SAP and Microsoft. companies can affordably use it to digitize their business processes quickly and easily.
Perhaps Apple could encourage such development by creating an App Store for the company?
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