7th Annual
State of Enterprise Mobility Report.
Read the full online version of this year’s report below.
Prefer a graphical version including all graphs and charts? Read the report online or download a PDF here.
7th Annual State of Enterprise Mobility Report
When mobile technology fails, frontline work doesn't slow down ... it stops.
Introduction: Frontline Work Now Depends on Mobile Technology
A warehouse associate can't scan and ship because their battery dies mid-shift.
A field technician can't complete a repair due to poor network connectivity.
A delivery professional's app crashes just as paperwork needs to be completed in front of the customer.
These moments happen every day, across industries. And almost none of them register as a major outage.
They don't trigger alerts. They don't appear in dashboards. They rarely show up in incident reports.
Instead, they quietly drain productivity, frustrate frontline workers, increase operational costs, and erode customer trust.
For seven years, we've sponsored independent market research to understand this gap, asking both frontline workers and the IT professionals who support them about their real-world experiences with Windows and Android mobile technologies.
And for seven years, we've heard the same story: Frontline workers rely on mobile devices, apps, and networks to do their jobs. When those tools fail, existing support models struggle to respond.
What This Report Reveals
Based on insights from hundreds of global IT leaders and frontline workers, this 7th Annual State of Enterprise Mobility report quantifies the true frequency, cost, and operational impact of frontline mobile disruption.
The findings challenge several common assumptions:
- Mobile issues are not rare edge cases. They are frequent, recurring, and often expected as part of the job.
- Most frontline disruption does not result in a ticket. It is self-resolved, worked around, or simply tolerated, leaving IT with limited visibility into when work actually stops.
- The most common sources of disruption—including network instability, application crashes, device reboots, and battery degradation—are difficult to detect with traditional mobility management tools.
- Organizations absorb significant hidden cost in the form of paid downtime, repeat incidents, unnecessary device and battery replacements, and degraded customer experience.
The purpose of this report is not simply to present data, but to surface a growing operational blind spot—one that directly impacts frontline productivity and business performance.
TL;DR: Quick Summary of This Report
Mobile disruption is frequent and expected
Eight out of ten organizations report frontline workers stop working due to mobile device, app, or network issues at least once per month. More than half say this happens weekly or more.
Most disruption remains invisible to IT
The majority of issues are self-resolved, worked around, or tolerated by frontline workers. When tickets are submitted, they often lack the context needed to identify root cause.
The most common causes are the hardest to detect
Network connectivity issues, application instability, device reboots, and battery degradation account for the majority of lost productivity. These are precisely the areas where traditional mobility management tools provide limited real-time insight.
The cost is material and largely hidden
Paid downtime, unnecessary device and battery replacements, and "no trouble found" returns combine into billions of dollars in lost productivity annually. These costs rarely appear as a single line item, but they accumulate every day.
IT leaders recognize the gap
Nearly all respondents say they need better, real-time visibility into frontline mobile performance. What they are asking for goes beyond configuration and compliance.
How Important Are Reliable Mobile Devices, Apps, and Network Connections for Frontline Workers?
of IT leaders in this year's survey recognize that reliable mobile devices, apps, and network connections are Critical or Important for Frontline Worker Productivity.
Reliability Drives Frontline Business
IT Leaders further acknowledge the critical need for reliable mobile technologies for frontline workers to drive workflows, decision-making, customer service, and ultimately, revenue.
Key Takeaways
- 98% of all IT leaders state reliable mobile devices, apps and network connections in the hands of frontline workers are critical for these workers producing and delivering goods and services to customers.
- IT leaders further acknowledge reliable mobile technology is critical for frontline workers' productivity, decision-making, workflows and delivering great customer service/customer experience to drive revenue.
- Reliability is not just an IT metric, it's an ops and revenue metric too.
What Are Frontline Workers' Experiences As They Use Mobile Technology?
Despite Reliable Mobile Technology Being Critical for Frontline Workers...
frontline workers stop work one or more times each month due to problems with their mobile technology.
stop work one or more times weekly due to problems with their mobile technology.
Frontline Workers' Problems Are Increasing
The graph below shows the percentage of workers over the years of our research stopping work at least once per month because of mobile issues.
| Year | % of Frontline Workers Experiencing Monthly Problems |
|---|---|
| 2019 | 51% |
| 2020 | 67% |
| 2021 | 70% |
| 2023 | 75% |
| 2024 | 79% |
| 2025 | 81% |
Frontline workers' monthly problems up 58% since 2019
Weekly Problems Also Rising
| Year | % of Frontline Workers Experiencing Weekly Problems |
|---|---|
| 2019 | 42% |
| 2020 | 50% |
| 2021 | 54% |
| 2023 | 58% |
| 2024 | 56% |
| 2025 | 58% |
Frontline workers' weekly problems up 38% since 2019
IT Experiencing a Rise in Volume of Trouble Tickets
Perhaps it's no surprise with the rise in frontline workers' monthly problems, but 46% of IT leaders in this year's survey report an increase in enterprise mobility trouble tickets compared to a year ago.
Of IT leaders with this increase, more than 26% reported increases of 10% or more in the number of frontline workers requiring support for their mobility problems.
What Are The Most Common Mobile Problems Impacting Frontline Workers?
- #1: WLAN / Mobile Network Connectivity 82%
The #1 problem for frontline workers is mobile network connectivity issues. With most mobile apps requiring network connectivity, reliable connections are critical for frontline workers. When the network fails for any reason, work often stops and IT struggles to capture network details needed to troubleshoot the problems.
- #2: App Stability 74%
- #3: Reboots 61%
We include app stability and reboots together since they often appear linked in the Digital Experience for frontline workers. The challenge for IT lies in capturing these events as they occur and having the intelligence to correlate and uncover trends and underlying causes.
- #4: Battery Life 60%
Battery life complaints dropped to the fourth slot in this year's survey but has consistently been a top-3 problem for frontline workers over the last 6 years and an ongoing expense for IT to manage as they replace batteries.
If a mobile device's battery cannot last an entire shift, it can mean work stoppage for the frontline worker until the battery can be replaced or charged.
- #5: Broken Device 38%
Despite many frontline workers having rugged devices, broken screens, keyboards, housing and more are common in the field as devices are dropped on concrete floors, pavement and other dangerous elements.
- #6: Lost and Stolen Device 34%
Although this comes in as #6 in the survey results, this is a surprisingly expensive item for frontline workers and IT to manage. The constant need to replace lost devices often represents a significant cost burden for the enterprise to bear.
What Else Do Frontline Workers Experience?
Angry Customers
When frontline workers' mobile tech problems stop them from delivering goods and services, customers often react negatively and may shift brand loyalty.
Stress & Anxiety
of frontline workers in this year's survey report stress and anxiety related to the problems with their mobile device that keeps them from working.
Workers in the survey report concerns like:
- "I rely on it to do my job.. I can't provide good service."
- "My job is at risk.. I won't get paid."
Time Off Work
of frontline workers report taking one or more days off work in the last year to relieve the stress and anxiety caused by mobile tech problems that keep them from working.
This represents costs to the enterprise ranging from lost productivity to increased operational costs to lost revenue.
Key Takeaways
- Despite the critical business need for reliable mobile technology in the hands of frontline workers, the vast majority of frontline workers in our survey report having to stop work one or more times per week due to unreliable devices, apps and network connections.
- The number of problems causing work stoppages is increasing.
- Frontline Workers' Digital Employee Experience (DEX) is poor as they struggle with the stress and anxiety of not being able to do their jobs due to mobile technology issues.
How Do IT/Support Professionals Currently Support Frontline Workers' Critical Need for Reliable Mobility?
IT Leaders Use Various Support Channels
100% of the companies in our IT Survey have support services for workers to report problems with their mobile technology.
Despite these reporting tools, we know many of the problems frontline workers experience are never reported and thus likely go unseen by IT. Reported problems take time to gather, collate, decipher, and determine the scale of the issues potentially affecting other workers.
IT Uses MDM / EMM Tools
Since MDM/EMM tools are usually the only software tool available to IT professionals to support frontline workers and their use of mobile, our survey looks at trends in this space. This year:
IT Struggles with Value of MDM/EMM Tools for Troubleshooting Problems
Less than 1% of IT Leaders say their MDM/EMM tools are giving them the visibility they need to properly find and fix problems frontline workers face with enterprise mobility.
This is no surprise given these tools were designed for change management and are not designed for real-time problem management. Yet this is often the only tool historically available to IT for troubleshooting frontline workers' problems.
*"Less than 1%" is actually 0.38% in the survey
IT Proactively Replaces Batteries to Avoid Problems
8 out of 10 IT leaders surveyed have a program in place to proactively replace all mobile device batteries to prevent future problems.
97% of IT leaders with a proactive replacement program replace the batteries within the first three years of field use, and 85% do so within the first two years.
| Age of Batteries Replaced | % of IT Leaders |
|---|---|
| < 6 months | 3% |
| 6 – 12 months | 22% |
| 12 – 18 months | 33% |
| 18 – 24 months | 26% |
| 24 – 36 months | 12% |
| > 36 months | 3% |
These replacements are usually done without any understanding of battery health to determine if replacement is warranted, thus driving up costs including environmental impacts.
Key Takeaways
- IT uses a variety of tools which allow frontline workers to report their problems as they occur.
- Almost all IT leaders use an MDM/EMM solution to manage mobile devices.
- These MDM/EMM are not providing the visibility needed to proactively find and fix problems.
- To prevent future problems, IT replaces batteries in mobile devices on a set schedule without any understanding of battery health and which batteries actually need replacement.
What Are The Costs of Poor Mobile DEX for Frontline Workers?
Impact of Monthly Mobility Problems
We asked frontline workers to identify the impact the problems with their mobile technology has on their company. These all contribute to higher costs for the enterprise due to the volume of problems frontline workers face monthly and weekly.
- #1: Lost Productivity 64%
- #2: Increased Stress 62%
- #3: Lost Customers 39%
- #4: Increased Costs 39%
- #5: Lost Revenue 34%
- #6: Workers Leaving 29%
Lost Productivity Is Costly
As previously shown in this report, 8 out of 10 workers admit to mobile problems one or more times per month which cause downtime and keep them from working.
85% of IT leaders report it takes 30 minutes or more to fix these problems as they occur.
These minutes of downtime are costly due to productivity loss, increased operational costs, lost revenue and more.
IT Leaders' Average Time to Resolve Problems
| Time to Resolve | % of IT Leaders |
|---|---|
| 30 minutes or less | 15% |
| 31-60 minutes | 34% |
| 61-120 minutes | 40% |
| 121-180 minutes | 11% |
| 181-300 minutes | 0.38% |
Frontline Workers' Average Time to Self-Resolve Problems
While many problems do get reported to IT, many frontline workers admit to self-diagnosing the issues. We asked workers how long it takes to self-diagnose and resolve problems without IT's involvement.
| Time to Self-Resolve | % of Frontline Workers |
|---|---|
| 30 minutes or less | 39% |
| 31-60 minutes | 31% |
| 61-120 minutes | 23% |
| 121-180 minutes | 6% |
| 181-300 minutes | 0.73% |
As shown, most of the problems can be resolved in an hour or less. When the number of problems which occur monthly are multiplied by 30 minutes or more, the costs are significant.
$7 Billion in Paid Downtime, and That's the Conservative Estimate
Annual "lost" wages as frontline workers are paid while they cannot work due to problems with their mobile technology.
Annual productivity loss is a "hidden" cost that dramatically impacts companies.
To study, we took the latest employment and hourly frontline wage data from various government sources, and applied survey data on the number of monthly incidents frontline workers experience monthly.
This estimated annual productivity loss is low as we only assumed 30 minutes of downtime in the calculation. When we distribute the actual downtime percentages for IT to fix problems, the estimated productivity loss per year is 3.7 times higher.
This year's productivity loss estimate increased 5.7% from last year's study.
The Costs of Mistakenly Replacing Healthy Batteries
Over half of IT Leaders admit they replace a mobile device or mobile device's battery as the primary way to troubleshoot battery problems.
We previously saw in this report that 8 out of 10 IT leaders proactively replace all their mobile batteries on a set schedule to avoid future problems.
The result? Almost 9 out of 10 of these same IT leaders admit to replacing healthy batteries that did not need replacing.
| % of Healthy Mobile Batteries Replaced | % of IT Leaders |
|---|---|
| < 25% | 3% |
| 25 – 50% | 23% |
| 50 – 75% | 47% |
| > 75% | 27% |
When you can't diagnose, you replace. Replacing is expensive and could be avoided if IT had the software tools they deserve to better troubleshoot problems as they occur.
The Costs of Mistakenly Replacing Healthy Devices
9 out of 10 IT Leaders admit that devices replaced in the field are often perfectly healthy upon further testing for problems.
Over half of these IT leaders say 20% or more of devices returned are healthy.
Replacing a device in the field can be costly, requiring a level of spare pool inventory of devices and the labor and shipping costs of handling each RMA.
Any time a device is returned that, upon inspection, results in a "No Trouble Found," it means that the device was returned for no reason and at great cost.
The Cost of Being Lost
The problem of lost devices is one finance complains about as they process purchase orders to replace devices and "buffer" or spare-pool stock regularly. Similarly, operations teams see frontline workers often scrambling to locate either their own device which has been left somewhere in the warehouse or on a vehicle.
The incident rate of this problem is high, as self-reported here by frontline workers where 39% of all workers admit to losing their device anywhere from daily to yearly.
| How Often Workers' Device is Lost or Stolen | % of Frontline Workers |
|---|---|
| Daily | 12% |
| 1-2 times per Week | 12% |
| 2+ times per Week | 5% |
| At least once per Month | 5% |
| At least once per Year | 5% |
The time to locate either their own device or a replacement device is a productivity loss as work stops while the worker solves the problem.
When frontline workers lose a mobile device and IT gets involved, they often cannot locate the device and have to purchase a replacement.
9 out of 10 IT Leaders admit some percentage of lost mobile devices get replaced by purchasing a new device.
18.5% of IT leaders in our survey admit to replacing 1-2% of lost devices each year, 13.8% admit to replacing between 3 and 5%, and another 13.8% admit to replacing between 6 and 10% of lost devices.
This can result in significant capital and operating expense which could be avoided with better visibility into lost devices.
Key Takeaways
- Downtime due to frontline workers' mobile issues is frequent and long enough to matter financially.
- The lack of diagnostic visibility tools drives unnecessary and costly hardware replacements.
- The biggest cost is hidden—paid time when work stops.
What Do IT/Support Leaders Want for Better Mobile DEX Software Solutions?
IT Leaders Want Greater Real-Time Visibility
of IT Leaders who use an MDM/EMM want software tools that go beyond their MDM/EMM capabilities and provide real-time visibility and alerts on critical issues affecting end-users.
Instead of reacting to problems after they occur, IT Leaders recognize the value of new tools that allow them to proactively manage any problems with mobile devices, batteries, apps, and network connections.
IT Leaders Want Better Tools
IT Leaders in our survey were asked to rank the areas most important for software tools to support their efforts frontline workers who depend on mobile devices, apps and networks.
- Device Problems Affecting Workers
- App Problems Affecting Workers
- Network Problems Affecting Workers
- Battery Problems Affecting Workers
- Device Usage
- App Usage
- Mobile Data Usage
- Root causes of Mobile Problems
- Predictive problem solving
- MDM/EMM/UEM
Mobile DEX Solutions Are Emerging
The mobile industry recognizes the need for new solutions to provide the real-time proactive visibility required to improve frontline workers Digital Employee Experience (DEX) as they depend on using mobile devices.
A new class of tools is emerging: "Mobile DEX". Solutions are now available from various vendors.
These solutions vary in their depth of intelligence and ability to support a wide range of customers' choices in device manufacturers and MDM/EMMs in a single platform.
Key Takeaways
- IT leaders want proactive, real-time insight beyond what MDM/EMM tools provide.
- IT leaders' priorities for better insights map directly to frontline downtime drivers (network, apps, devices, battery).
- The market is expanding from having just management tools to also Mobile DEX solutions with focus on experience and improving reliability.
Research Methods and Demographics
Geographic Distribution
- 30% - North America
- 70% - UK, France, Italy, Germany & Spain
Company Size
| Company Size (Employees) | % of IT Surveyed | % of Frontline Workers Surveyed |
|---|---|---|
| 500 – 999 employees | 21% | 13% |
| 1,000 – 2,499 employees | 26% | 28% |
| 2,500 – 4,999 employees | 17% | 22% |
| 5,000 – 9,999 employees | 16% | 23% |
| 10,000+ employees | 20% | 14% |
Industry/Sector Distribution
| Industry / Sector | % of Companies |
|---|---|
| Retail / eCommerce | 35% |
| Transportation / Logistics | 29% |
| Manufacturing | 27% |
| Healthcare | 20% |
| Warehouse & Distribution | 18% |
| Field Services | 15% |
| Utilities | 7% |
| Emergency Services / Public Safety | 4% |
Device Types
The Research Behind This Report
The data behind this report is a result of the 7th annual survey conducted in November 2025 by an outside third-party research firm which managed all panel selection and surveys of both IT managers and frontline workers who depend on their mobile devices to do their jobs.
B2M had no influence over panel selection and survey responses.
671 companies were surveyed, located in the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Italy, Germany, and Spain. The size of companies, industry sectors, and geographic splits are outlined in the Demographics section of this report.
All survey respondents were screened for minimum qualifications on company size, number of mobile devices in use in their enterprise, and their job requirements related to mobility.
For IT leaders to participate, they must manage a minimum of 500 mobile devices, and frontline workers were screened to ensure they solely depended on mobile device(s) to do their jobs daily.
Survey results provide a minimum 95% Confidence Level with an approximate 3.78% margin of error for both IT Leaders and Frontline Workers.
To Learn More
About B2M Solutions
B2M Solutions' Elemez Mobile DEX software provides the real-time visibility and control needed to tackle many of the problems outlined in this survey related to mobile devices, apps, batteries, and network connections.
Elemez proactively identifies problems to help enterprises prevent and avoid outages, improve enterprise mobility's reliability, and lower mobility's True Cost of Ownership.
Elemez provides real-time insights on the health and usage of mobile assets via any browser or even via simple API-driven reporting in Microsoft Excel, Power BI or other widely used tools in the market.
Elemez supports Android & Windows devices from Zebra, Honeywell, Panasonic, Datalogic, Getac, Samsung and many other device manufacturers and does not depend on a particular MDM/EMM.
Learn More About Elemez Mobile DEX
Discover how Elemez can help improve your frontline mobile reliability
Visit B2M SolutionsPast Research
You can read past year's surveys by visiting:
www.b2msolutions.com/7th-annual-state-of-enterprise-mobility/
This web page hosts all previous reports and studies if interested.
More About Mobile DEX
Defining Mobile Digital Employee Experience (DEX)
Mobile DEX addresses a growing gap in traditional DEX strategies, which largely exclude mobile-first frontline roles despite their increasing dependence on digital tools.
A Typical Mobile DEX Solution:
- Is an extension of Digital Employee Experience (DEX) to mobile-first, frontline work
- Focused on reliability and availability, not just device management
- Measures real-world performance of mobile devices, apps, batteries, and networks
- Provides continuous, in-context visibility, beyond tickets and self-reported issues
- Detects issues before work is disrupted, not after failures are reported
- Enables root cause analysis across multiple domains, not isolated signals
- Reduces hidden downtime, repeat incidents, and unnecessary replacements
- Helps IT move from reactive firefighting to proactive, measurable reliability
Learn More About the Mobile DEX Market
Explore comprehensive resources on Mobile DEX solutions
Visit Mobile DEX Resource Center