Having a defined enterprise mobility strategy is becoming a priority for many firms, according to a new study from research firm IDC, as CIOs realise the capability of mobile apps to transform the performance of their company. The IDC study claims that this shift will lead to the mobile enterprise application platform (MEAP) market in Western Europe growing at a CAGR of over 25 per cent over the next five years. "Despite an uncertain macroeconomic climate, European mobile enterprise application deployments accelerated in 2011 as businesses looked to enhance customer engagement, business processes, and employee productivity through greater strategic enterprise mobility within their firms," IDC analyst Nicholas McQuire said in a statement. IDC believes that the increasing complexity of building and purchasing mobiles enterprise apps, together with the need for mobile security and application life-cycle management, will encourage businesses to adopt a platform approach to mobilising apps within their firms. Release