Mobile Doesn’t Matter – But Strategy Does

Enterprise mobility is a top priority for CIO’s and CTO’s globally. Consumerisation of IT, BYOD and ‘users doing it for themselves’ has become common plan in organisations whether the technical department are aware of it or not. Mobility is at the pointy end of these trends with users bringing their own devices, own applications and own attitudes to managing risk.

Although Mobile is getting a lot of interest at the C-Level, in the next few years, ‘mobile’ won’t matter. It will simply be the norm. We no longer talk about what network we use, we no longer ask for Wi-Fi enabled laptops and we no longer talk about the ‘internet’.

These things are simply part of the fabric of our lives. We assume their availability much like we assume the light switch will work.

Enterprise mobility is revolutionising the way that we work, how we engage with clients, purchase, learn and relax. Organisationally we are seeing major vendors re-orienting their product and service offerings towards ‘mobile first’ even if the connection is tenuous. Enterprises are beginning to see users modifying business processes in new dynamic ways with the support of mobile applications that are not under the control of IT to the point where 40% of mobile budgets are now controlled by line of business.

All of these changes are occurring rapidly making it difficult for enterprises to implement an effective strategy. In a recent study of 600 business globally IBM/Oxford Economics discovered that only 50% of enterprises ($500 mil revenues and above) had a mobile strategy that is aligned to business.

Of those organisations that have a well-crafted and enterprise aligned strategy, 73% reported measurable returns from mobile investments. More importantly surveyed organisations saw mobility as a potential strategic differentiator against their competition (44%) while 90% indicated further increases in their current investments in enterprise mobility.

Enterprises that implement global best practice for mobile governance through the development of a Mobile Centre of Excellence (MCoE), as a cross functional team, find that enhancing innovation and managing risks is significantly enhanced in terms of both speed and precision.

Productivity is a critical driver for organisations as they embark on mobilising their enterprise. Although progress is slow as businesses lay the foundations of their mobile strategy, acceleration is expected within the next three years.

When mobility becomes status quo and ‘mobile’ no longer matters, mobile enabled users will have become the common consumer of enterprise resources. Navigating this inflection point effectively requires a well-crafted enterprise aligned mobility strategy. Those that fail to do so will miss out on the best and brightest, lose market share and find they have to invest aggressively to catch up with their peers.

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Justin Roche is the General Manager of MSC Mobility’s Consulting Team specialising in Enterprise Mobile Strategy and works with enterprise and government clients to develop enterprise mobile strategies, policy responses to enterprise mobile use and mobile application strategies. If your organisation is challenged with enterprise mobility, contact us today.