Enterprise Mobility: Is it a Winning Proposition in 2015?

For years, enterprise mobility was related to email, some flashy apps and corporate-issued devices. And during this phase, most organizations considered mobile as simply an extension of the desktop. But now with corporate mobility momentum picking up, companies are beginning to realize the potential of mobile more strategically by understanding varied business contexts and embracing a persona-guided approach. This evolved mobile approach addresses the needs of all user profiles effectively inside (better employee productivity) and outside (better customer engagement) the organization.

Let’s have a look at what Mary Meeker (also dubbed as the “Queen of the Net”) has to say about mobile internet usage. As per her recent predictions, mobile internet usage is picking up noticeably faster than desktop internet usage did and by 2015, “more users will connect to the internet over mobile devices than desktop PCs.” Businesses that will catch up on this trend will win, and those that overlook it will lose.

Mobility isn’t just an add-on capability; it’s much more than that. It encompasses apps, and devices, software platforms, architectures and databases. As an enterprise, you can’t continue with your piecemeal methodology for managing the mobile environment any longer. Since every persona (employees, customers and partners) represents a unique context, the mobility needs are diverse.

The IBM survey of 600 companies across 29 countries unravels an astonishing fact – only 50% of the companies (with more than $500 million in annual revenues) have comprehensive, strong mobile strategies in place to address the challenge of mobility implementation and leverage mobile opportunities fully. Enterprises, should, therefore start looking at mobility through a persona-centric lens and adopt a holistic mobile business model to drive high performance and gain competitive advantage.

Out with the Old

Mobile revolution has completely gripped the IT landscape and blended into nearly every aspect of your business. This ubiquity of smartphones, tablets and other mobile devices and consumerization of IT have urged enterprises to adapt to a dynamic environment in which they need to support employees, customers and partners – all with unique set of mobile requirements. Hence, it’s critical for organizations to incorporate all key drivers of mobility into their strategy to optimize the required business functions and applications.

Enterprise (B2B and B2E) vs. Consumer mobile applications

Technology and market forces are the two important factors that drive enterprise mobility. With enterprise mobility focusing on front-user interfacing apps, many brands have switched on from traditional emailing to addressing the end user’s mobility needs with persona-based mobility solutions.

With multiple mobile personas for enterprises to handle, enterprises have a gargantuan task of crafting mobile strategies and applications for different platforms and programming languages.  44% of U.S. enterprises are mainly focused on building mobile applications for native devices (e.g., iOS, Android, Microsoft), and 39% that are focused on mobile web development.

To address the mobility needs of each persona, enterprises need to understand the various user profiles and their relationships and behaviors w.r.t different business processes (like talent management, sales, delivery, etc.) and subsets. There is a huge difference in developing and deploying mobile capabilities for enterprise-based and consumer-based relationships.

 

 

 

 

 

Enterprise Mobile Applications

• Not commonly found in app stores; most enterprises get their own apps built
• Built to run on all platforms -Android, iOS, Windows, and BlackBerry
• Utilitarian; simplify the business processes
• Loaded with ultimate security features (passwords, encryption/decryption, MDM)
• Native or cross platform (facilitating BYOD) compatible mobile apps
• Focus on boosting employee collaboration and productivity, targeted marketing
• g., CRM apps, marketing and analytic apps, sales force automation, collaboration apps, technical computing apps, payroll apps, etc.

Consumer Mobile Applications

• Easily available in app stores
• Built to run on all platforms -Android, iOS, Windows, and BlackBerry
• Packed with emotional designs to attract customers
• Loaded with generic functions and data
• Standalone app or integrated to a backend
• g., Social-based applications, combined mobility applications, geo-mapping services, edutainment apps, mobile wallet, etc.