The Mobile has made its arrival into our lifes and it seems to be taking over its territory inside and outside of enterprises. Smart phones shape the landscape of our daily life and each industry. 56% of American adults are now smartphone owners. (Source: Pew Internet & American Life Project, 2013) , 75% of Americans bring their phones to the bathroom. (Source: Digiday, 2013) . Clients expecting to hove access to companies services from mobile devices, and employees are bringing them to work. All of them want to access different type of services from home and while driving cars, and … continuously.
What is the outcome of this revolution? Just a lot of challenges to business and IT departments. Companies need to figure out the right mobile strategy to follow. Mobility, in the current shape, can be defines as an interaction between people and data (and big data) in a social context of the internet, assumming cloud infrastructre behind it in many cases. And the traditional IT strategy, without specific focus of the mobile context is not enough.
The way how people access the internet has changed dramatically over last years. The purposes of using internet changed too. In late 2013 the number of mobile devices surpassed the number of people on the Earth. Nice statistic. We know that the majority of these devices have access to the internet. Companies realized that the act of just ‘being online’ is enough any more. Having the website is not the answer for upcoming challenging digital wave.
What is the most important that the technology, and it’s expected use is no longer defined by the business in the social world. It is driven by users, by their expectations, preferences and needs.Many companies are trying to show their presence in the mobile space, and to check as marked this area. But they are going for it without long term strategy, and which is worst without understanding end users experience. Based on the IDG Research survey only 18% of companies have a comprehensive enterprise strategy. But the 71% of senior IT leaders see mobile as transformational. They see and understand the potential in this.
Why is mobility so important? In fact, it is not just about mobility. Mobile strategy is “must have” requirement because we are facing digital era. Mobile is one of the areas under the digital transformation space, together with social media & network, cloud, internet of things, location based services, analytics (including in memory analytics, cognitive learning and deep learning). Here we have to whole picture of dependencies, where the new areas can come too. Without that context, mobile device will be just a phone. The potential of all these capabilities closed and ready to use from smart devices is enormous.
Important – YES. Challenging – TOO.
All we know that this transformation is unstoppable. Worldwide combined shipments of different types of devices – including PCs – are projected to reach 2.5bn units in 2014 based on the Gartner prediction. But for PCs alone, shipments fell 10% last year. And similar decline is expected this year.
Good example where mobile services disrupt industry is payment area. 43% of respondents to Ovum’s Consumer Insights Survey chose banks as their most trusted mobile payments service provider. But what is more important new players arrived in this space, with highly competitive offerings comparing banks, and other financial institutions driving new users experience, and winning the market. Facebook is joining the mobile-payments race with remittances and electronic-money services on the social network. Retailers know that prices for payment processing are high. And many niche companies want to take these fees providing alternative solutions. And still, electronic payment market is underpenetrated even in mature countires.
Security changes much. More new services offered through mobile channel, means more treats and fraud possibilities. But also security methods change. Apple again set another major benchmark in the mobile space with the iPhone 5S fingerprint sensor. It received substantial marketing buzz and positive reception from customers. 52 % of smartphone users want to use their fingerprints instead of passwords according to research run by Ericsson. More importantly, by mainstreaming biometrics, Apple and Samsung have opened new horizons for both end users and manufacturers. Biometric smartphones will become majority in the close future.
How to onboard mobile strategy into enterprises?
To address a right strategy for the overall organization companies need to answer following 4 big questions:
1. Where and how I would like to be present in the Mobile world?
2. How to gaining user attraction and engage them?
3. How assure security for users and company’s data?
4. How effectively manage devices, their interactions with internal IT infrastructure and with end users?
During the series of articles I will elaborate in more deep form on each of those aspects. Talking about just a mobile strategy from the enterprise point – it is not enough. For me it is more of a digital strategy in which the mobile channel and mobile devices play an extremely important role.
karolina marzantowicz 