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Enterprise Mobility - A Business or IT Strategy?

by Kevin Benedict

January 30, 2012

In my Enterprise Mobility Survey 2011 (September 2011) I asked survey respondents the following question, "How important do you view enterprise mobility to your company's future success?" 80% said enterprise mobility was "very important" (36%) to "critical"(44%) to their company's future success. With these numbers it seems mobility is an area worthy of significant brain energy.

Another survey question on the same survey asked, "What are your company's motivations for wanting to deploy mobile apps?" Here are some of the answers:

79.1% said increase productivity

48.6% said improve customer interaction and service

43.4% said reduce costs

41.7% said achieve competitive advantages

The results of this survey clearly highlight how important enterprise mobility solutions are to a company's business. However, some companies are still treating enterprise mobility as if it were an IT
issue. That is simply wrong thinking. Who makes competitive advantages, customer service, productivity and cost reductions the responsibility of the IT department?

I meet with large enterprises either via phone or in person weekly. Finding good mobile technologies are no longer the main challenge. The biggest challenge in enterprise mobility today is getting the business to understand what is possible with mobile technologies and designing a business plan to take advantage of it.

First, the business must understand mobility so they can identify how their business models, strategies and processes can be improved by using mobile technologies. Once the business has identified what they want to accomplish using mobile technologies, then it is time for the IT department or third-party experts to identify the mobile technologies, frameworks and infrastructures necessary to achieve the business' goals.***Upcoming Webinar of Note: HTML 5 vs Native Mobile App Development: Practical Insights, The VDC Research Report on Mobile Development Strategy. February 2, 1 PM EST Register Here!

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