Tips for Managing the Onslaught of Mobility at Enterprises

Enterprise mobility is a tsunami that is about to take over IT in the not too distance future if not already arriving at the shore as we speak. In fact, 2014 has been predicted to be the year of great changes in enterprise mobility. Nothing underscores this assertion more than the recent Apple-IBM pact to initiate joint efforts and bring about fundamental changes in the way of enterprises approach mobility.

So what can IT do to better prepare for this sea change? Here are a few tips:
  1. Don't Look at enterprise mobility in isolation: Many mobility endeavors today focus on delivering device-centric apps. This misses the bigger picture of the interconnectedness mobility and building integrated solutions that involve large-scale technology initiatives of cloud, big data analytics and social networks.
  2. Mobility is a strategic initiative: Mobile initiatives spans all lines of business and potentially impact every aspect of the business operation. An overall enterprise mobile strategy must be devised from ground up to avoid duplication of efforts and adoption of disparate and incompatible mobile technologies across the enterprise IT infrastructure.
  3. Mobility transforms workflows & processes: Mobility's impact on the organization is holistic. It can strategically transform workflows and processes creating an enhanced competitive advantage in a marketplace that is rapidly transforming in the dawn of the digital age. Therefore, do not look to adapt mobility to your existing workflows and processes. Instead, allow the technological prowess that is the outcome of mobility adoption to formulate new processes and workflows.
  4. It is all about end-users and user experience: In mobility, the user experience has the last word. Therefore, all initiatives must commence with the end-user in mind. Providing your user base with features you believe would be deemed beneficial is an absolute non-starter. In mobility, the goal is and will always be adoption rates. If users walk away from your app no sooner than it is installed on their mobile devices, then the desired user experience was not delivered. The reason for the cold shoulder is more than likely that the app was probably conceived without iterating end-users within its design and implementation processes.
  5. Security takes on a new meaning: Imagine your laptops and desktop grew legs and started to wander around. That is the added dimension of risk that mobility brings to the table. Furthermore, the connectivity constraints that are inherently part of the mobility landscape complicate back-end integration security challenges. Any attempt at securing communication channels and in-transit data payloads must be properly weighed against the fluctuating bandwidth within public networks that are the mainstay of mobile apps roaming the landscape. 
Needless to say, any one of these five bullet points can be expounded upon and properly analyzed within the context of currently emerging technologies that are altering the mobility landscape on a daily basis. But what is crucial to keep in mind is that developing an organic enterprise mobility strategy that comprehensively addresses these points is essential to creating success in mobility adoption for the modern enterprise.

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