Mobility Evolution

Formulating a consistent approach to mobile app development is the key to achieving success and attaining desired results. In mobility, success more often than not is equated with a high level of user adoption. To achieve a high rate of user adoption, the following three principles/steps can be closely adhered to: Deliver a Minimum Viable Product: Once again, this idea harks back to the motto of this blog site: In mobile, there’s a big premium on creating single-purpose, first-class experiences. (Mark Zuckerberg)  The emphasis is on 'single-purpose' which narrows down the app's focus and makes 'first-class experience' a reality that is within the grasp of the deliverable.  Use Analytics Metrics to Measure Adoption Results:  Using a Mobile Back-end as a Service (MBaaS) vendor to gather analytics data, granular tracking of the user adoption metrics is imperative to finding out what is and is not working when the app is engaged in the field. The analytics data is to...

More than 85% of respondents in a recent Gigaom Research survey are either working with a third-party MMS vendor or are actively considering or are willing to work with one in the future. Only 13.6% said they would never consider outsourcing their MMS services. The remarkable propensity of enterprises to want to outsource MMS is astonishing in and by itself. Cormac Foster of Gigaom Research offers a plausible explanation: How can you outsource a competitive advantage? I made a few phone calls, and the answer is, “because everyone else is doing it wrong.” Enterprise mobility is an absolute mess, so mere competence can put you ahead of the pack. Foster also states: Outsourcing mobility is getting easier as vendors move security off the table. This is because of enhanced security within the newer releases of Android & iOS and commonly used enterprise apps such as MS Office downplays the need to MMS to get involved in mobile security. Here is the link to the Gigaom Rese...

Today, many industries are gravitating toward mobility adoption in a comprehensive fashion. But for some industries, like foodservice, mobility adoption is going to bring about an undeniably fundamental transformation. Here are some key emerging trends as mobility penetrates foodservice in a big way: 1. Mobile Payments: Just imagine being able to order and pay for your food via a mobile device and pick it upon your arrival. Gives 'fast food' a whole new meaning. It is now 'ready food'. Wholesale adoption of mobile ordering and payments by the foodservice industry will undoubtably result in increased revenue stream as consumers will come to expect a significant reduction in prepared food order and pickup time. 2. Digital Restaurants: My now school-aged kids will probably be telling my yet-to-be-born grandkids of a time when waiters and waitresses walked up to the table to take their food orders at a restaurant. This conversation about a quaint practice will take ...

Viral Shah, Mobility Architect & Strategist from Kellogg Company gave an interview at the 2013 Enterprise Mobility Exchange conference in Miami. I was impressed by some of his key enterprise mobility experience take aways: User Adoption Justifies ROI: The emphasis in mobile is not necessarily some quantifiable contribution to bottom-line. User adoption is really the metric to focalize on. User-friendly is now User Delight: In mobile we are seeking the 'User Delight' experience. This is an important distinction because mobile users are highly prone to totally disengage given a less than ideal experience. Take Baby Steps: Enterprise mobility is very complex . An incremental approach to adoption is an imperative element in ensuring a successful outcome. Focus on User Needs: Although this seems like an intuitive concept, more often than not the common approach revolves around providing users what IT thinks or believes users need.  Create a Common UX: A nebulous conc...

With a myriad of choices available today, transmigration of enterprise computing platforms to mobility presents an increasingly complex landscape for enterprises to thread. Chris Marsh, a principal analyst with Yankee Group’s enterprise research group aptly summarized this conundrum as following: " All of our survey data points to a rise in the proportion of enterprises finding managing the complexity of mobile very difficult – not just a challenge, but very complex . Part of the reason for this is because as a nascent industry there are way more stand-alone point services than there are truly integrated solutions – off-the-shelf apps and 3rd party app stores, EMM services, API management tools, development tools and application platforms, analytics platforms, QA & testing tools to name but a few categories. This is alongside an already often very complicated estate of legacy enterprise IT infrastructure and services, little of which is mobile-friendly. Patching this mish-ma...