strategic road map for enterprise mobility

Setting a Strategic Road Map for Enterprise Mobility The Bottom Line: The next 3 years represent an acceleration point—a transitional period where companies should begin to transform their limited opportunistic mobility initiatives toward strategic mobility initiatives. Key Concepts: Wireless, mobile, mobility, connectivity Who Should Read: CIO, VP and director of information technology Enterprises Need More Strategic Wireless Initiatives Almost 50% of large US and European businesses have wireless initiatives. But few companies have developed a cohesive plan to support their mobile workforces or remote assets. Instead, most companies are addressing mobility opportunistically rather than strategically. The next 3 years represent an acceleration point—a transitional pe riod when companies should begin to transform their limited opportunistic mobility initiatives toward strategic mobility initiatives (see Exhibit 1). These initiatives will address a broader set of mobility requirements within the organization; represent a tighter, policy-driven approach to the management of mobile solutions; and tie closely into overall corporate business strategy. Exhibit 1. Enterprise Mobility Will Evolve from Opportunistic and Strategic to Holistic Number of Employees, Assets/Impact to the Company Strategic Mobility Holistic Mobility • Addresses large subset of mobile workers • Integrated into most business and IT processes • Common architecture for mobility • Influences work behaviors • Ubiquitous connectivity Opportunistic Mobility • “Policy-driven” approach • Internal and customer- facing activities • Point solutions • Addresses specific • Sophisticated administration and management tools employee classes • Limited extendibility of architecture • Voice, data and integrated services Today + 3 Years 3 to 10 Years 10+ Years Time/Company Evolution Source: Cisco Group, 2006 Opportunistic Mobility as a Starting Point Opportunistic mobility is the use of some wireless or mobile technology that addresses a specific set of workers or a specific business application. It’s found in most large businesses today. Many of these initiatives yield benefits to the organization. However, they are also often limited in scope and not scalable. The following are some characteristics and associated limitations of opportunistic mobility: • Point solutions address one specific application or business need. In many cases, they are a “Band-Aid” approach to mobility, where a solution is rapidly applied to enable one specific application need (e.g., wireless e-mail access, parts ordering in a field service environment). • These solutions address specific employee or asset classes, but don’t consider the broader mobility requirements within an organization. • Mobile architectures may not be extendable to other applications and services. • Projects were initiated before policies were established; and administrative and management tools to enforce policy are limited or not in place at all. • Technology and solution decisions are heavily influenced by users. Opportunistic mobility initiatives are not a bad thing. In fact, they demonstrate the value of mobile and wireless technologies for users and decision-makers, acting as a proof-of-concept. They also can reveal the policy and management issues that IT must deal with more formally as mobility projects expand, and can form a basis for managing these issues. However, companies that have deployed mobility solutions opportunistically often find that they want to do more with mobile and wireless. For example, a business that has deployed BlackBerry devices to salespeople for e-mail access may want to provide access to customer account information by linking back to a CRM application. Or companies that have deployed mobile data initiatives within one segment of their workforce (e.g., dozens of mobile executives) being to understand that their mobile workforce extends to a much larger population of knowledge workers, which may run into the thousands of users. Although many current mobility initiatives focus on groups such as executives, field technicians and other role-based workers, 65% of the 50 million mobile workers in the United States can be considered “knowledge workers.” Currently, only 18% of these 50 million mobile workers have wireless wide-area data access to business applications and information, indicating that enterprises are underserving the needs of their mobile workforces. As initiatives expand to address these larger organizational needs for mobility, companies must take a more strategic approach to mobile implementations. Transitioning Toward Strategic Mobility Several factors are driving the move toward strategic mobility. Increased workforce mobility is one factor. More than 40% of today’s workforce is considered mobile, which is a 10% increase during the past 4 years. Additionally, spending on mobility— principally cellular voice—continues to increase overall telecommuni cations spending, much of which is largely outside of IT’s control. Fifty-three percent of current wireless business voice subscribers are individually liable for their accounts, implying that too much corporate expenditure for wireless voice services occurs via travel and expense reporting. Increased workforce mobility can be attributed to a number of factors, including: • Changing demographics in the workforce demanding a greater work-life balance, encouraged by telecommuting and home- based workers • Globalization of the workforce, which necessitates a more flexible workforce that can adapt to changing multi- geographical demands • New tools and technologies in telephony and wireless communications that enable a more remote workforce So how do businesses begin to move toward strategic mobility initiatives? It’s not an easy transition—and much of it is less about specific mobile technologies and more about establishing clear and comprehensive policies around these technologies. The first step for businesses is to understand where in their organizations mobility issues affect the day-to-day challenges of their business. This becomes a mobility assessment that must consider the full scope of employees, assets and business processes. From there, constituents in executive management, finance, IT, affected line-of-business leaders and end users can establish policies. A company is on the right track toward strategic mobility when its mobility initiatives take on the following characteristics: • Initiatives address a large subset of mobile workers or remote assets. • Mobility is driven by policy rather than by ad-hoc end-user “pull.” • Projects can be supported and policies enforced by more sophisticated administration and management tools. • A broader set of technologies and mobile tools are considered a “mobility package” for end users. This includes integration and coordination between voice, data and remote access services. • Common middleware or software architectures can be leveraged across different mobility services within an organization. Businesses that approach mobility strategically will begin evaluating the broad set of technology tools that workers need while mobile instead of thinking about specific technologies separately. For example, instead of simply considering deploying a smart phone for mobile e-mail access, IT decision-makers may consider a smart phone for immediate access to information combined with a 3G PC data card for laptop remote access, or integrating 3G connectivity with existing remote access solutions that include fixed broadband connectivity options. Additionally, companies should reevaluate cellular voice in terms of considering which devices they can use for both voice and data, and how they can leverage relationships with wireless operators to maximize discounts and company control of all wireless services. Holistic Mobility: The Final Frontier Ultimately, mobility will affect business in much the same way that the internet has. Just as internet technology has become part of the underlying infrastructure for most IT and business processes, mobile technologies will pervade all aspects of an organization’s dealings with employees, customers and suppliers. Some characteristics of the holistic mobile enterprise will include: • Employees will have universal mobile access to information from all IT applications and resources. • There will be ubiquitous connectivity to this information, which will create a network for the enterprise comprising multiple wireless networking types (e.g., WWAN, Wi-Fi, WiMAX) as well as fixed broadband networks. Mobility does not necessarily mean wireless. • Most mobility initiatives will include both internal- and external-facing components. • Work behaviors may change drastically, resulting in time and place shifting, and potentially affecting investments in office space and real estate. Although some firms will be on the cutting edge and will become holistic mobile enterprises, skipping over the step to strategic mobility, most firms will evolve toward this stage in a 10-year period. Recommendations • Conduct a thorough internal mobility assessment as the first step in the move toward strategic mobility. Until businesses understand who their mobile workers are, what their remote access and information requirements are, and what current technologies are out there, they cannot make informed technology decisions. • Let policy dictate wireless technology decisions. Policies around purchasing, security, device selection, application access and spending should form the foundation for the technology choices and vendor selection that follow. Policy will likely change over time as companies better understand the uses of mobile solutions and the challenges that arise in managing those solutions. However, IT policy makers need to put some stakes in the ground early. • Institute more rigid mobile policies to increase control, but flexibility still should be part of the plan. Many innovative uses of wireless and mobile solutions come from the technology end users themselves. Mobile applications should evolve from basic access to information (such as CRM or e-mail) to collaborative work environments and virtual teams. In some cases, this will require IT to let users experiment while still maintaining control. • Understand that the movement toward holistic mobility should be an iterative process. Although some early adopters will jump headfirst into holistic mobility, most firms will find that moving from opportunistic to strategic to holistic is the right evolution. As technologies and the value chain for delivering mobility solutions evolve during the next 5 to 10 years, becoming a holistic mobile enterprise will be an easier transition.
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