Getting smarter about mobility

Here are some scary numbers for IT managers trying to develop a mobility strategy. Over 800 million workers across the Asia-Pacific region (excluding Japan) will be considered mobile by 2015. That’s more than a third of the total workforce in the region, with 38% of workers being out of the office for two days each week. Will you be ready?

We recently suggested five tips for your mobility strategy. In that, we said that many of the solutions CIOs are currently deploying are interim measures that are “filling a gap until businesses re-architect their infrastructure, systems and processes”. IDC’s Dustin Kehoe recently told us at IDC’s Enterprise Mobility Briefing that they believe enterprise mobility will work across a seven-piece value chain.

The seven elements they identified were end users, applications, devices, connectivity, security, middleware and infrastructure.

Kehoe said that with end users one of the challenges is that “each of the end users has a different goal with IT”. This isn’t purely driven by their business needs but is also driven by their experience and personal expertise. That will make it hard to develop a ‘one size fits all’ delivery model.

With devices, different hardware lends itself to different uses. For example, while Kehoe identifies email as the ‘killer app’ for smartphones, he suggests that it’s videoconferencing for tablets. We’re not sure about that. In our view, the overwhelming benefit of tablets over notebook computers is the capability to be instantly on and connected so that data can be easily accessed and delivered.

The conundrum is further complicated by the variety of different operating systems, intermittent connectivity and variety of locations end users have access to. According to IDC, by 2015, many workers will be carrying as many as five devices with them. In their view, the MDM solutions that are currently available will struggle to keep up with those needs.

Our networks are currently built around the idea of firewalls that physically and logically isolate systems from unwanted access. Kehoe said “you no longer need a firewall-centric approach to your enterprise because the firewall is based upon everyone being based in one physical location”.  The other consideration is that constant connectivity is no longer the expected state of users and devices.

This change drives all the way into application development. IDC’s research into mobile application development reveals that the key drivers in the development of mobile applications are focused on delivering outcomes to customers rather than increasing revenue and decreasing costs - traditional drivers of application development. The key business driver according to 31% of respondents to a recent survey was improved customer service with business intelligence and salesforce automation the most deployed mobile applications according to over 50% of those surveyed. Almost three-quarters said that better customer management was the most anticipated outcome.

Like all major transitions, the shift to mobility will present a number of challenges to the CIO. What can you do?

1. Don’t try to take what you are doing today and shoehorn it into a mobile device.
2. Don’t limit your thinking on mobility so that it’s a management problem. Think of mobility as a business opportunity.
3. The push to increased mobility is a reflection of changed business models. Is your delivery model still aligned with the business model?
4. Does your security model help or hinder the business deliver services to customers?
5. Think about how to balance the need to maintain corporate compliance with the flexibility staff now demand and expect.