Enterprise Mobility is a sexy term these days – Technology analysts, software companies, service providers and cloud providers are all using this term. It is rare to see the hype not living up to the reality but, in this space reality is far exceeding the hype.
While there are a lot of people talking about Enterprise Mobility, views on what this space stands for are in silos; Some think Enterprise Mobility to be overly relevant to BYOD, others feel it has a lot to do with security on mobile devices used within the enterprise, and yet some others feel it relates to employee access to enterprise applications through their smartphone or tablet. At PopcornApps, we believe Enterprise Mobility is all of this and then some! Our definition of mobility in the enterprise
Deploying enterprise process(es) on a secure and reliable mobile channel accessible to employees, customers and/or partners, enabled through a app or browser without the need for the user to use anything else but their smartphone or a tablet device.
Based on this definition, we believe the enterprise mobility space encompasses Mobile App development, Security, Business process enablement, role based access, integration to enterprise and 3rd party applications, User Interface design, User Experience design, Analytics & Insights, integration to Device and App Management platforms, testing, and application deployment to public and private app stores.
Many aspects of what is considered traditional IT – enterprise software development, hardware/cloud infrastructure, APIs, integration buses, user security, SSO, load balancing, testing should be elements of a well thought through Enterprise Mobility initiative.
As might be evident, the mobility journey within an organization is not about one app, it is about a portfolio of applications which cater to various constituents and stakeholders. Following the key considerations listed above will help you realize the following:
ROI for a mobility project should be looked at with the following criteria in mind:
We recommend building analytics into the apps – not only to track app usage and in-app user behavior but also capture business metrics. For e.g. time to complete a workflow/function, app function usage categorized by user/function. Analytics will provide you insights on improving key business metrics.
Not just one app
Mobility is here to stay and the change organizations have to embrace is ‘Think Mobile First’ and remember this is not about one app but likely an app portfolio.
