The mobility bug has well and truly bitten Enterprises worldwide. The appeal is obvious - the growing computing capacity of mobile devices has ensured that remote locations where data is produced can now become the place where this data is processed also. Enterprises gain because of:
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- Efficient data capture
- Faster and better reporting
- Better information distribution
- Integration across locations
- Better collaboration
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The case for enterprise mobility now made the next question is what exactly are the areas where the enterprise should focus its mobility efforts on? Based on our experience of enterprises making the mobile move there are the following distinct types of enterprise mobility initiatives:
- Making enterprise solution accessible from mobile devices: Think about email - while an indispensable tool in the running of any enterprise, it did not necessarily suffer because of a lack of mobility. It could be argued that by making email accessible from mobile devices the core functionality of the offering was not significantly affected only that the channels people were able to now utilize to access that very same functionality multiplied significantly. The mobile development effort here is primarily in ensuring that an un-diminished functionality is available when someone chooses the mobile channel.
- Extending the use of an enterprise solution to remote locations: Think of a supply chain solution in the days before mobility and this point will become obvious. Here the focus is on enhancing some key portions of the solution by leveraging the full computing power of mobile devices at the remote locations. The supply chain solution was clearly sub-optimal in the days before the mobile – solutions like this that can add significant utility by bringing data capture and processing at remote locations into their fold were early adopters and continue to be key supporters of the enterprise mobility way. The mobile development effort here is focused on designing the entire functionality from the ground up to ensure that the full capability of the mobile world is leveraged to open up all available new vistas for the solution while still retaining the backend logic.
- Mobile first: The new generation of enterprise mobility apps is designed for a world that is rapidly moving towards being mobile-only. These next generation enterprise mobility apps are being designed to take advantage of the superior intelligence of the mobile phones and their complete integration into the cloud. This plays right into the needs of the enterprise of the future that is itself spread out across multiple locations and operating zones. These apps will reside primarily on the mobile and find clever ways of utilizing platforms, technologies and connectivity to deliver the business benefit that the enterprise solutions of the future will demand.
The enterprise mobility world is changing at astonishing pace – all we can do is to stay tuned for the next big wave and hope to ride it.
