Are You Acting Strategically Enough with Your Enterprise Mobility?

Are you acting strategically
enough to matter?

I read the following question recently, "Are we acting strategically enough to matter?"  I remember the question, because I believe it is so important for us all to answer.  It is a question all IT and business people should be asking themselves!

In this picture of charging elephants, would it really make a difference if you took a baby step to the left, right, forward or backwards?  Probably not!  The only way to save yourself would be to do something strategic and fast!

I see enterprise mobility in a similar way.  How long are large enterprises going to engage in tiny proof of concepts before they do something big!  The mega-trends of SMAC (social, mobile, analytics and cloud) are not going away.  The faster companies recognize these are absolutely market and industry altering trends and begin to do something smart about it, the better.

I read a very interesting interview with Silicon Valley veteran and investor/celebrity Marc Andreessen the other day.  Here are some of his candid technology and trend predictions:

• Nothing is going to stop the consumerization of the enterprise. 
• Nothing is going to stop the BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) trend. 
• Nothing is going to stop Software-as-a-Service. 
• Nothing is going to stop the cloud. 
• Any installed software, where there is a web or a cloud equivalent, is in real trouble.  Old software vendors are charging these huge upgrade and maintenance prices. Companies can switch to SaaS for less than the cost of the maintenance on the old software.

Do you agree with him?  I mostly do!  I think BYOD is really BWITUICS (bring what I tell you I can support).

I was teaching a SMAC strategies workshop the other day in Edinburgh, Scotland.  The large global financial services company I was meeting with had an "Innovation Team" consisting of members of the business and IT members.  This team was tasked with recognizing market and industry impacting trends on the horizon and having a plan in place to address them.  They invited me to come in and share the results of my research on enterprise mobility and SMAC.  

I believe all companies need to have some team in place watching the horizon and developing responses to emerging opportunities and threats.  These days demand foresight and courage.  Does your company have them?

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Kevin Benedict, Head Analyst for Social, Mobile, Analytics and Cloud (SMAC) Cognizant

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Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I am a mobility and SMAC analyst, consultant and writer. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.