Is Social and Mobile Collaboration a Thing for the Enterprise?

This week I have been working with companies in the Benelux on social and mobile strategies.  Today, I met with one CIO who says they have done POCs (proof of concepts) with three different social collaboration platforms, and each time the projects failed to catch on and be used by employees.

I also recently read a ZDNet article that included an interview with Jive's CEO Tony Zingale.  In this article, "Zingale acknowledged that the failure rate on social software that's merely flipped on and expected to work wonders is 'pretty high.'  He adds, 'You have to learn how to be social and collaborate.'"

How does a company learn to be social and collaborate? Is this a technology issue or a change management issue?  We as individuals have jumped into the social and collaboration scene pretty easily.  We use Facebook for ourselves and our soccer clubs.  We tweet and use Dropbox to share all kinds of files, we use email distribution lists to organize school events, and we follow our friends and business contacts on LinkedIn.  The big question, however, is where does a business receive value from incorporating "social collaboration" internally?

My analysis is that business "collaboration" is an absolute requirement.  Mobile communications, smartphones and tablets have brought real-time data and real-time interactions to us all.  We receive real-time news, updates and business intelligence that enables us to make real-time data driven decisions no matter our location.  However,  we don't work in isolation or in a vacuum.  We still often need other people's input, recommendations and feedback.  It is a logical next step to have the capability to collaborate in real-time - to form a real-time and mobile collaboration group that can discuss and debate an issue, make a plan and act via mobile devices.  This capability is just as important when working with family, soccer clubs, friends, employees, customers or partners.  

Today, we all collaborate, it is just done badly.  We schedule 10 individual's entire day around a conference call that is often irrelevant or dominated by only a couple of opinionated people.  A great deal of time is wasted and little collaboration happens.  A better use of time and talent would be to create a collaboration session, and schedule a time period (e.g. 1-3 hours) to collaborate on a topic.  Invitations are sent, and people can share their thoughts and opinions back and forth during the designated collaboration period.  They can collaborate when it is convenient for them.  They can collaborate while listening in on endless conference calls.  They can conduct research and return with a thoughtful opinion.  They can fit their collaboration around customer calls and meetings.

Collaboration is a requirement for business.  The question is simply how to best collaborate, and what platforms and mobile technologies are best suited to help us.  


Kevin Benedict, Head Analyst for SMAC, Cognizant
Read The Future of Work
Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict
Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility
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.

Social and Mobile Rocking Organizational Charts and Processes

Yesterday in my research on enterprise mobility and social businesses, I came across two statements that I want to share with you.  They are from the book Social Business By Design.
  1. The impact of new social models and enabling tools, combined with the means to employ them effectively (think mobile), are remaking the landscape of business, society, culture and government.
  2. Social business is one of the biggest shifts in structure and process of organizations in business history.  It taps into entirely new sources of creative output (everyone on the network...mostly mobile), relinquishes structure that reduces productive outputs, and inverts methods of traditional control and decision making in work processes (as anyone on the network can contribute).
I don't think most businesses are yet aware of how transformational the SMAC (social, mobile, analytics and cloud) wave really is.  In my SMAC strategy workshops I compare this wave to a tsunami.  It does not care if social collaboration and enterprise mobility are budgeted in your three year plan, it is happening today, budget or not.

The Arab Spring, sprung without warning.  It was inspired by a shared situational awareness and organized by social networks and collaboration platforms.  We see similar flash responses to Bank of America raising service fees, and Netflix and Instagram changing their policies.  The world is a different place in 2013.  Companies must recognize the impact of real-time news and information flowing 24 hours a day around the world on mobile devices.  They must adapt their methods, operations and communication strategies to meet these new realities.

Companies can no longer control their brand or communications.  The crowds on social networks now control your brand and communications.  If you wish to influence the crowd, you must listen, engage, have a plan and a philosophy on how to participate.

This new reality significantly impacts how companies must address the needs of their employees, customers, prospects and partners.  People no longer look to the manufacturer or to the corporate office for answers, they ask the crowd on the social networks.  The sentiment of the crowd is where truth lies today, whether it is true or not.

Companies that seek to control all information and communications lose credibility in today's world.  Today businesses must be active members of the online community and be willing to participate in conversations about their business, products and services.  They must apologize when they make mistakes, thank the community for constructive feedback and share both good and bad on the networks.  Companies that embrace this social business concept will develop a community of loyal followers.

I am a long time enterprise mobility guy.  I default to thinking about moving data out to mobile apps and collecting data to sync back into an enterprise system.  The efficiencies are important in these scenarios, but today's SMAC developments are far more impactful and transformational.  They aren't just about efficiencies, they are about a revolution in business.
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Kevin Benedict, Head Analyst for SMAC, Cognizant
Read The Future of Work
Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict
Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility
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.

Speed, Change and Mobile Banking

I am reading an interesting book titled Bank 3.0 by Brett King.  In this book King discusses the revolution and upcoming demolition of traditional banks in light of mobility.  Here are some interesting numbers from the book:
  • In 1980 - credit cards took 14 days to approve, personal loans 7-14 days, home mortgages 30+ days.
  • In 2008 - credit card were instantly approved, personal loans pre-approved/24 hours, home mortgages 24 hours.
The increase in speed between 1980 and 2008 was primarily the result of the internet evolution and e-commerce.  Now jump forward to 2013, and mobility is the cause of the next increase in tempo.  People with mobile devices want instant access to their personal account information.  They want their business relationships and shopping experiences to be wonderful, convenient, digitized and instant.  

My wife is my guide in this area.  She wants a great mobile app from any company we work with.  She directly associates the brand quality with the mobile app quality.

We are quickly coming up on a time when banks need to completely rethink their purpose and retool.  Many of us receive our paychecks electronically.  We receive and pay our bills electronically.  We use debit and credit cards for most transactions, and checks are nearly obsolete.  This is the digitization of banking.  The less cash we use, the less need for ATMs, and the less need for bank buildings. 

Our mobile banking apps become our bank, and banking is a service that is offered by our mobile apps.  Research shows we access our banking information many times more in a year via a mobile app than through our bank branch.  The unstoppable trend is already here.  

King points out in his book, that once banking becomes "unhinged" from a physical building, banking becomes a "thing" that can be offered by many different kinds of companies.  Suddenly banks find themselves competing with a new and massive number of different companies offering a variety of traditionally bank only services.

Traditional banks need to immediately understand the mobile app is the new bank, and services will include mobile banking, mobile payments, e-wallets, financial services, advice, social interactions, guidance, gamification of our financial plans, Big Data comparisons with others in our demographic etc. Competition will come from companies far outside of traditional banking circles.
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Kevin Benedict, Head Analyst for SMAC, Cognizant
Read The Future of Work
Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict
Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility
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.

Mobile Devices, Management Structures and SMAC, Part 4

Today Blackberry announced their new Blackberry 10 platform.  It sounds very interesting as it integrates social networking, enterprise security, dual personas, and more.  Here is an excerpt from an article written by Steve Costello, "At the heart of the new OS is the BlackBerry Hub, an integrated contacts and social networking app with support for Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.  Messages and updates can be read and posted without the need to leave BlackBerry Hub, and contact information can be viewed regardless of the app in which it is stored."

In a series of articles that I have written this week titled Mobile Devices, Management Structures and SMAC, I have shared my views that the SMAC stack (social, mobile, analytics and cloud) is a combination of technologies that as a combined foursome are transforming the world of business today.  You can download and read a great whitepaper on this subject here.  This announcement by Blackberry further solidifies my views.  Mobile and social supported by the cloud are embedded into the very operating system of the new Blackberrys. 

The article goes on to discuss support for dual personas in mobile devices, "It also supports the BlackBerry Balance feature, which enables users to switch between private and work profiles, with the ability to run both personal and work apps at the same time while keeping corporate data secure and encrypted."  I read corporate data to mean things like business analytics and other enterprise data and mobility apps.

Blackberry (they re-branded from Research in Motion/RIM to just Blackberry now), recognizes how important personal mobile devices are to people (think contacts, personal calendars, mobile wallets, photos, Facebook, mobile banking, etc.).  They seem to have embraced the BYOD trend and delivered a solution to address both personal and enterprise concerns.

In the book Grouped by Paul Adams, there is a very good line, "The web is being fundamentally rebuilt around people, because our online life is catching up with our offline life."  Blackberry seems to get this message and has delivered an operating system designed to accommodate it.

Read the rest of this series here - Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3.
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Kevin Benedict, Head Analyst for SMAC, Cognizant
Read The Future of Work
Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict
Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility
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.

The Pitfalls of Real-Time Mobile Commerce

Today I bought my wife an iPad mini.  It was to be a surprise.  On an alleged trip to the grocery store, I instead drove to the Apple store at the mall.  I ran into the store, gave the specifications that I wanted, the bearded Apple sales guy swiped my credit card with his wireless iTouch, and handed me the iPad mini.  I thanked him and ran out to my car with the present.

Moments later as I was leaving the mall parking lot my wife called.  She had just received an email, on her iPhone, with the receipt from the Apple store attached.  Hummm... I hadn't thought of that.  Seems we have a business account at the Apple store with her email address associated with it.

Real-time mobile commerce removes friction from the business process.  Sometimes, however, a little friction is good.

The geostrategists Paul Virilio studied Dromology - the science of speed.  He particularly studied the impact of speed on societies, processes, culture and people.  Today Apple's speed impacted me.









Kevin Benedict, Head Analyst for SMAC, Cognizant
Read The Future of Work
Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict
Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility
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.

Mobile Devices, Management Structures and SMAC, Part 3

I just finished a book titled Social Business By Design by Dion Hinchcliffe and Peter Kim.  I recommend this book to anyone interested in the impact SMAC (social, mobile, analytics and cloud) is going to have on your industry, market and company.  Mobile devices have empowered social networking platforms for both consumers and the enterprise.  The SMAC stack is shaking up retailing, banking, healthcare, media, government, insurance, etc.  Industries that are primarily about information will experience the biggest initial impacts of this transformation.
Figure 1.

One of the insights I gained from this book is the impact social enterprise collaboration tools and internal social networking platforms can have on management structures.  In Figure 1, a typical hierarchical organizational chart is depicted.  Ideas and innovations that come from the people at the bottom of the chart, where most people are, have a great deal of trouble moving up and it can take a long time to move up.  At each level there is a gatekeeper.   This gatekeeper, has his/her own agendas, political considerations, priorities, limited time, poor memory, and communication challenges.  Many good ideas and innovations simply die with these gatekeepers.  The potential economic costs due to inefficient and slow communications in this model is enormous.  Just think about how many innovations, good ideas and problems could be quickly solved if the right people with the right knowledge could be instantly notified and involved.

In Figure 2 you have a simple illustration of an organizational chart when a social networking site, or social enterprise collaboration platform is involved.  Anyone can share an idea with the entire group.  The idea can be openly discussed, debated and voted on.  Innovations and ideas get their fair consideration.  In this model, the power in the organization is not dependent on the gatekeepers and titles people have had bestowed upon them, but with those that have the best ideas and answers.

The people with the best ideas and a willingness to share in social networking environments gain a reputation and credibility that raises their social power, or as one social media vendor calls it "Klout."  The power structure changes when information is in an open social democracy.

SAP's SCN (SAP Community Network) is an example of the power of social networking and collaboration tools in use.  Here is a description of its purpose and value as described in the book Social Business By Design, "The goal was to enlist customers and other interested parties to come together online and share ideas and solve problems. In this way SAP could engage and mobilize the people who were smartest about using its products in the field. Customers could then work together directly and exchange valuable knowledge."

Note that many problems SAP users have, can be more quickly and efficiently resolved by other users on the network.  This helps the end user, and reduces support costs on SAP.  It is a win-win.  The more time that goes by, the larger the database of answers and useful content grows which just increases its value for the entire community.

SAP is one of the first companies to identify specific ROIs from implementing social collaboration platforms.  Again from the book Social Business By Design, "SAP cites SCN for improving customer retention, creating efficiency, and driving top-line growth and revenue."

Let's now reflect on the role of mobile devices in this process.  In days gone by, the people with the power were those "in" the corporate office. Those actually physically in the building.  Slow and tightly controlled communications that followed the hierarchy of the organizational chart meant often the powerful needed to be in the room where data was available and decisions were made.  However, in today's mobile and social world, where the most knowledgable people, and those with the most "social" power and influence in the company are often traveling and spending their time with customers, prospects and partners, mobile access to important data, social networks and collaboration sites enable them to continue to provide value to the company and to the community from anywhere.

Mobile technologies are enabling the abstraction of power from a management hierarchy, or a building location to wherever there are the best ideas and people are willing to share them.  That means the corporate power structures have now been digitized, mobilized and socialized.  If you want to be somebody in the company, you will need to be somebody on the social networks.

Enterprise mobile vendors must now add to their portfolio's tools and APIs that will enable them to connect with and support social enterprise collaboration and social networking sites.  They must think beyond just delivering business process specific mobile apps, and now integrate with the larger social enterprise collaboration strategy and conversation happening in companies.

Read Part 1 of this series here.
Read Part 2 of this series here.
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Kevin Benedict, Head Analyst for SMAC, Cognizant
Read The Future of Work
Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict
Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility
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.

Mobile Devices, Management Structures and SMAC, Part 2

Last week a gentleman called asking my advice on mobile CRMs.  We discussed the size of his company and the specifics of his needs, but then he said something that was profound.  He said, "I don't think I need to collect and update a lot of contact information in the CRM these days, because it is all available online on social networking sites."  It is true!  I can track down just about anyone in seconds on my iPhone.

Today, if someone gets a promotion or changes job status, we can see that instantly on LinkedIn.  We can stay connected no matter if his work phone number and email changes.  The social and mobile CRM is upon us.

I was reading an Aberdeen report this week on SoMoCo (social, mobile, cloud) trends.  Here are the reasons companies said they are embracing the social CRM in particular:
  • Converse with customers on channels preferred by them (66%)
  • Provide information to groups of customers (54%)
  • Monitor customer sentiment (47%)
  • Collect customer feedback without solicitation (31%)
In addition, 66% of companies surveyed said they are using social channels to collaborate internally on customer issues.  My next article will explore how using social collaboration platforms and mobile devices used internally are changing the nature of management.

Also, I just finished a book entitled Social Business By Design that was quite enlightening.  I will be discussing this book and how it relates to mobility later in the week.

Read Part 1 of this Series here.


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Kevin Benedict, Head Analyst for SMAC, Cognizant
Read The Future of Work
Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict
Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility
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.

Mobile Devices, Management Structures and SMAC, Part 1

One of the best whitepapers I have read in a long time is, Don't Get SMACked - How Social, Mobile, Analytics and Cloud are Reshaping the Enterprise.  What I particularly like about this paper is its courage in predicting the future and exposing trends that most people may not yet be tracking.  I am a mobile guy, and mobility is deeply integrated into all aspects of SMAC (social, mobile, analytics and cloud).  Without mobility, many of the trends identified in this paper simply would not be happening.

Here is an excerpt, "The vast majority of Global 2000 companies currently manage through a command-and-control hierarchy.  However, millenials prefer to work in heterarchies instead of hierarchies.  What is a heterarch or "wirearchy" as it is also called? It is a dynamic network of connected nodes (most often connected via mobile devices) without predefined priorities or ranks." ~ Don't Get SMACked, Future of Work, Cognizant, November 2012

If you work in a big company and are in a hurry to find an answer, would you rather contact a person with the right title, or a person with the right answer?  Most of us would choose, "The person with the right answer!" Wouldn't you?

The following excerpt discusses power in terms of where the most emails are sent, not just where the titles lie, "In these networks [wirearchies], status is earned through knowledge and a willingness to share... the organizational chart may represent bestowed power, while the e-mail chart may represent earned power."  What does this mean?  It means the real powers in an organization are with those who know things and are willing to share them, not just the people with the titles.

SMAC trends are changing the very manner in which organizations operate.  SMAC is not only shaking up management structures and the way companies operate, but also countries and world politics.  Yikes!  I for one, as a political science major in college, find the SMAC trend to be a fascinating one to watch evolve.

I recommend companies developing an enterprise mobility strategy today, spend some serious time understanding the SMAC trend and how the mobility platforms being considered can help your organization support and evolve with this trend.

Read Part 2 in this series here.
Read Part 3 in this series here.
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Kevin Benedict, Head Analyst for SMAC, Cognizant
Read The Future of Work
Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict
Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility
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.

Mobility, Location, Speed and Refugees

In today's world of fast paced project management, simply knowing a location on a map where something is supposed to happen is not good enough - we need to know a location-in-time, what is happening there (status), and who or what (resources) are present there and how this information is going to impact future plans.  This information is particularly important when you are managing projects, with time constraints, and organizing events and meetings across a wide geographical area.

The key planning concept here is - location at a point-in-time.  If I ask, where was the bus located on the route? You would likely respond, "At what time?"  The same response could be used for the question, "Where will the bus be?"  Time and location are necessary for planning current and future events and activities.

This week my family is experiencing and struggling with location and time.  Several families from our church have adopted a refugee family from the Congo and are helping them to survive, integrate, adapt and ultimately thrive in their new country.  The family consists of a mother and three children.  We are learning so much!

The mother doesn't speak English, doesn't have work, doesn't have a home, doesn't have money, doesn't have an income, doesn't have winter clothes, doesn't own a watch, doesn't have a working mobile phone, doesn't have a car (Boise, Idaho has limited public transportation) and has kids in school. The family has a busy schedule of appointments with social services, English classes, buses, school schedules and medical appointments.  Wow!  It can at times seem overwhelming.  There are many dozens of appointments all at different times and locations.

Yesterday, one of our support team went to pick up the refugee mother for an appointment and she could not be located.  Yikes!  There were appointments to keep, language classes to attend, school buses to catch and kids to track.  We ultimately found her and got the day back on track, but I was again reminded of how important it is to have mobile communications and location knowledge.  It is very difficult to keep things organized and on schedule without these.

Mobile technologies, location information and social collaboration platforms can provide enormous productivity gains and an increased speed of work or operational tempo.  Time, status and location data, and the ability to share this knowledge, enables one to accomplish a great deal more in a given time.

To appreciate the full value of these solutions, just try to track and monitor a refugee family with three children, on different school schedules, no permanent home, and dozens of weekly meetings all across the city, while not leaving them stranded and freezing to death in zero degree (F) Boise, Idaho weather.

Our team has learned and experienced much over the past few weeks and we are better for it.  With the constant use of mobile communications, DropBox and collaboration websites, plus a lot of love and commitment, our team has managed to keep them alive, so far.

Yesterday I thought to myself, I should buy the refugee mother a mobile phone (iPhone or Android) with Google Latitude.  That way she could download Swahili translation software, keep a calendar, have a clock with an alarm, voice or text us, email, see a map, view the bus schedule, FaceTime, conduct conference calls with a translator, Skype with her friends overseas, plus we could know her location.

Then I woke up from my fantasy.  That would probably be too much in the beginning.  Many companies just getting involved in mobile technologies would also be over their heads if they tried to implement too much all at once.  It is a learning process.

We decided to start with a basic mobile phone with text messaging, but I still dream and look forward to introducing more mobile technologies into this effort.  It has reminded me of how valuable mobile devices and mobile apps, and the information received as a result of them, are to all of us.
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Kevin Benedict, Head Analyst for SMAC, Cognizant
ReadThe Future of Work
Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict
Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility
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.

Soti, Enterprise Mobility and the Changing World of MDM

I had the opportunity to be briefed by the MDM  (mobile device management) vendor Soti a couple of weeks ago.  The briefing gave me a glimpse into the changes happening in this space.  In days gone by when the mobility projects I was involved in were all about rugged handhelds and bar code scanners, MDM vendors like Soti were critical, not so much for mobile security, but for their ability to help debug mobile device problems in the field.

In 2006 nearly all enterprise mobility apps were custom.  Every app deployment was complex and time consuming.  MDM vendors like Soti provided the remote access and monitoring of mobile devices that app developers needed to understand bugs.  Mobile devices had so little memory that running out of memory was a common problem.  In order to solve this problem, either the user would need to bring in the device, or software from companies like Soti would allow you to remotely access, control and debug the device.  This enabled the helpdesk to discover and resolve problems while leaving the device to be productive in the field - a useful and cost effective solution.

When your custom mobile app was the only app on the device, and there were only a few hundred users, there were much fewer security concerns.  Today security is a huge concern, but MDM vendors have stretched out way beyond just mobile security.  Here are some of the areas that Soti just announced:
  • Web Filtering
  • Real-Time Antivirus/Malware Protection
  • Mobile Help Desk Suite
  • Telecom Expense Management
  • Secure Content Library
In this article I use the common acronym MDM, but most vendors in this space have moved beyond this term.  Soti today uses the term Enterprise Mobility Management to cover the full range of capabilities.

Another interesting development is that MDM or EMM is now for more than just security conscience companies.  Many of Soti's deployments these days involve mobile devices in schools.  You can understand the connection to web filtering and real-time anti-virus and malware protection given this environment.

Mobile security concerns today have evolved beyond just smartphones.  Vehicles, equipment, smart homes and appliances all have the ability to wirelessly communicate today.  It will be interesting to continue to watch how this industry evolves.
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Kevin Benedict, Head Analyst for SMAC, Cognizant
Read The Future of Work
Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict
Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility
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.

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