Mobile Expert Video Series: Damien Moriarty

I am in Sydney, Australia speaking at the Cognizant Community Sydney 2013 conference and meeting with companies and SMAC (social, mobile, analytics and cloud) experts this week.  In this short video, I interview veteran mobility expert and International Delivery Manager for Retriever Communications, Damien Moriarty about how their roots in industrial grade mobility give them a unique approach to mobility.

Keep your ears open for the unique way Australian children's voices can carry throughout an entire hotel.

Video Link: http://youtu.be/jB32iQC9Etc




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Kevin Benedict, Head Analyst for Social, Mobile, Analytics and Cloud (SMAC) Cognizant
View Linkedin Profile
Learn about mobile strategies at MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com
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.

Digital Transformations - The Crossroads Model: Winning with Code Halos

Books and Reviews
Three of my colleagues here at Cognizant, Malcolm Frank, Paul Roehrig and Ben Pring, are writing a new book on the subjects of SMAC (social, mobile, analytics and cloud), digital and business transformations, and successful strategies for navigating through them.  The concepts in this book resonate with me.  I see enterprise mobility and B2C mobile app strategies as key components.  In this article, we get a sneak preview from the book.  

Several weeks ago we outlined the concept  of “Code Halos™” – aka our digital fingerprint – and discussed how   “personal” Code Halos are migrating into enterprise computing. We also analyzed the areas in which “organizational” Code Halos are changing what businesses do and how they do it.
In this post we advocate how Code Halos create a repeatable pattern of disruption across a wide range of industries; by studying this pattern we have developed a business model – the Crossroads Model™ – to help business and technology leaders understand the impact Code Halos have on winning and losing in today’s fast digitizing global markets. We also provide a “playbook” for executives to win in the new “code rush” and avoid the “extinction events” that so many once great corporations, from Kodak to Newsweek, have experienced in recent years.

A New Prism for Understanding Digital Disruption Has Emerged 

In studying the rise and impact of Code Halos, we’ve recognize that vast industry transformations – and the resulting violent value migrations – in books, movie rentals, mobile phones, insurance, consumer goods, newspapers and travel services have all followed a similar pattern. This pattern is what we call the Crossroads Model. As companies and industries have experienced events explained by the Crossroads Model, three key events have occurred.
  • The winners built Code Halos at an “atomic” level — oriented around people, processes, products and organizations — to create new value and experiences. The losers largely ignored the possibilities of deriving meaning from data, customer intimacy and the value of code, and instead continued to work on creating economic value primarily through the leverage of physical assets.
  • Once Code Halos formed and grew in value with more data, they led to industry transformations that followed a very consistent pattern. Each industry shift has particular distinctions — whether in timing or the formation of particular Code Halos — but in each case, roughly 80% of the same model has remained consistent.
  • The shift happened quickly. Once these trends were underway, the industry landscape shifted very quickly; there was almost no way back for companies that overlooked opportunities leading up to their particular Crossroads decision.

The Crossroads Model consists of five key stages:

  • Ionization: A fertile context for innovation. The combination of changing economic pressures, enhanced customer expecta¬tions and new technologies creates a context and environment for the establishment of Code Halos and related new business models.
  • The Spark: Where Code Halos collide and business changes. Once Code Halos emerge, associated algorithms are then developed. New ideas and offerings are then formed, based on the intersection of Code Halos. An innovative “Spark” then quickly reshapes processes inside the enterprise, as well as at the customer interface.
  • Enrichment: Turning a Spark into a blaze. This is the period where Code Halos — if created and managed correctly — grow in both the numbers of users and the value of data by orders of magnitude, giving rise to new products, processes and models for value creation.
  • The Crossroads: Where markets flip. This is a compressed period of time — often between one and three years — where industry leadership shifts. At the Crossroads, Code Halos have reached critical mass and are creating new customer expectations and economic models. This drives a rapid, sometimes violent, swing in reputation, revenue and market value.
  • The New Code Rush (or Extinction Event). No going back. After the Crossroads, companies have two widely divergent paths, with significant momentum (both positive and negative) that is extremely difficult to reverse.
The Crossroads Model — Ionization, Spark, Enrichment and the Crossroads — has played out in a dozen-plus major industries, and we believe it will play out in many others in the coming years. . For example, upon Amazon’s IPO in 1997 — in spite of the lofty valuation that the consumer e-commerce pioneer achieved amid the Internet bubble and its resulting over-inflation of value — Borders and Barnes & Noble were collectively eight times the value of the online retail giant, with roughly 50 times the revenue and 100 times the customer base. As Amazon quickly enriched its understanding of Code Halos, consumer e-commerce entered the Crossroads in 2002. By 2005, Amazon was worth twice as much as Borders and Barnes & Noble combined, and had equaled both retailers’ customer count (in similar markets such as book, movie and music retailing) and associated revenues. Just five years later, Amazon was worth 100 times more than Borders and Barnes & Noble combined, and had driven Borders to bankruptcy. Barnes & Nobles’ struggles, meanwhile, recently deepened amid the sudden resignation of its CEO (who championed its underperforming Nook e-book reader) and word that the company is pursuing a radical restructuring.

In this period of generational transformative change more and more leaders concur: They see enormous opportunities for organizations that get Code Halos right (Apple, Google, GE, Disney, etc.); and feel pain for those whose leaders get it wrong (Borders, HMV, Blockbuster, etc.).Organizations that optimize their Code Halos across all dimensions and permutations will more effectively negotiate the Crossroads divide, heading onward and upward toward market prosperity. 

Read more about Code Halos and the rules for successfully managing the Crossroads at www.unevenlydistributed.com.
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Kevin Benedict, Head Analyst for Social, Mobile, Analytics and Cloud (SMAC) Cognizant
View Linkedin Profile
Learn about mobile strategies at MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com
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 Expert Video Series: Greg Donaldson

I had the honor of interviewing a brilliant entrepreneur and SAP mobility expert, Greg Donaldson yesterday in Sydney.  I love his thinking.  He doesn't need to conquer the world, he just wants to provide SAP users with great mobile apps, in the cloud, for a low cost.

Video Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDC1WQrRFuE&feature=share&list=UUGizQCw2Zbs3eTLwp7icoqw


Kevin Benedict, Head Analyst for Social, Mobile, Analytics and Cloud (SMAC) Cognizant
View Linkedin Profile
Learn about mobile strategies at MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com
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.

Kevin Benedict on Enterprise Collaboration and Business Transformation

I am in Australia this week speaking SMAC (social, mobile, analytics and cloud) and meeting with companies to discuss their strategies.  In this short video, filmed on the beautiful beach in Manly, Australia, I share on enterprise collaboration strategies.

Video Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fofJ4FhAbMc&feature=share&list=UUGizQCw2Zbs3eTLwp7icoqw



*************************************************************
Kevin Benedict, Head Analyst for Social, Mobile, Analytics and Cloud (SMAC) Cognizant
View Linkedin Profile
Learn about mobile strategies at MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com
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 Eight Rs of Enterprise Mobility, Opportunity Costs and Strategic Investments

It is true that enterprise mobility is about the eight Rs - getting the right information, to the right person, at the right time, in the right place, in the right amount, on the right device, in the right format so they can make right decisions, but there are even more benefits.  Enterprise mobility can also be about saving money that can be invested more profitably in other places.  Let me share a real-life scenario:

A large distributor of consumer package goods and fresh food, with many delivery trucks would often run out of inventory that customers along their routes would request when the drivers arrived.  These requests represented potential sales that could not be captured because the products were not available in the trucks.  The end result was sales were not being maximized.

What were some possible ways to solve this problem?
  1. The distributor could reroute the delivery trucks back to the warehouse to load more product, but that would delay deliveries to other customers, potentially reducing both service quality and sales while increasing costs (time, labor, fuel, maintenance).  
  2. The distributor could open more warehouses so inventory would be available closer to routes and customers.  The challenge would be increased costs.
  3. A process of delivering (with more trucks and drivers) unscheduled orders could be developed.  The problem, however, would be the additional expense to set-up and operate it.
  4. The distributor could ignore their customers' request for last-minute product sales, and open up an opportunity for competitors to capture this business.
How did enterprise mobility solutions help solve this challenge?  We helped the distributor by implementing real-time communications and inventory systems on their mobile devices, GPS tracking and real-time scheduling solutions that enabled a few roving trucks full of commonly needed inventory to meet-up with multiple delivery drivers and top-off their inventories (JIT, just-in-time) along their routes without delaying them from their scheduled deliveries.

The distributor improved customer service and sales with limited investment.  They also prevented their competition from making inroads.  They used a limited investment in technologies (enterprise mobility solutions) to get products to the right customers at the right time without spending all of their investment funds.  The mobile solutions enabled them to NOT have to make massive investments in more warehouses, trucks, labor and infrastructure so they could make smarter investments in other places.
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Kevin Benedict, Head Analyst for Social, Mobile, Analytics and Cloud (SMAC) Cognizant
View Linkedin Profile
Learn about mobile strategies at MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com
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.

Wearable Devices, Mobile Apps, Sensors and Clothing Companies

Nike FuelBand
As I was working this morning I become annoyed that my Nike FuelBand kept rubbing against my MacBook Pro keyboard while I was typing.  The Nike FuelBand is my first wearable (M2M or IoT) device.  It is a bluetooth enabled sensor inside a wristband.  The sensor has an accelerometer that records the level of activities you participate in during a 24 hour period.  When you press a button it syncs its recorded data with your iPhone.  The iPhone in turn uploads the FuelBand data into your Nike account in the cloud.

Once the data enters your mobile app on the iPhone and/or your account in the cloud, it analyzes it against past and future activities, recorded goals and other measurements.  On nearly every screen you are encouraged to be social, and to share your activity data with friends, family and the Nike social family.  There is also a whole lot of gamification going on.  You can escape and survive all kinds of dangers presented in a game on the Nike cloud site by keeping your activities up and meeting your goals.

One of the challenges, however, is the Nike FuelBand does not have a GPS tracking system (although your iPhone does), nor does it know you are engaged in certain activities like riding a bike, either on the road or a stationary one.  There is no method for manually entering activities that are not easily monitored by the Nike FuelBand.  I solved a few of those problems, after a little research, by integrating the Nike FuelBand app and account, with my Nike Running app (which uses my iPhone GPS capability).  I could then precisely track times, distances, paces and routes. Both the FuelBand and the Running app are integrated through my Nike cloud account so they can both access the same data and monitor my activities accurately.

I was, however, still faced with the problem of recording and tracking exercises and activities that are not accurately captured by the Nike FuelBand or the Nike Running app on my iPhone.  I eventually discovered a solution, however, by finding that I could integrate my Lose It! mobile app with my Nike cloud account as well.  Lose It! is a great app for manually tracking calories consumed and exercises completed.  Lose It! does not have its own hardware or sensors, but integrating it (a simple check box) with my Nike cloud based account enabled it to share data I manually entered, and for the Lose It! app to read and integrate sensor data from my Nike Running app and my Nike FuelBand (wearable sensor).

Let's review the components:
  • iPhone and GPS sensor
  • Nike FuelBand (bluetooth enabled accelerometer sensor in a wristband that communicates with your iPhone) to monitor activity levels
  • Nike Running iPhone app that uses the iPhone GPS to track distance, speed, pace, etc.
  • Nike cloud based account to aggregate, analyze, report on and archive the data
  • Lose It! iPhone app that enables you to manually enter foods/calories and exercises.  It can be integrated with your Nike cloud based account so exercises, activity levels and running data can be more accurate and shared.
I believe the wearable mobile device and exercise/activity apps market will mature and these disparate capabilities will soon converge into a single wearable device and a full functional app.  Today, however, us early adopters have the fun of discovering their limitations, reviewing each update, and finding work-a-rounds.

It is quite interesting to me, that a clothing/shoe company, Nike in this case, is so involved in high tech sensors, mobile hardware, cloud based solutions, social and gaming platforms and analytics.  It is the beginnings of the digitization of clothing.  I know Under Armor is also deeply involved in these digital transformations.

These clothing companies understand that their brands are increasingly going to be judged by the quality of their digital presence, rather than just the quality of their physical designs and materials.  It is a different world that we live in today.   One that we should all be pondering.



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Kevin Benedict, Head Analyst for Social, Mobile, Analytics and Cloud (SMAC) Cognizant
View Linkedin Profile
Learn about mobile strategies at MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com
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.

Personal SMAC Strategies in Action!!

I took inventory of my personal SMAC (social, mobile, analytics and cloud) environment this morning while sitting in a coffee shop next to the Boise river.  On Tuesday I recorded and published my first Google+ Hangout On Air.  I interviewed mobility expert Bob Egan using our MacBook Pro video cameras and Hangout On Air, YouTube streamed it live and then automatically posted the recorded version to my YouTube channel.  Wow!  Implementing SMAC strategies, even at the micro-level, is empowering!

Boise foothills
I am reading a book on military strategies now called Maneuver.  In this book it identifies "force projection" as one of the benefits of workforce mobility and maneuvering.  Force projection means the ability to extend one's influence over great distances.  This is often enabled through the strategic use of high tech assets.  I would add to that personal SMAC assets.

While sitting in my office in beautiful Boise, Idaho, I used a social platform, Google+, their social collaboration and web conferencing platform Hangout, plus its integration with YouTube (Hangout On Air) to stream live all around the globe.  The cost of all these capabilities - free!

That is cost effective "force projection" from Boise and Cape Cod.  Bob and I were able to share our experiences worldwide using cloud based tools.  These tools are all connected to Google Analytics, Blogger Analytics, YouTube Analytics, etc.  Google+, Hangout, YouTube and Blogger all have mobile apps.  Our work was all mobilized without any effort on our part.  These kinds of tools allow even the smallest businesses to expand and project their force/influence globally.

I am spending much of my time these days discussing mobile and SMAC strategies with business leaders.  If I, sitting in my little office in Boise, Idaho, can benefit from SMAC strategies, just think how large multinational companies can!



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Kevin Benedict, Head Analyst for Social, Mobile, Analytics and Cloud (SMAC) Cognizant
View Linkedin Profile
Learn about mobile strategies at MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com
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 Banking, Mobile Payments and Digital Transformations

I read with interest (no pun intended) an article today titled, The Future of Mobile Payments and Banking, from Cognizant's banking and financial services expert Tony Virdi.  In the article he identifies a number of mobile and digital trends he is seeing in 2013 including:
  • Changing consumers behaviors and demands are driving transformation within the banking and payment processing industries
  • The volume of digital (mobile and Internet) banking transactions is growing exponentially
  • The role of the bank as a physical venue or outlet has changed as most transactions are moving online or mobile
  • Digital bankers [I read mobile/Internet bankers] are rapidly becoming the new power base
  • Retail banks are increasingly dedicating discretionary budgets to investments in digital solutions
  • Banks can increase their wallet share and income by offering more and better digital services
  • Banks are increasingly focused on m-commerce as a means of both providing better customer service as well as enhancing their top lines
  • Smartphones are now payment acceptance device (via Square, PayPal, etc), which reduce the time to bring on board new merchants and also reduces the cost of transaction
  • Customers expect to instantly personalize banking products (via mobile apps and the Internet)
  • More UK online shoppers are using debit cards than credit cards in 2013 according to the UK Cards Association.  That is a significant industry change that banks need to ponder.
  • New mobile payment services will enable instant, secure payments from bank accounts via apps, bridging ecommerce, mCommerce and extending into payments made directly in a retail environment
  • New UK service in 2014 to enable people to send money via smartphone to anyone holding a bank account in one of eight participating banks. Payments will be routed via their mobile number linked to their sort code and account number in a database. 
  • Smartphones used as payment acceptance devices provide an entirely new platform for loyalty-based programs to be developed and implemented
For more on digital transformations in the banking industry read http://mobileenterprisestrategies.blogspot.com/2013/07/banks-mobile-technologies-and-smac-part.html.


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Kevin Benedict, Head Analyst for Social, Mobile, Analytics and Cloud (SMAC) Cognizant
View Linkedin Profile
Learn about mobile strategies at MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com
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, The Internet of Things and Code Halos

Each of us are surrounded by our digital choices, preferences, activities, history and experiences that are captured as data and analyzed by the systems and websites we use.  Why did Google, a company known for its search engine, develop a mobile operating system?  They recognized the importance of mobility, and the fact that we would be accessing all things digital through these devices.  They wanted to optimize their ability to collect data and analyze it through mobile devices and the mobile web.

Here is a recent excerpt from an article written by Ben Pring on this subject, "What one key characteristic separates today’s high-flying outperformers – such as Apple, Google, Amazon, Netflix and Pandora – from fast-followers, wannabes, and laggards? It’s a precision focus on the information that surrounds people, organizations, products and processes – what we call Code Halos ™."

My colleagues Malcolm Frank, Ben Pring and Paul Roehrig recently recorded an excellent short video on this subject to help us understand the role of "Code Halos" on the web, in mobility and the Internet of Things.

Video Link: http://youtu.be/XYwiDJ7UWHo



To read more about SMAC (social, mobile, analytics and cloud) strategies and trends, Code Halos and other mega-trends click here, or visit my article library on these subjects here.



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Kevin Benedict, Head Analyst for Social, Mobile, Analytics and Cloud (SMAC) Cognizant
View Linkedin Profile
Learn about mobile strategies at MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com
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.

Banks, Mobile Technologies and SMAC, Part 3

This article is Part 3 in a series on Banks, Mobile Technologies and SMAC.  Click here to read Part 1 and Part 2.

In this article my colleague Peter Abatan, a Mobile Technology Consultant and banking expert with Cognizant, shares his insights into the digital transformation happening in the banking industry.  This transformation reflects new and innovative business models, the rapid adoption of mobile apps for banking, social media and other cloud based solutions.  In this article Peter and I discuss P2P (peer-to-peer) lending services and their potential integration with Internet based and mobile banks.

P2P lending sites are part of the emerging digital transformation happening in the banking industry. Their purpose is to provide higher returns for investors/savers, while using SMAC (social, mobile, analytics and cloud) based technologies to help find lenders for people/companies that may not meet a traditional bank’s criteria for lending.  They are a in effect, match makers.  They are the match.com for people wanting to lend money for higher returns, and people or companies wanting to borrow it.

P2P lending sites can be risky, however.  There is little protection for investments.  If you invest and a borrower defaults on their loan, your money is at risk.

According to the P2P Finance Association this market sector is growing at a rate of 250% per year, but not all are successful. In December of 2011, P2P lender Quakle became insolvent and many lost their investments.

I believe the logical evolution of this market is for P2P lenders to evolve into, or integrate with Internet/mobile banks.  As an Internet/mobile bank, P2P lenders would be able to expand their products  and services into things like mortgages and insurance to compliment money lending services.

P2P lenders as Internet/mobile banks, will be in a good position to compete with traditional brick and mortar banks as they can offer better rates on savings and other investment tools, plus they will likely have a lower operational cost.   Lower operational costs are the result of not needing to maintain traditional banking processes like check processing, money handling and logistics, large numbers of employees, bank branches and physical security services.


*************************************************************
Kevin Benedict, Head Analyst for Social, Mobile, Analytics and Cloud (SMAC) Cognizant
View Linkedin Profile
Learn about mobile strategies at MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com
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.

Banks, Mobile Technologies and SMAC, Part 2

This article is Part 2 in a three part series (read Part 1 and Part 3)

For those that missed Part 1, Peter Abatan, my colleague at Cognizant and a banking industry and mobility expert, has been sharing his thoughts on trends in the banking industry.  The following points come mostly from his email messages to me and his blog articles.  He believes Internet and mobile banks will create increasing competition for traditional banks for the following reasons:

  • Checks are quickly becoming obsolete.  In fact, the UK plans to phase out checks by 2018.
  • Internet and mobile only banks will not issue or process checks; instead they will offer alternatives by which you can make payments. This reduces their operation costs.
  • People are carrying less cash than they did 5 ago.  That makes ATMs less important. According to the Financial Times (FT), UK consumers did nearly 10% less shopping with cash in terms of monetary value, in 2012 than in the previous year. FT goes on to say that the use of debit cards and newer methods such as PayPal are making gains compared to the use of cash. If ATMs are needed, Internet and mobile only banks can always join existing ATM networks so that members can withdraw cash.
  • Internet and mobile only banks will be able to pay more attractive interest rates because they have few or no branches and fewer employees to support.  This is a significant competitive advantage.
  • P2P banking (peer-to-peer), NFC (near field communications) and contactless payment adoptions are on the rise: The number of retail outlets that receive small payments through contactless technology is on the rise, at the same time P2P payments, using mobile apps like Barclays Pingit, are increasing in popularity and enabling users to transfer a limited amount of money to another person or business without going through a traditional bank.
  • P2P lending may become the killer app in the banking industry. This is where Internet and mobile only banks can excel. These technology-focused banks can provide P2P lending services, by matching lenders, borrowers and satisfactory interest rates, then charging a fee that will enable them to provide higher ROIs for their customers.  

*************************************************************
Kevin Benedict, Head Analyst for Social, Mobile, Analytics and Cloud (SMAC) Cognizant
View Linkedin Profile
Learn about mobile strategies at MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com
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.

Banks, Mobile Technologies and SMAC, Part 1

The mega-trends of SMAC (social, mobile, analytics and cloud) plus IoT (Internet of Things/Connected devices/M2M) are changing entire industries.  I am being asked frequently now to meet with IT and business teams to review how SMAC and related trends are impacting various industries so companies can better plan to meet these transformations.

My colleague at Cognizant, Peter Abatan, is both a banking expert and a mobile technologies expert.  Recently Peter has been sharing his thoughts with me on the topic of how SMAC (social, mobile analytics and cloud) trends are impacting the banking industry.  Here are some excerpts from our exchanges:

  • Bank branches are predicted to see diminishing foot traffic (visits per branch) at a rate of 8-10% each year for the next 8 years.  People are using mobile apps in increasing numbers rather than visiting branches for routine banking tasks.
  • Given the popularity of mobile banking apps, the banks with the smartest and most responsive mobile banking infrastructure will have a competitive advantage.
  • If banks do not quickly evolve and educate their customer base on the advantages of mobile banking and digital transformation, other competing banks will, and they will use it to their advantage.
  • Traditional banks are feeling an increasing pressure to transform because their current size, structure and legacy IT environments prevent them from adapting rapidly enough to meet new challenges and to address the changing behaviors in the marketplace.  Many banks will become smaller and more nimble as a result of these pressures.
  • Social media impacts the way banks sell and market their products.  People talk about their banks, the service levels they receive and the price of service fees. If a bank tries to sell a customer the wrong product, provide poor service or charge a higher than appropriate service fee, then the customer’s network of contacts will learn about it quickly.
  • Crowd-funding platforms like Crowdcube and KickStarter are offering higher returns on investments than traditional banks.  This is an emerging threat to traditional banks.  These crowd-funding platforms have far lower cost structures to maintain than a traditional bank with branches and labor intensive sales and marketing channels.
Read Part 2 of this article series here.



*************************************************************
Kevin Benedict, Head Analyst for Social, Mobile, Analytics and Cloud (SMAC) Cognizant
View Linkedin Profile
Learn about mobile strategies at MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com
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.

SMAC Ready Enterprise - Changing Tides in Enterprise Mobility

Over the past few months I have noticed a change in the enterprise mobility space.  Cloud mobility, once a distant vision, now seems to be a mainstream topic.  I have seen a shift from companies believing it necessary to set-up their own internal mobile platforms, mobile infrastructure and mobile security, to looking first to cloud based mobile environments, and then secondly, if not finding their requirements met, moving to the traditional on-premise solutions.  I have seen a great deal more flexibility from MADP (mobile application development platform) vendors with their tools and business models.

I am seeing an increasing reluctance by enterprises to purchase million dollar MADPs even before there are apps to use.  Companies are happy to pay based on realized ROI, but hesitate to invest upfront.

I am seeing an increasing awareness of mobile security needs, but again, companies are now seeking first cloud based mobile security solutions to see if their needs are met there, if not, they look at on-premise options.

I am meeting with companies that have completely moved to cloud based Google Apps, Android and Google Enterprise solutions.  They feel they can better centrally manage and secure their company communications and data through Google Enterprise.

It seems to me as the enterprise mobility market matures, it is also rationalizing.  Early adopters were willing to navigate difficult business and licensing environments, implement expensive POCs and experimental solutions, but today they want a rational, logical, flexible and easy solution that mitigates the risk.

Competition in the enterprise mobility space has now matured to the point that there are many reasonable alternatives, business models and deployment scenarios.  These alternatives, i.e. HTML5, native, hybrid, cloud, on-premise, yearly subscriptions, monthly subscriptions, licenses, etc., motivates all competitors to become better and more business friendly vendors.

All of these rapid changes should encourage enterprises to jump into mobility with both feet, but to implement solutions that do not lock them into a particular mobile device, mobile OS or MADP.

For decades the goal of nearly all software vendors was to entice the end user into using a particular tool, OS or development environment long enough so that the accumulated investment made it very difficult to abandon.  The business model of software vendors was based on creating a large maintenance fee based business.  Although this model offered stability for the software vendor and often the customer as well, it is not suited to the fast paced world of enterprise mobility that requires flexibility and agility.

Today companies should be focused less on a particular mobile devices, mobile OSs and mobile vendor solutions, and more on creating a SMAC (social, mobile, analytic and cloud) READY enterprise.  This is very important!  A SMAC READY enterprise means their enterprise is capable of supporting and thriving in a "real-time" world that is driven by SMAC requirements.  A world rich in data, that requires the ability to analyze it in real-time, and to get the resulting business-ready information into the hands of their mobile works in real-time in order to optimize productivity, decision making, sales and services.

For many enterprises developing a SMAC READY enterprise is a big challenge. The mobile apps are the easy part! Their IT systems, processes and business models were not designed to support the unimagined speed and volume of data that floods over us today (see Code Halos article). This challenge, however, is worth pursuing.  Today a company's success and I would dare say very survivability is dependent upon it.


*************************************************************
Kevin Benedict, Head Analyst for Social, Mobile, Analytics and Cloud (SMAC) Cognizant
View Linkedin Profile
Learn about mobile strategies at MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com
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.

Developing Enterprise Strategies for Code Halos

Ben Pring, Malcolm Frank and
Paul Roehrig
My colleague and Cognizant's Co-Director of the Center for The Future of Work, Ben Pring shares in this guest post, his insights into the idea of "Code Halos" and the role they play in digital transformations and SMAC (social, mobile, analytics and cloud).  The concept of "Code Halos" is a useful way to help us understand and develop strategies for the effective use of all kinds of enterprise data.

In my previous post I introduced the idea of “Code Halos” --  the digital fingerprint each one of us is creating with every click or swipe of our phone, tablet, laptop, Glass, Nest, FuelBand, dashboard, or other smart device, which says who we are and what makes us tick. We also noted that these “personal” Code Halos are migrating into businesses in increasingly significant ways (and not just with the digital service providers such as Pandora or Amazon). In this piece we outline a number of key areas in which we see “business” Code Halos emerging and the changing what organizations do and how they do it.

Customer Code Halos: Customer-centric Code Halos — leveraging consumer data and insights — are creating enriched customer experiences through the use of sophisticated algorithms being applied to individualized code — i.e., past usage, input given to systems such as the Amazon Betterizer, artist selections added to Pandora streams, etc. This is not just reserved for companies with a “born-digital” DNA. Disney, for example, is launching a “Magic Band” bracelet to help guide visitors through its amusement parks, manage ticketing, act as room keys, personalize the guest experience and even work as a portable bank. The Magic Band is set to transform a day at a Disney park from a one-size-fits-all experience to a highly personalized one.

Product Code Halos: Every day we see move evidence that we are moving into the era of the “Internet of things.” From mobile phones to GE aircraft engines to even personal grooming tools such as toothbrushes, more and more devices today are becoming network-aware. They all have the potential to generate rich Code Halos that interact with the halos of information from people, business processes and organizations, and generate streams of data ripe for deriving meaning. As Code Halos grow, the “software” of these products becomes far more valuable than their associated “hardware.” For example, with a smart toothbrush, the physical tool itself is a commodity, while brushing habits, dental hygiene history and health needs create a halo of information that is of premium value. In many sectors, new business processes, industry models and products are being formed at this Code Halo intersection.

Employee Code Halos: Halos are being built around individual employees – think LinkedIn – which are creating new models by which knowledge work is conducted. In fact, our employee Code Halos can be far richer and more powerful than many consumer halos, as they comprise our work histories, subject matter expertise, perspectives, work styles and experiences. Employee halos facilitate getting the right work to the right person at the right time, all contextualized within a work stream — delivering the most appropriate organizational assets to the individual. In much the same way that Amazon’s consumer Code Halos and algorithms individualize the shopping experience, employee halos and organizational algorithms individualize and transform the work experience. This is changing how companies and organizations, such as Southern California Edison and Arlington County in Virginia, collaborate to capture business opportunities.

Partner Code Halos: With new technologies and more collaborative mindsets, traditional supply chains (primarily linear and designed for physical products) are re-forming into tightly integrated systems for sharing and co-creating knowledge assets. People will still need tangible things, but companies in life sciences, banking, and insurance, healthcare and manu¬facturing are now using innovative technologies to create more efficient and effective partner ecosystems.

Enterprise Code Halos: Your company’s brand is a Code Halo. Think of all the digital interactions associated with your company or business unit. Information about products, clients, partners and employees creates or destroys value every day. Angry customers, positive media coverage, financial data and a million other infor¬mation sources create a perception of your company as real as the bricks and rebar of a manufacturing plant. Whether you manage it or not, your company is increasingly defining itself by its Code Halo. In many cases, this halo of informa¬tion has much greater clarity and authority than the efforts of your marketing department.

These five enterprise Code Halos – and the skillful management of them – are increasingly separating those companies that are forging ahead into the brave new digital world and those that are simply playing defense; trying to hang on to old outdated approaches and sustain business as usual for as long as possible, or at least until next quarter’s results.

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Kevin Benedict, Head Analyst for Social, Mobile, Analytics and Cloud (SMAC) Cognizant
View Linkedin Profile
Learn about mobile strategies at MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com
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.

Infonomics and Using Information as a Competitive Advantage

Do you value and treat your enterprise information like it is a strategic asset?  Do you view your information logistics system (including your enterprise mobility system) as a competitive differentiator?  Enterprise mobility is more than just a convenience for people on the move.  It is about how to use information to optimize productivity and achieve competitive advantages.  How can the effective use of mobilized information change and improve your business?

I have shared some of this article before, but I believe it is important enough to review.  In an insightful article by Gartner Inc.'s Douglas Laney, titled Infonomics: The Practice of Information Economics, the value of company information is explored.  I read this article with great interest and interpreted it in the context of enterprise mobility.

Here is Laney's description of Infonomics, "When considering how to put information to work for your organization, it’s important to go beyond thinking and talking about information as an asset, to actually valuing and treating it as one. This is the basis of the new theory and emerging discipline of Infonomics which provides organizations a foundation and methods for quantifying information asset value and formal information asset management practices."

In my mobile strategy workshops, I spend time with my clients exploring the value of "real-time" information to a company and the role enterprise mobility plays in it.  Laney's article takes it to the next level by treating it as a discipline.

Here is another excerpt from Laney, "Infonomics posits that information should be considered a new asset class in that it has measurable economic value and other properties that qualify it to be accounted for and administered as any other recognized type of asset—and that there are significant strategic, operational and financial reasons for doing so."

If the right information can be available to a mobile worker, on the right device, at the right time, in the right amount so that "right" decisions and actions can be made, then that is a huge benefit!

Let me add some context, if you have a mobile workforce in the field and you know the following real-time information:
  • Location
  • Job status
  • Next job site
  • Skills and qualifications
  • Inventory
  • Equipment
  • Costs (hourly wage)
...then you can make many important decisions as to how you can optimally schedule and utilize your workforce.  Much of this can be automated using business analytics, and artificial machine learning as well.  In contrast, if you don't have real-time knowledge of the points listed above, you cannot.  There are significant competitive values to this real-time information.  Laney's article explores how you can measure that value.

Once you have placed a value on real-time information, then you can determine an ROI for developing and implementing a system that supports the use of real-time information (and mobilizing it).  I see this a lot when discussing mobile workforce scheduling solutions.  Many organizations simply do not have the IT systems in place that can support real-time scheduling based on real-time information (location, job status, etc.).  This is a limitation.  This prevents them from transforming their company into a real-time enterprise and effectively competing with companies that are.


*************************************************************
Kevin Benedict, Head Analyst for Social, Mobile, Analytics and Cloud (SMAC) Cognizant
View Linkedin Profile
Learn about mobile strategies at MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com
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 Expert Video Series: Bridget Bradley

In this interview with mobile expert Bridget Bradley from AnyPresence, we discuss cloud mobility, pricing models and mobile platforms.  Enjoy!

Video Link: http://youtu.be/GMc4guRJM44


*************************************************************
Kevin Benedict, Head Analyst for Social, Mobile, Analytics and Cloud (SMAC) Cognizant
View Linkedin Profile
Learn about mobile strategies at MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com
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 Expert Video Series: Tathagata Nandy on Healthcare

In this video I interview mobility and healthcare expert Tathagata Nandy on the trends he is seeing around enterprise mobility in the healthcare industry in 2013.  Enjoy!

Video Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sar9h73k940&feature=share&list=UUGizQCw2Zbs3eTLwp7icoqw


*************************************************************
Kevin Benedict, Head Analyst for Social, Mobile, Analytics and Cloud (SMAC) Cognizant
View Linkedin Profile
Learn about mobile strategies at MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com
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.

Revisiting Enterprise Mobility and 4D Strategies

In this article I want to revisit the subject of the 4th dimension as it relates to enterprise mobility and and its importance to many industries and business processes.

First, let's review our definition of 3D and 4D.  Three dimensional is made up of length, width and height in one context, or latitude, longitude and altitude in a geographic context.  With GPS coordinates you can find and identify a location on the earth or map.  The challenge, however, is that in the real-world, people and resources aren't stationary.  They move all over the place.  Knowing their location is only useful if you know the "time" they were at that location.  Time is the fourth dimension.  Latitude, longitude, altitude and time are the 4 dimensions we will be reviewing.

Knowing locations and times are critical to managing real-time operations.  The power of real-time business analytics is best realized when you have the capabilities of reporting and planning in a 4D environment. Here are some examples of how time added to location data can offer business value:
  • Predict travel times
  • Monitor actual travel times by capturing departure and arrival times.
  • Adjust schedules based upon the difference between the predictive and real-life travel times
  • Predict job completion times
  • Monitor actual job completion times
  • Adjust schedules based upon the difference between the predictive and real-life times
  • Dispatch service technicians based upon location, schedules, qualifications, costs, etc.
  • Capture KPIs and analyze them.
Most companies recognize the importance of using 4D in their strategies, however, it has only recently become possible to exploit 4D data in real-time.  Exploiting 4D data in real-time takes a real-time strategy.  You need IT infrastructure, databases, analytics and enterprise mobility solutions all finely tuned for real-time operations.

As many of you know my mantra is, "Mobile technologies without mobile strategies is wasted."  There are a lot of interesting things that can be done using 4D strategies and mobile technologies to provide a company with competitive advantages.

A while back I read a book titled, Stray Voltage, War in the Information Age, by Wayne Michael Hall.  In this book he takes the concept of 4D, and adds two more, cyberspace and cerebral to make 6D. Here is a quote from Hall, "Information superiority is firmly connected to making decisions that are superior to an adversary's and combines information technology and intellectual power to create conditions with which to make better decisions."

Hall is making the point that with mass volumes of data collected in real-time using remote sensors, data collection technologies and mobile solutions we need to improve our operational strategies and ways of thinking.  The data can provide us with real-time "situational awareness," but can we understand it and use it to make better real-time tactical decisions for our businesses?

More from Hall, "Human beings will need to improve their thinking capabilities to cope with the increasing complexities of the world...people will depend more on visualization to help understand complexity quickly.  Visualization will fuse data and information and display the result in a multimedia format.  Visualization will allow the integration of data, information and knowledge from all sources and will allow for the integration of numerous contributors."

There is power in taking all of the real-time 4D data inputs that you have, integrating them, analyzing and displaying it visually on a map with powerful infographs in real-time.  This can help us quickly understand what is happening in the field.

In my mind I see a field services manager using an iPad.  He can look down at his iPad at anytime and see the location of all his assets, resources, work crews, jobs (past, present and future) and equipment.  He can see bright yellow circles for all job status that are running over their estimated times, he can see work crews in transit and he can see all locations of upcoming jobs on a map.  In one quick glance the manager can understand where there are challenges, trouble spots and customer issues.

The visualization of 4D information allows for rapid and good decision making.  This is a true competitive advantage.
*************************************************************
Kevin Benedict, Head Analyst for Social, Mobile, Analytics and Cloud (SMAC) Cognizant
View Linkedin Profile
Learn about mobile strategies at MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com
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.

Healthcare, Mobility and Digital Transformations

Healthcare is one of those industries that will be most impacted by SMAC (social, mobile, analytics and cloud) developments.  It is information based.  Information, as we all know, is easily digitized, analyzed, stored in the cloud, and shared via mobile devices.

Here is a personal example.  Yesterday, I was experiencing stomach ailments and jumped on the website, WebMD.  I then added some reminders on my iPhone regarding health practices that I want to follow.  Ideally, I would engage with my doctor on non-serious issues via a mobile app.  I could record my symptoms and have her review and advise me no matter where in the world I am at the moment.  Our crazy healthcare system in the USA, however, would not know how to handle this simple mobile services or the payment for them.  I can only hope that someday logic will prevail.

Here are some of the key reasons mHealth is being transformed today:

  • The recognized need by providers, insurers, and governments to improve services and reduce the costs of caring for those with chronic illnesses.
  • The emergence, and proliferation of smartphones, broadband internet access, dedicated remote patient monitoring devices, and patient-centric applications
  • Patients increasingly understand how mHealth technologies can help them better communicate with providers and manage their health.
  • The rapid movement toward standards that will form the backbone for interoperability within the health industry.

If you are a healthcare industry software vendor or systems integrator with some clever and cool healthcare related solutions please share them with us in the comments section of this article, or email me at kevin.benedict@cognizant.com.  I would love to learn and write about them.


*************************************************************
Kevin Benedict, Head Analyst for Social, Mobile, Analytics and Cloud (SMAC) Cognizant
View Linkedin Profile

Read the whitepaper on mobile, social, analytics and cloud strategies Don't Get SMACked
Learn about mobile strategies at MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com
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 Expert Video Series: Eugene Signorini

I was able to spend time with and interview mobility expert and former Yankee Group enterprise mobility analyst, Eugene Signorini, this week in Miami, FL at the Enterprise Mobility Exchange.  He is a brilliant guy with a wealth of knowledge and experience.  Enjoy!

Video Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=022KZ6sdHLs&feature=share&list=UUGizQCw2Zbs3eTLwp7icoqw


*************************************************************
Kevin Benedict, Head Analyst for Social, Mobile, Analytics and Cloud (SMAC) Cognizant
View Linkedin Profile

Read the whitepaper on mobile, social, analytics and cloud strategies Don't Get SMACked
Learn about mobile strategies at MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com
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 Expert Video Series: Bill Moylan

I was in Miami this week at the Enterprise Mobility Exchange 2013.  While there I met up with mobile expert Bill Moylan, Global VP of Alliances for ClickSoftware, and interviewed him about new "context aware" mobile apps.  Enjoy!

Video Links: http://youtu.be/ztoL-CqTaXE



*************************************************************
Kevin Benedict, Head Analyst for Social, Mobile, Analytics and Cloud (SMAC) Cognizant
View Linkedin Profile

Learn about mobile strategies at MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com
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 Expert Video Series: Bob Egan

This week I had the privilege of meeting and interviewing renown mobility expert and industry analyst Bob Egan.  In this interview we focus on failure.  How can a company guarantee their mobility project will fail!  Enjoy!

Video Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iq1mw77GOhI&feature=share&list=UUGizQCw2Zbs3eTLwp7icoqw


*************************************************************
Kevin Benedict, Head Analyst for Social, Mobile, Analytics and Cloud (SMAC) Cognizant
View Linkedin Profile

Read the whitepaper on mobile, social, analytics and cloud strategies Don't Get SMACked
Learn about mobile strategies at MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com
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 Data as a Competitive Advantage

The success of companies today is less dependent on their physical assets, and more dependent on their ability to competitively utilize data.  Just think of companies like Kodak, Borders, Blockbuster, etc., that had great physical assets but could not effectively make the transition into the data driven digital era.  In the new whitepaper Code Rules: A Playbook for Managing at the Crossroads, the authors Malcolm Frank, Ben Pring and Paul Roehrig provide examples of this theory and recommendations for supporting it.  

This theory resonates with me.  I speak weekly with service companies that want to support a real-time environment that will provide situational awareness of all field operations, but their IT infrastructures are not capable of supporting a real-time environment.  This is a problem as it prevents effective use of data which limits their competitiveness.

Let's image a scenario as follows - two service companies are competing for a large industrial HVAC (heating, ventilation, air, condition) contract.  Company A can commit to an eight hour SLA (service level agreement) to be onsite for repairs.  Company B can commit to a two hour SLA.  Which company has a competitive advantage?

Company B has full and real-time situational awareness of the location, job status and qualifications of all of their employees and resources and can quickly and dynamically change their assignments and schedules and get them to the point of need.  Company B has a better "logistics of information" system which results in a competitive advantage.

Think about what it takes to support a real-time environment.  It requires a different kind of IT architecture and infrastructure than many companies have today.  It would be a mistake to think this is an enterprise mobility problem.  It is a company problem.  Today, real-time data is everything.  It is not enough to only review end of quarter numbers.  If there are problems in your processes or operations, they should be recognized and fixed as they happen.


There is a saying I read the other day that I really like, "If your customers are adopting technology at a faster rate than you are supporting it, you are opening up an opportunity for your competitors."

Service companies need to recognize there are important sources of data (code halos) around at least five specific areas that should be properly managed and utilized:
  • Customers
  • Products/materials/supplies
  • Employees
  • Partners
  • Enterprises/Organizations
This data needs to be captured, processed, analyzed, reported and acted upon in real-time.  Although mobility is a key component of this, the IT infrastructure of most companies needs to be updated to support it, and management must have a business strategy in place that prioritizes the recognition and exploitation of "code halos" in all of their plans.
*************************************************************
Kevin Benedict, Head Analyst for Social, Mobile, Analytics and Cloud (SMAC) Cognizant
View Linkedin Profile

Read the whitepaper on mobile, social, analytics and cloud strategies Don't Get SMACked
Learn about mobile strategies at MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com
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 Apps for Short-term Projects

I had the privilege of speaking before a group of service sector leaders this week in Chicago, Ilinois on the 95th floor of the John Hancock building.  During this event I had the opportunity to speak with many field services professionals about their operations and strategies.  Many of the challenges these folks face are the typical ones around change management, process re-engineering, mobile device selection and connectivity.  However, I also heard about the need to quickly develop mobile apps for short-term projects, a recurring issue in many construction, inspection and engineering related projects.

There is a significant segment of the "hard hat" market that needs project based mobile apps.  These apps must be quick and easy to develop as they may only be used for three months on a particular project.  The ROI needs to be a matter of days, not years.  During those three months, however, project management and the profitability of the project could realize great benefits from having real-time data collection, reporting and collaboration via mobile devices.

I think a project-based mobile app may need to include a quick data collection and reporting template that is pre-integrated with a database and reporting tool. Otherwise, the integration and report generation work might take longer than the project.
*************************************************************
Kevin Benedict, Head Analyst for Social, Mobile, Analytics and Cloud (SMAC) Cognizant
View Linkedin Profile

Read the whitepaper on mobile, social, analytics and cloud strategies Don't Get SMACked
Learn about mobile strategies at MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com
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 Marketing, Business Analytics and Code Halos

In an article I published earlier this week, Digital Transformation, Code Halos, Analytics and Mobility, I provided an overview of the concept of Code Halo™.  The idea is that nearly all organizations, brands, products and people are surrounded by a halo of data.  Companies that recognize the value of code halos will develop new business models and IT systems to utilize these code halos to better engage with customers and prospects, deliver more relevant content and employ precision marketing and support campaigns based upon known interests and desires.

Today I want to explore the role of mobile marketing and how it relates to code halos.  First, let's review the four basic elements of a "logistics of information" system that can derive value from code halos:
  1. There must be effective data collection strategies - Often in the form of mobile apps, loyalty programs and online commerce sites that enable a customer to opt-in to various programs, campaigns and deals and share their personal preferences.  This is how you begin to collect and harvest useful data from your customers' code halos.
  2. The system must uniquely identify and recognize a user.  This identification is associated with a code halo.  This recognition enables the IT and e-commerce systems to customize and personalize content, which provides a more relevant and positive experience for the customer.
  3. The ability to recognize patterns, find meanings, and to spark new ideas and innovation by analyzing, comparing and combining multiple code halos is another important development.  Here is an example - Store number 2 recognizes that a sub-set of their customers all share similar code halos - which includes product preferences, lifestyles, demographics and buying habits.  Store number 2 also closely analyzes the code halos of their suppliers' products, brands and target customer profiles.  As a result, Store number 2 can introduce new marketing campaigns and products that very closely align with the preferences and tastes of their individual customers and sub-sets of customers.
  4. Each campaign or program roll-out is continually analyzed and optimized to improve precision and future results.
Point number one above is effective data collection strategies.  In an age of digital transformation, data collection can often be facilitated via mobile apps, social networking analysis and e-commerce/shopping sites.  Mobile apps have the added luxury of being location aware.  Location, preferences, searches, shared opinions, buying history, time of day, etc., can all be collected via mobile app interaction and added to your code halo.

Analyzing a code halo, however, does not drive value or provide a competitive advantage.  The analysis should result in personalized content being sent to the mobile app of the customer or prospect.  This precision marketing, based on analyzed code halo data, will as a result, drive an increase in sales and company value.  

The three biggest challenges now for companies are:
  1. Recognize code halos and implement business strategies to utilize them.
  2. Implement a logistics of information system to manage and utilize code halo processes.
  3. Spark innovation by comparing and combining various code halos and the resulting insights.
  4. Utilize the analysis of code halos in ways that add value to your company.

*************************************************************
Kevin Benedict, Head Analyst for Social, Mobile, Analytics and Cloud (SMAC) Cognizant
View Linkedin Profile

Read the whitepaper on mobile, social, analytics and cloud strategies Don't Get SMACked
Learn about mobile strategies at MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com
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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