More on How You Advise an Enterprise on Mobility

Last week, in a blog article, I discussed the challenges of preparing to consult with a company and advise them on issues related to enterprise mobility.  I shared that it is helpful to send questions in advance so you know what kind of environment you are walking into.  Since that article I have thought of a few more questions which I have listed here:

1. Do you need an SDK (software development kit) to customize and/or edit your own mobile applications?
2. Do you want to develop your own mobile application in-house, buy off-the-shelf or contract with a third party for a custom mobile application?
3. If you want to develop in-house, are your stakeholders patient enough to wait for the final product? What are the costs to the business of not delivering on time? 
4. If you develop in-house, who will support new versions of the mobile operating systems and new mobile devices?
5. Which business unit will budget to pay for upgrades to mobile operating systems and mobile devices?  They change every few months?  Do you really have developers that will be available for all of these updates and upgrades?
6. How will you support it?  What is the plan for supporting mobile applications and mobile devices?
7. What countries will be using it?
8. What data plans does the company want to use in each country? 
9. How will you manage the data plans?
10. What is the policy for replacing missing or damaged mobile devices?
11. Which business unit will pay for lost devices and data plans?
12. What is the process for approving mobile access to ERPs and business processes?

Syclo, a co-innovation partner of SAP in the mobility space, speaks of supporting any data source, any network, any device, any industry, any process and anywhere in the world.  Doing that all for one enterprise takes getting a few questions answered.  What other questions should we add to this list?

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Kevin Benedict, SAP Mentor, SAP Top Contributor, Mobile and M2M Industry Analyst

Phone +1 208-991-4410

twitter @krbenedict

Join SAP Enterprise Mobility on Linkedin:

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Full Disclosure: I am an independent mobility consultant, mobility analyst, writer and Web 2.0 marketing professional. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.