How Many Solutions Does it Take to Implement Enterprise Mobility?

How many different solutions do you need in order to implement an enterprise quality mobile solution?  I think this is a worthy question.  In years past MEAP (mobile enterprise application platform) and MADP (mobile application development platform) vendors tried to cover all of your needs, but the market has determined this is not an acceptable model going forward.  Companies are just not comfortable putting all their eggs in one basket and betting the mobile farm on an unprofitable VC backed mobility vendor.  Enterprise mobility is just too strategic.  Even when companies have standardized most of their internal business solutions on a major ERP vendor, they want to keep their options open.  SAP understands this and has worked to make their SAP Mobile Platform environment play nice with other vendors and toolkits.

Given that market manifesto, companies must now pick and choose their own variety of mobile solutions, platforms and toolkits.  The first question, again, is how many solutions do you need?  I am going to suggest at least one more than you may have thought.  Several vendors including Aternity (www.Aternity.com) and B2M Solutions (http://www.b2m-solutions.com/) propose that you must understand your business process and systems' performance first, second your mobile app performance, and thirdly your workers' performance (KPIs) in the field.  How many of you have recognized this solution category in the past?  Not many I think.  This is an area generally overlooked in most mobility projects.

Think about this scenario - Your team develops the world's best mobile app, however, it sucks and nobody will use it!  How could that be?  The business process, back office systems, APIs and security environments are too slow to support the needs of the mobile app and by extension the mobile user.  That is a critical problem.  It would have been nice to measure the performance of those required systems and processes before you invested in the development of the mobile app. Many IT environments were not designed with mobility in mind.  Today, major work must be done in many enterprises to support the new digital and mobile realities.

I am recommending that enterprises first measure the performance of the business process and relevant systems before they start developing the mobile app.  Once the performance is deemed satisfactory, then develop the mobile app and measure its performance.  Isolate performance issues at each step of the way.

Once your business processes, systems and mobile app performances are all deemed satisfactory, then seek to start measuring workforce productivity and KPIs via the mobile apps.  This data can be used to better understand "patterns of life" and "patterns of work" and optimization efforts implemented.

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Kevin Benedict

Writer, Speaker, Editor

Senior Analyst, Digital Transformation, EBA, Center for the Future of Work Cognizant

View my profile on LinkedIn

Learn about mobile strategies at MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Browse the Mobile Solution Directory

Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility

Join the Google+ Community Mobile Enterprise Strategies

Recommended Strategy Book Code Halos

Recommended iPad App Code Halos for iPads

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

Information Dominance as a Company's Mobile Strategy

In many industries today the competitive battleground is quickly shifting to the effective use of data to drive marketing, sales, customer support, R&D, and to deliver hyper-personalized user experiences and digital products.  These changes are most readily seen in companies that engage customers on the web and through mobile apps.  As more and more of customer interactions and engagements move to mobile apps and websites these changes will be all the more pronounced.  Just think about mobile banking, mobile commerce, mobile search, mobile media, mobile news/content and mobile travel apps.  These apps and the companies behind them are now offering incredible levels of near instant personalization based upon their knowledge of your preferences, location, shopping history, loyalty status, etc.  The more effective companies are at using their knowledge of you to personalize your experience, the more attractive, convenient, productive and sticky their apps become.  We at Cognizant call the effective use of data, "Code Halos" strategies.  Code Halos are the data that surround you, your activities and preferences.  It is the combination of personal and enterprise data used to provide the optimal experience.

Companies that will win in this competitive battlefield will understand that data collection, processing speed, analysis, situational awareness and the hyper-personalization of the users' experiences are the keys. They will recognize it is about speed.  It is a race to collect, analyze, and personalize.  The late US Air Force Colonel and great military strategist John Boyd coined the acronym OODA for observe, orient, decide and act.  He identified the fact that decision-making could be a competitive advantage.  If you can make good decisions faster than an opponent you have a powerful advantage.  Think about this in terms of a boxer in the ring, or a fighter pilot in the sky.  If you can understand the situation, make good decisions and act faster than your opponent you will likely win.  The same is true when the effective use of data is involved in user experiences and commerce.

Code Halo strategies is a way to think about and structure your information logistics in a manner that will give you information dominance.  Information dominance means you have an information logistics infrastructure in place for collecting data, analyzing and personalizing experiences better and faster than your competition.  This information, with the right IT infrastructure and architecture, can be used to instantly provide hyper-personalized experiences on the web and on mobile apps for customers, prospects, partners and employees.

Your information logistics systems must be fast enough to keep pace.  If your information logistics systems lag due to legacy systems that cannot support a "real-time" environment that is required for mobile apps and websites, then you have some hard choices to make that will impact your company's ability to succeed in this new world dominated by information.

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Kevin Benedict

Writer, Speaker, Editor

Senior Analyst, Digital Transformation, EBA, Center for the Future of Work Cognizant

View my profile on LinkedIn

Learn about mobile strategies at MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Browse the Mobile Solution Directory

Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility

Join the Google+ Community Mobile Enterprise Strategies

Recommended Strategy Book Code Halos

Recommended iPad App Code Halos for iPads

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

Mobile Expert Interview: Mobile Labs' Dan McFall

In all my years of researching and writing about enterprise mobility, I have not taken the time to learn about automated testing solutions for mobile apps.  These are important solutions as mobile applications are often your brand and primary point of interaction with customers and even employees.  They had better work!  In this interview, we discuss mobile app testing processes and strategies.  Enjoy!

Video Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_LB7wff_S8&list=UUGizQCw2Zbs3eTLwp7icoqw&feature=share

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Kevin Benedict

Writer, Speaker, Editor

Senior Analyst, Digital Transformation, EBA, Center for the Future of Work Cognizant

View my profile on LinkedIn

Learn about mobile strategies at MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Browse the Mobile Solution Directory

Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility

Join the Google+ Community Mobile Enterprise Strategies

Recommended Strategy Book Code Halos

Recommended iPad App Code Halos for iPads

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

Highlights from the Enterprise Mobility Focused Conference M6 Mobility xChange Last Week

If you were not fortunate enough to attend the M6 Mobility xChange last week in San Diego surrounded by smokey sunsets and wildfires, then you can catch some of the highlights here!

Video Link: http://youtu.be/3mebyK26O5k

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Kevin Benedict

Writer, Speaker, Editor

Senior Analyst, Digital Transformation, EBA, Center for the Future of Work Cognizant

View my profile on LinkedIn

Learn about mobile strategies at MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Browse the Mobile Solution Directory

Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility

Join the Google+ Community Mobile Enterprise Strategies

Recommended Strategy Book Code Halos

Recommended iPad App Code Halos for iPads

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

Mobile Strategies They Don't Teach in Business Schools or Computer Science Labs

I have taught classes and half-day workshops on mobile and digital strategies in 17 different countries around the world in the past three years. Some of the most interesting discussions during these classes and workshops are around the following topics - the strategies behind the mobile strategies.

• Velocity: The speed at which you can bring all required resources to a specific location to complete a task.  Remote and mobile assets and workers require mobile technologies to connect them to the "network."
• Swarming: The ability to contact, communicate and coordinate the gathering of all necessary resources to perform a task.
• 4D Coordinates:  The ability to coordinate resources to arrive at a specific location at a specific time.  
• Projecting Commerce at Distance:  Using mobile applications to open new markets and geographies without adding labor, assets or inventory.
• Time Compression:  Using mobile applications to accomplish more in a given time.  Something that took weeks now takes minutes.  Think real-time visibility, job status updates, inventories and dynamic scheduling.
• Information Dominance: Using real-time information to dominate your competition.  Use real-time information to maximize business agility, precision marketing, situational awareness and optimized logistics.  Use it to anticipate, compete, counter and outmaneuver competitors.  Recognize your ability to collect, analyze and manage information better and faster than your competition often trumps those with more physical assets (brick and mortar).
• Information Logistics: The systems involved in the collection, transmission, analysis, reporting and sharing of information.  The more efficient and real-time your information logistics, the faster you can make good decisions and act.
• Loyalty and culture:  Develop camaraderie, teamwork, accountability and loyalty with real-time collaboration tools and KPI dashboards on mobile devices.  Stay in the know on your performance and the performance of others.  Share ideas and solve problems as a team.
• Full Spectrum Information:  You can't have situational awareness without having real-time data coming in from all your key business areas.  Dominate competition by collecting, transmitting, analyzing and reporting real-time information and its meaning across all operational areas including: SCM, WMS, manufacturing, marketing, sales, customer service.
• Reducing Conjecture and the Fog of War:  Using mobile applications as remote sensors to collect real-time data that enables data-driven decision making.  Think date and time stamp, GPS coordinates, activities monitoring, tasks and project updates.
• Operational Tempos:  Increase the speed at which information and, thus, operations can work.  Don't let the lack of timely information slow down your operations.  Maximize productivity and the quality of decision making by collecting, analyzing and sharing the right information as fast as possible.
• Information Driven Tactics: Tactics, the art and science of positioning resources for optimal use, and maneuvering them to keep them as such.  You can't fully utilize real-time and agile business tactics without real-time information enabled by mobile technologies.
• Information Shelf-Life:  Recognize the value of information diminishes over time.  The faster it can be collected, analyzed, reported and shared the more value it has to decision makers.  Mobile devices support faster data collection, transmission, analysis and reporting.
• Information and Competitive Decision-Making: In battles, the general with better situational awareness is often better able to make strategic decisions and to maneuver his resources to the point of need, thus gaining an advantage.  If you consider competitive decision-making as a game, the winner is the person who can receive more information faster, analyze it, understand the meaning, make a decision, act upon it and review the results and adjust accordingly in a manner faster than his/her opponent.  Mobile technologies are a critical component of this capability.
• Force Multiplier: - Definition - A force multiplier refers to a factor that dramatically increases (hence "multiplies") the effectiveness of an item, person or group.  Mobile technology is a force multiplier.  Today a small team can manage a global workforce using email, messaging, voice, Skype, Google+ Hangouts, Salesforce.com, cloud-based mobile apps, shared spreadsheets, Google Drive or Dropbox etc., all while traveling on an airplane.  Productivity is ridiculously multiplied.
• Speed and Mobility: Capturing a market today is not about having more buildings, people and assets, but first and foremost it is a matter of Code Halos strategies, data analytics, movement and circulation.  Identify your online/digital market, identify your prospects, customize and personalize their experience, and be there at the right time with the right products.  This can be done with a great mobile app supported by a powerful Code Halo enabled systems and digital content management systems.
• Sensor Platforms: Understand the sensors available on your smartphones, via bluetooth accessories, vehicle telematics and the Internet of Things and how these contribute to your situational awareness and information logistics strategies.

Some may read this list and think these are all obvious, but they would be wrong.  Not many companies are actually documenting and thinking these through as part of their strategy and transforming their business models as a result?  The future belongs to those with faster and more accurate business insight that supports hyper-personalized shopping experiences for customers, work experiences for employees and data-driven decision support for managers.   These capabilities enable the agility to respond to changing consumer behaviors and business and market opportunities based upon the more effective data collection, analysis, reporting, personalization  and decision-making that is enabled by an optimized mobile data and information logistic system.

I accept invitations to teach workshops and to speak at conferences or events whenever I can. I will do my best to accommodate.  I am organizing workshops now in ANZ, UK, Nordics and India.  Contact me at Kevin.Benedict@Cognizant.com if you are interested.

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Kevin Benedict

Writer, Speaker, Editor

Senior Analyst, Digital Transformation, EBA, Center for the Future of Work Cognizant

View my profile on LinkedIn

Learn about mobile strategies at MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Browse the Mobile Solution Directory

Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility

Join the Google+ Community Mobile Enterprise Strategies

Recommended Strategy Book Code Halos

Recommended iPad App Code Halos for iPads

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

Mobile Expert Interview: Carlo Cadet, Perfecto Mobile

On Fire
M6 Mobility Xchange 2014

Last week I spent three days at the M6 Mobility Xchange conference surrounded by wildfires.  The smoke filtered sunsets and glowing skylines at night made for a memorable event.

I like this intimate event.  There were a couple of hundred attendees and excellent content on emerging trends and use cases around enterprise mobility.  There was plenty of time to network and many of my mobility industry analyst peers were there to share insights.

In this interview recorded at the M6 Mobility Xchange, Carlo Cadet, mobile testing automation expert with Perfecto Mobile, shares the details of automated testing strategies for large scale mobile app deployments.  Enjoy!

Video Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tO2SE3nj1go&feature=share&list=UUGizQCw2Zbs3eTLwp7icoqw

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Kevin Benedict

Writer, Speaker, Editor

Senior Analyst, Digital Transformation, EBA, Center for the Future of Work Cognizant

View my profile on LinkedIn

Learn about mobile strategies at MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Browse the Mobile Solution Directory

Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility

Join the Google+ Community Mobile Enterprise Strategies

Recommended Strategy Book Code Halos

Recommended iPad App Code Halos for iPads

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

Mobile Expert Interview: Jack Gold, Mobility Analyst

I had the privilege this week at the M6 Mobility Xchange of getting to know mobility guru and expert Jack Gold.  In this interview we talk about his views on wearables, the Internet of Things, enterprise mobility and mobile strategies.  Enjoy!

Video Link: http://m6mobilityxchange.com/

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Kevin Benedict

Writer, Speaker, Editor

Senior Analyst, Digital Transformation, EBA, Center for the Future of Work Cognizant

View my profile on LinkedIn

Learn about mobile strategies at MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Browse the Mobile Solution Directory

Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility

Join the Google+ Community Mobile Enterprise Strategies

Recommended Strategy Book Code Halos

Recommended iPad App Code Halos for iPads

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

Mobile Expert Interview: Feedhenry's Steve Drake

I have been attending the M6 MobilityXchange this week in smoky San Diego.  It has been an adventure!  The hills were glowing with the reflection of wildfires last night at the reception.  Everyone seemed to be hydrating as fast as they could in case the fire came too near.

I had the privilege of moderating a panel discussion this morning with mobile experts Sam Lukkundi, Bill Padula, Adam Stein and Darren McGrath.  It got out of control.  My apologies.  My comedic career started and ended in about 3 minutes.

In a break between sessions I was able to sit down with former IDC enterprise mobility analyst Steve Drake (now with Feedhenry) and record his views of enterprise mobility now and in the future.  Enjoy!

Video Link: http://youtu.be/6U4Uz7v_Udw



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Kevin Benedict

Writer, Speaker, Editor

Senior Analyst, Digital Transformation, EBA, Center for the Future of Work Cognizant

View my profile on LinkedIn

Learn about mobile strategies at MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Browse the Mobile Solution Directory

Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility

Join the Google+ Community Mobile Enterprise Strategies

Recommended Strategy Book Code Halos

Recommended iPad App Code Halos for iPads

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

Notes from the M6 MobilityXchange Conference in San Diego

Benjamin Robbins, Jack Gold,
Rodney Johnson, Kevin Benedict,
Philippe Winthrop, Bob Eagan

I am learning a great deal from some of the most experienced mobility gurus in the business this week at the M6 MobilityXchange in San Diego.  Yesterday we discussed all kinds of new developments taking place in enterprise mobility.  Here are some of my notes from day #1.

• We are entering the age of wisdom - the result of many mistakes in enterprise mobility
• Maribel Lopez identified three phases of enterprise mobility, 1) Extend capabilities, 2) Enhance capabilities and 3) Transform your business
• Question to ask, "What is now possible with mobile devices that was not possible without?"
• Continued discussions around mobile devices with dual persona.  Select work persona, and all your apps and screens are configured for work.   Select personal persona and all your apps and screens are configured for personal use.  These could have different security settings, etc.
• Mobility is about creating "right time" experiences.
• Question to ask, "Why are my customers connecting at this moment in time?"  What is happening in their lives at this moment.  How can we enhance and support that moment.  Think landing at an airport and turning on your smartphone.  What may the customer want to know at this moment of time?  Where is Starbucks?  Where is my connecting gate?  Where is my airline lounge?  Where is baggage claim?  Don't wait for the user to select, make some predictions.
• American Airlines reported there are now more check-ins on mobile devices than on the web.
• The top mobile app users at American Airlines correspond to the top customers.  Invest in these customers.  They deliver the profits.
• Airlines are testing iBeacon/Beacon technology to help raise the quality of care for their best customers - read more about iBeacons here.
• Ford has developed the Ford Open XC open standard for interfacing with their cars' data.  I can image service companies offering to monitor all of your car's data and servicing your vehicle based upon the data received.
• Heard a new mobile security phrase today that made me laugh sophomorically, "sniffing your packets" hehehehe.

Stay tuned for Day #2.

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Kevin Benedict

Writer, Speaker, Editor

Senior Analyst, Digital Transformation, EBA, Center for the Future of Work Cognizant

View my profile on LinkedIn

Learn about mobile strategies at MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Browse the Mobile Solution Directory

Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility

Join the Google+ Community Mobile Enterprise Strategies

Recommended Strategy Book Code Halos

Recommended iPad App Code Halos for iPads

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

The Impact of Digital Transformation and Mobile Apps on Banking

The banks of today will not be the banks of tomorrow unless you're caught in the script of Ground Hog's Day ~ Kevin Benedict

Mobile apps are rapidly replacing branches as the customer preferred point of interaction with banks. Today, customers are choosing their banks based upon the quality of their mobile apps and the services that are enabled.   In recent customer satisfaction surveys, mobile apps were shown to play a significant role in keeping customers satisfied.

In addition, users today are seeking ways to consolidate their personal financial management tools and banking tools all in one application.  They would like a complete view of their personal finances.  The challenge today is these services are often providing by different providers with different apps.

In the following news excerpts from 2014, we can clearly see the impact mobile and online banking is having on banks.

RBS recently announced there has been a 30% fall in the number of transactions carried out at its branches since 2010.  As a result, they are shutting 44 branches across the UK. The number of online and mobile transactions has now surpassed those taking place in branches and ATMs.

Citibank Korea Inc., the South Korean unit of Citigroup Inc. announced it will close nearly a third of its branches, reflecting falling profits in the country and a shift to online banking.  The bank said it would cut the number of its branches to 134 from 190 over the next several months and enhance online services for mobile and tablet platforms.  Source: April 8, 2014 edition of the WSJ
Challenges - Digital Transformation and Banking

Senior bank executives view technology as the biggest cause of transformation to the industry (Source PwC, Retail Banking 2020: Evolution or Revolution). The problem is that executives are not confident about their preparedness for a technology-driven transformation.  Only 20% believe their organizations are prepared for this transformation.

The accelerating demands for mobile apps from business units and customers are triggering a tidal wave of disruption.  This disruption is a huge challenge for CIOs who must transition their banks’ strategies to align with the technology adoption rate of their customers.   

• 50 percent of respondents say their company does not have a mobile strategy. 
• Of those companies with a mobile strategy, 45 percent say it is not aligned with IT objectives
• 36 percent say it is not aligned with business objectives. 
• Tactics are overshadowing the development of long-term strategy.

Source: Ponemon Institute report titled The Changing Mobile Landscape in Financial Services

In addition to the technology related transformations, non-banks are entering into services once
reserved for banks.  For example, Wal-Mart has launched a service called Walmart-2-Walmart that allows customers to send money to other customers using the store’s network of more than 4,000 retail locations.  Source: http://www.bankinnovation.net/2014/04/walmart-enters-p2p-space/

Did you know that most traditional banks draw the majority of their income from loans?  Wal-Mart-housed banks, however, tend to draw more income from fees. Among the 6,766 banks the Journal looked into, just 15 had fee income higher than loan income.  Among those 15 were the top 5 banks operating through Walmart.  Yikes!  Those with low-incomes never get a break!

The world of banking is changing.  Today traditional banks must be innovating at the same rate as their customers are adopting technologies and changing their shopping and buying behaviors.  That is a huge task for those sitting on top of 40 year old mainframe systems not designed for a day of real-time and mobile interactions.


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Kevin Benedict

Writer, Speaker, Editor

Senior Analyst, Digital Transformation, EBA, Center for the Future of Work Cognizant

View my profile on LinkedIn

Learn about mobile strategies at MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Browse the Mobile Solution Directory

Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility

Join the Google+ Community Mobile Enterprise Strategies

Recommended Strategy Book Code Halos

Recommended iPad App Code Halos for iPads

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

Professors and the Unanticipated Consequences of Digital Transformation

Code Halos - The Book

On my run yesterday I listened to a Freakonomics Radio podcast as I do regularly.  In the latest podcast titled How to Think Like a Freak — and Other FREAK-quently Asked, authors Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner discussed the fact that university professors get to keep all the rights to books they write and the profits they generate as a result, but not for inventions.  I have been pondering that topic since.

Why would universities treat the creation of a book, and the profits from a book, differently than that of an invention?  Perhaps written ideas were perceived as having less value, than using those ideas to produce a physical object with productive value.  Although, it could be argued that patents are written words and drawings.  If a university professor wrote a book of patentable ideas, they could sell it and keep all the profits, but if they used the words to make a product they would lose the rights and the profits.   Hummmm...

How does this strange agreement work in an age of digital transformation when many of the most profitable businesses produce no products, but are simply based upon the clever arrangement of digits. Netflix, Amazon, eBay, Google etc., come to mind.  They base their businesses off of the use of "Code Halos."  Websites, product catalogs, digital ads, e-commerce engines, shopping carts and online shipment tracking systems are digital (letters and numbers representing 0s and 1s).

I don't think universities have yet thought this through.

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Kevin Benedict

Writer, Speaker, Editor

Senior Analyst, Digital Transformation, EBA, Center for the Future of Work Cognizant

View my profile on LinkedIn

Learn about mobile strategies at MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Browse the Mobile Solution Directory

Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility

Join the Google+ Community Mobile Enterprise Strategies

Recommended Strategy Book Code Halos

Recommended iPad App Code Halos for iPads

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

Oracle Mobility Emerges Prepared for the Future

Suhas Uliyar

My friend Suhas Uliyar is now the VP of Mobile Strategy Product Management at Oracle, and he is eager to get the word out that Oracle mobility is real and here today. While SAP jumped big time into enterprise mobility in 2010 with the $5.8 billion acquisition of Sybase, Oracle has been quietly watching the market and practicing patience. They seemed for a long time to be content with standing on the side lines and treating mobility as just another channel or interface for their backend servers, solutions and databases.

Today, however, they have a multitude of rapidly growing enterprise mobility solutions and an aggressive plan and strategy for enterprise mobility.  Among their mobility products are the following:

• Oracle Mobility Suite - MADP
• Oracle Mobile Security Suite - Mobile Application Management/Security
• Oracle ADF Mobile, soon to be named Mobile Application Framework - mobile app SDK
• Oracle Mobile Cloud - MBaaS category of products

In recent years, Oracle has been surrounded by rumors they would acquire a leading MADP (mobile application development platform) vendor like Antenna Software, Kony, Verivo, etc. However, mobile platform vendors have come and gone without Oracle acting.  Analysts (I was one of them) and competitors (read SAP) were publicly challenging Oracle on their lack of action in the enterprise mobility space.  At one point, Oracle product managers called me to request the use of my enterprise mobility presentation at their conferences.  Yikes!  Clearly someone was desperate!

History, however, may reward Oracle's patience.  While veteran mobile platform vendors (including SAP) have struggled to keep up with the fast changing market, R&D investment requirements, the fickle preferences of mobile developers, and the emergence of cloud-based mobile services, Oracle has kept their focus on supporting mobile developers with integration services and tools that extend their solutions out to mobile apps. This enabled them to follow a long term, methodical and standards-based approach to mobility insulated from the ever changing mobile app development and platform space of the past few years.  It is good to have some quiet time to think and observe.

As we near the mid-year mark in 2014, it seems like the enterprise mobility market is finally stabilizing. The lessons of early adopters have been learned and shared, strengths and weaknesses of various strategies have been exposed, and the preferences of developers and IT leaders are starting to clarify.  I bet SAP wishes they had their $5.8 billion back in their pocket to invest today.

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Kevin Benedict

Writer, Speaker, Editor

Senior Analyst, Digital Transformation, EBA, Center for the Future of Work Cognizant

View my profile on LinkedIn

Learn about mobile strategies at MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Browse the Mobile Solution Directory

Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility

Join the Google+ Community Mobile Enterprise Strategies

Recommended Strategy Book Code Halos

Recommended iPad App Code Halos for iPads

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

Mating Calls, Bird Watchers, Enterprise Mobility and Mobile Apps

The mating dance of a forest bird attracts the seductive sounds of an invisible mate.

Is there no end to what mobile apps can do?  Last week, several of us sat quietly on a weathered dock extended out and over a forested pond in the foothills of SW Washington.  We watched the birds and other wildlife enjoying the spring sunshine.  Suddenly we spotted an unidentified bird dancing about the branches of a distant tree.

Google Glass for Bird Watchers

Our good friend, Candy, came equipped with a professional grade camera with a 20 pound telephoto lens, but even with that, the bird was too distant to properly identify and photograph.  My wife, however, came up with a brilliant idea and reached for her iPhone. On her iPhone was a bird watching app called ibird.  Don't stop reading yet!  It gets better and I will bring it around to enterprise mobility before we are through.

This app comes with the following SMAC (social, mobile, analytics and cloud) features:

• Popular field guides for birds
• Topographical maps
• 38 Search Attributes

  

  The Yellow-rumped Warbler
  Credit Candy Anderson

• Zoom-able HD Images
• Ability to import photos and assign them to any species account
• Social forums - App connects directly to the www.whatbird.com forum where experts are standing by to help you ID a bird you can’t find with the search engine
• Directly links to iBird Journal app from any species page
• 5 hours of bird songs (5,000 unique sounds) and calls from the gold standard of recordings; the Macaulay Library at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology
• Spectrographic Audio. The display brings insight to the structure of bird songs by allowing you to view the sound’s frequency components
• GPS integration with date and time stamp
• Google Glass support

Now back to my story.  Using the ibird app my wife quickly narrowed her identification to a couple of candidates.  She then listened to the bird song from the tree branches above the pond, and played the songs (audio files) of the candidates.  BINGO!  We had our bird!  It was a Yellow-rumped Warbler.

A challenge remained, however, as we could not get close enough to get a good photo.  My wife again solved the problem.  She turned up the volume and held up her iPhone.  The beautiful notes skipped across the pond and the Yellow-rumped Warbler immediately cocked its head to one side and flew through the tree branches and landed right in front of us.  SNAP! Or in Candy's case, SNAP, SNAP, SNAP!

I felt sorry for the poor male Yellow-rumped Warbler.  For the next 30 minutes it searched, danced and sang for the female behind the cheerful notes emanating from the iPhone, but alas, he found no satisfaction.

What does this have to do with enterprise mobility?  This mobile app highlights digital transformation.  It takes a paper-based process of using field guides to complete a task (identify birds) and digitizes the experience using sensors, multimedia files, a unique UX, and social and cloud-based platforms to rethink the entire process.  It incorporates the use of SMAC features all in one app.  This model, and the unique data collection, querying, visualization and identification tools turns a simple library and list app into a library of multimedia content and files connected to social and cloud platforms (bird watchers worldwide eager to help you solve your bird watching problems).  There is a great deal to learn from this app, and it would be worthwhile for enterprises to study it and the problems it solves.

Watch the video here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4upoPkmvDUE

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Kevin Benedict

Writer, Speaker, Editor

Senior Analyst, Digital Transformation, EBA, Center for the Future of Work Cognizant

View my profile on LinkedIn

Learn about mobile strategies at MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Browse the Mobile Solution Directory

Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility

Join the Google+ Community Mobile Enterprise Strategies

Recommended Strategy Book Code Halos

Recommended iPad App Code Halos for iPads

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

Digital Transformation and Code Halos - 12 Trends that are Impacting Banks Today

The banks of the future, will not look like the banks of today. 

I have met with the business and IT strategy teams of many banks around the world over the past 12 months.  These discussions have been some of the most interesting as there is a sense of urgency.  The banking and financial services industries are feeling tremendous pressures from both internal and external sources to respond quickly to emerging mobile and online technologies, and the changing behaviors of consumers.   

Here are 12 talking points from my latest workshops:

1. Mobile and online technologies are transforming the way banks serve clients
2. Mobile banking adoption rates will reach 33 percent this year, up from 20 percent in 2011. Source: Swacha
3. Mobile payments will reach $90 billion by 2017, up from $13 billion in 2012.  Source: Forrester’s 2013 US Mobile Payments Forecast report
4. 60% of smartphone or tablet users who switched banks in the fourth quarter said mobile banking was an important factor in the decision. Source: AlixPartners
5. Consumer preferences are changing and a generational shift in behavior is driving to new digital channels
6. There is a rapid adoption of digital consumer banking in both developed markets and in markets where consumers are predisposed to using mobile technology rather than bricks-and-mortar (emerging markets)
7. Banks are being presented with new competition from non-financial firms providing financial services
8. The ability to innovate will be a key competitive differentiator, and innovation a critical driver of growth in the future for banks
9. Uniform experience (omni-channel) will be required across all channels, and is a prime factor in customer satisfaction
10. There is a growing convergence of personal financial management tools and mobile banking
11. After providing basic consumer banking services on mobile apps, the next steps are to understand individual consumer’s transactions, and the nuances of their unique investment behavior using Code Halo strategies
12. Banks are seeking efficiencies and cost reductions.  The average cost of a mobile transaction is 10 cents, about half that of a desktop-computer transaction and far less than the $1.25 average cost of an ATM transaction. (Source: Javelin Strategy & Research).

Mobile apps are rapidly replacing branches as the preferred form of customer interactions with banks. Customers are evaluating the quality of a bank based upon their mobile banking capabilities today.  In customer service surveys, providing great mobile apps represents an important component of customer satisfaction.  As a result, you would think that budget priorities and investments in mobile technologies would be jumping up in response, but as of today, budgets for mobile apps and mobile banking services represent less than 5% of IT budgets.  

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Kevin Benedict

Writer, Speaker, Editor

Senior Analyst, Digital Transformation, EBA, Center for the Future of Work Cognizant

View my profile on LinkedIn

Learn about mobile strategies at MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Browse the Mobile Solution Directory

Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility

Join the Google+ Community Mobile Enterprise Strategies

Recommended Strategy Book Code Halos

Recommended iPad App Code Halos for iPads

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