Kevin Benedict Ponders the Future: mobility analyst

Showing posts with label mobility analyst. Show all posts

Digital Transformation and the First Law of Thermodynamics

The First Law of Thermodynamics states, "energy can be changed from one form to another, but it cannot be created or destroyed.” In a business context that can be interpreted to mean if energy is being used to resist change, then it is not available for making change. Change is difficult. The default mode for most organizations and people is to resist change. Blockbusters’ own board resisted digital and business model transformation out of concern for short-term profits, which doomed it. Businesses that can direct energy to fast and positive transformation can exploit many more opportunities than enterprises mired in resistance.

Digital transformation and business agility are increasingly important in order to succeed, and both of these consume energy in the form of resources, available funds, credit, skills, change resistance, leadership, mental and emotional energy, time, etc. Enterprises need a method by which they can measure and monitor the amount of energy they have available to commit to digital transformation. Knowing how much energy is available requires a formula for calculating the number of digital energy units (DEUs) currently in reserve, how many are being created over a specific period of time, less the number of energy units each project and tasks consumes in a particular time frame. To that end, all business capabilities should be assigned DEU values so a total energy score (TES) can be computed.

All digital transformation tasks and projects consume and generate DEUs. As a result, the second step is to identify how many DEUs each task will consume. If digital transformation can be implmented with minimum resistance from the board, executive team, employees and customers, then those DEUs can be dedicated to making the changes required, however, if there is major resistance to change from any combination of these constituents, then there is less energy available for making the changes required.

Once the number of available DEUs are known, enterprises can track their total energy scores to maintain a self-sustaining agile business. Self-sustaining means you are NOT consuming all of your available energy, leaving nothing left to run the business, rather each digital transformation tasks is producing the same or more DEUs than it is consuming. Higher total energy scores that are self-sustaining, support a higher level of business agility, while lower scores limit agility and digital transformation possibilities.

It would be fair to ask why we are not just tracking ROIs. My answer is change consumes many things that are not reflected in P&L statements, such as emotional energy, time, goodwill, skills and other available resources. A company with a lot of money in the bank and the right skills to accomplish the tasks, but is emotionally drained and lacks goodwill as a result of overwork and too much change, does not have the required DEUs available for future business agility.

In a world in permanent flux, enterprises with higher total energy scores have a competitive advantage in the form of business agility and energy to use for digital transformation efforts. As real-time data is analyzed, and changes in trends detected, businesses with higher total energy scores are in a far better position to exploit emerging trends. What is your score and how long will it last?

Follow Kevin Benedict on Twitter @krbenedict, or read more of his articles on digital transformation strategies here:

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Kevin Benedict

Senior Analyst, Center for the Future of Work, Cognizant Writer, Speaker and World Traveler

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***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.

It's Time for Technology to Disappear

In 2015, technology reached the tipping point for me, it moved from the efficient column, to the inefficient column, from a pro to a con, from a help to a hindrance. You can hear it in every complaint about how email messages are overwhelming our day, interfering with priorities, impacting our schedules, hurting our productivity and forcing more of us to take our work home at night and over the weekend.

In 2016, technology needs to disappear into the background, while productivity and purpose should be the siren's call. We have approximately 700,000 hours between our birth and our death. About 350,000 of those hours are spent in our careers. How many of those hours do we want to waste on poor technology experiences? I propose the following technologies must disappear, and by disappear I mean fade into the background:

We shouldn’t have to read through hundreds of useless email messages to find the three necessary to complete our job. Communications need to change and email must disappear behind a veil of utility and productivity.
We shouldn’t have to check dozens of different locations, apps and websites to communicate with our work colleagues and friends. All of these various collaboration and communication platforms need to disappear into a consolidated and efficient aggregated solution like Slack.
Communication technologies should disappear into the background, and the quality and utility of the message improved by technologies.
Email and meeting driven schedules must disappear, in favor of schedules that honor purpose and deliverables. This may mean prioritizing thinking time and mental productivity. Scientists agree that the creative parts of our minds work better at different times of the day. Those times need to be reserved, blocked and honored on schedules, to optimize their utility.
The requirement to develop, store and retrieve dozens of different passwords and user names must disappear. The ability to accurately authenticate a user must become more efficient and secure.
Trivial messages and alerts from hundreds of different sources arriving 24 hours a day must disappear. Trivial messages and an urge to immediately respond must not be allowed to negatively impact our thinking, creating, planning, sleeping, loving, relationship building, driving and the handling of dangerous equipment.
On-premise IT solutions, hardware and apps that serve to distract from the business, and offer no additional business value, competitive advantages or market agility must disappear into the cloud.
The 200+ mobile applications on my iPhone must disappear into an artificial intelligence engine (think advanced Siri) that will access their functionality and assist me even before I ask.
Mobile applications that are not personalized, and are not contextually relevant should disappear. I don’t care what you sell, if I am not interested, or it is not relevant to me, I don't want to see it.
The routine process work I do on my computer must go away. Intelligent process automation should be pushed down to individuals. An AMX mobile app should process my expenses without me. It should only alert me to exceptions, not the routine.
Everyone agrees that ideas, creativity and innovation are critical to the success of businesses, but technologies today are more often a hindrance than help in these efforts. Technologies and the use of technologies that hinder creativity and innovation must disappear.

In the lifecycle of technologies, there is a time when users are enthralled and distracted by the technology itself, we are there today, but these times must quickly pass and the technology must disappear into the background. In the year 2016, it should be all about making 2015’s technology disappear.

The challenge with making technology disappear, is it is hard, time consuming and expensive. Adding a layer of artificial intelligence, that can analyze data, understand context and personalize an experience is complex and hard, but that is how technology disappears.
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Kevin Benedict

Writer, Speaker, Analyst and World Traveler

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Mobile Apps - Personalizing While Respecting Personal Privacy

All the data I have been reading this week suggest mobile users want and value a personalized experience on their mobile apps or mobile website, but on the other hand they don't like giving up their personal data. That means it is imperative to find the right balance so a mutually satisfying relationship can be fostered. As we all know, the more data you have on an individual, the easier it is to configure a personalized experience.

In a fresh Cognizant survey this week involving 5,000 participants, 68% reported they are willing to provide information on their gender, 55% their age, and 65% their brand and product preferences, but the majority are not in favor of volunteering much else. That is an interesting answer since 80% of the same survey participants belong to one or more loyalty and rewards programs, and the biggest reasons according to 74% are the points or rewards for each dollar spent. The second biggest motivation was automatic discounts for loyalty program members. That tells us there is a willingness to give up some level of data privacy if the rewards and discounts are valuable enough.

Mobile retailers need to find out how much personal data is worth to their customer base. They need to give up enough in points, rewards and discounts to motivate the sharing of more in depth personal data. Collecting data on social media is not the answer. In my research, consumers don't like the idea of any kind of data collection for marketing purposes from their social media activities. It makes them mad. Mad is not a feeling a consumer products company wants to elicit from their customers.

It seems to me that a bold, transparent process would be best. The online and mobile retailer should place a value on data. For example:

Answer 10 specific questions about yourself and your preferences, and I will give you an automatic 10% off your purchases.
Answer 20 specific questions about yourself and your preferences, and I will give you an automatic 20% off your purchases.
Answer 30 specific questions about yourself and your preferences, and I will give you an automatic 30% off your purchases.

Whatever the real value, we all agree that there is a value to data. Finding the real value, and transparently using that information to provide a personalized user experience, benefits all parties.

I think IoT (Internet of Things) sensors may also play a role in data collection and personalization. Rather than make people uncomfortable by tracking more personal data, sensors can track product data and that can be used to provide a personalized experience for the owner of the product. Here is an example - a man buys a bass fishing boat and a service agreement. Sensors (as defined in the service agreement) collects data on the boat engine. Information such as:

Locations
Activities
Usage profiles
Hours of operations
Data and time
etc.

The boat engine information is added to the customer's profile to provide a "boater's profile" that can be used to personalize online and mobile experiences.

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict.

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Kevin Benedict

Writer, Speaker, 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

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Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility

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Mobile Apps, Blind Spots, Tomatoes and IoT Sensors

Master Tomato Gardener

A lot is written on mobile technologies, the Internet of Things, social media and analytics, but little is written on how all these might work together in a retail environment. I think best by writing, so let's think this through together.

Blind spots are defined as, “Areas where a person's view is obstructed.” Many business decisions today are still made based on conjecture (unsubstantiated assumptions), because the data needed to make a data-driven decision lies in an operational “blind spot.”

Smart companies when designing mobile applications consider how they can personalize the user experience. They ask themselves how they can utilize all the accumulated data they have collected on their customers or prospects, plus third-party data sources, to make the experience as beautiful and pleasurable as possible. To start, they can often access the following kinds of data from their own and/or purchased databases to personalize the experience:

Name
Age
Gender
Address
Demographic data
Income estimate
Credit history
Education level
Marital status
Children
Lifestyle
Social media profile and sentiment
Job title
Purchase history
Locations of purchases
Preferences, tastes and style
Browsing/Shopping history

This data, however, is basic. It is merely a digital profile. It has many blind spots. It is often not based on real-time data. As competition stiffens, the above profile data will not be enough to deliver a competitive advantage. Companies will need to find ways to reduce blind spots in their data so they can increase the degree of personalization.

Sensors connected to the IoT (Internet of Things) will play an important role in reducing blind spots. Sensors, often cost only a few dollars, and can be set-up to detect or measure physical properties, and then wirelessly communicate the results to a designated server. Also as smartphones (aka sensor platforms) increase the number of sensors they include, and then make these sensors available to mobile application developers through APIs, the competitive playing field will shift to how these sensors can be used to increase the level of personalization.

Let’s imagine a garden supply company, GardenHelpers, developing a mobile application. The goal of the application is to provide competitive differentiation in the market by offering personalized garden advice and solutions. The GardenHelpers use the following smartphone sensors in their design to provide more personalized gardening advice:

GPS sensor (location data)
Cell Tower signal strength (location data)
Magnetometer sensor (location of sun)
Ambient light sensor (available sunlight)
Barometer sensor (altitude)

GardenHelpers combine the sensor data with date and time, plus third-party information such as:

GIS (geospatial information system on terrain, slopes, angles, watershed, etc.) data
Historic weather information
Government soil quality information
Government crop data, recommendations and advice

GardenHelpers also encourages the user to capture the GPS coordinates, via their smartphone, on each corner of their garden to input the estimated garden size, and to capture the amount of sunlight at various times of the day through the ambient light sensor. This information is compared with area weather data and the amount of shade and sunlight on their garden is estimated.

GardenHelpers now understands a great deal about the gardener (mobile app user), the garden location, size, lay of the land and sunlight at various times. However, there remain “blind spots.” GardenHelpers doesn't know the exact temperature, wind speeds, humidity levels, or the amount of water in the soil of the garden. How do they remedy these blind spots? They offer to sell the gardeners a kit of wireless IoT sensors to measure these.

With all of this information now the blind spots are now greatly reduced, but some remain. What about local pests, soil issues and advice? GardenHelpers adds a social and analytics element to their solution. This enables gardeners to share advice with other local gardeners with similar garden sizes and crops.

GardenHelpers can now deliver a mobile app that is hyper-personalized for their customers and prospects. The products they offer and recommend are not selected randomly, but are now based on precise smartphone and sensor data. The mobile app combined with the IoT sensors become an indispensable tool for their customers which leads to increased brand loyalty and sales.

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Kevin Benedict

Writer, Speaker, 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

Subscribe to Kevin'sYouTube Channel

Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility

Join the Google+ Community Mobile Enterprise Strategies

Mobile Apps, Analytics, Code Halos and Mass Personalization

Kevin Benedict, moderates this panel of digital experience and mobility experts including Benjamin Pring, Ted Shelton and Jack C. Crawford as they review and discuss the findings of Ben Pring's recent study Putting the Experience in Digital Customer Experience.

Video Link: https://youtu.be/xsPDWReccF4?list=UUGizQCw2Zbs3eTLwp7icoqw

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Kevin Benedict

Writer, Speaker, 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

Subscribe to Kevin'sYouTube Channel

Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility

Join the Google+ Community Mobile Enterprise Strategies

Enterprise Mobility - Adventures and Lessons from the Mobile World Congress with Jon Reed

Diginomica's Jon Reed interviews Cognizant's Senior Analyst for Digital Transformation and Mobility, Kevin Benedict on what he learned this year at the annual Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain. This year 93,000 people came together to learn and review the newest mobile, wireless and connected smart technologies at this event. Much has changed in the past 12 months and this interview covers many of these trends.

Video Link: https://youtu.be/8jwkhZgck1U

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Kevin Benedict

Writer, Speaker, 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

Subscribe to Kevin'sYouTube Channel

Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility

Join the Google+ Community Mobile Enterprise Strategies

Networked Field Services and Real-Time Decision Making

Investment in space travel has provided many direct and indirect benefits to society. For example, weather forecasting technology, solar energy, scratch resistant lenses, water purification systems, enriched baby food and air quality monitoring have all made advancements because of investments in space travel research. Likewise, the military has made huge investments related to the implementation of Network-Centric Warfare technologies and mobile data collection strategies that are now providing benefit and revolutionizing the way commercial field services organizations operate.

One of the most important capabilities that mobile solutions offer organizations today is the ability to provide better visibility, in near real time, into the activities and events taking place in the field – let’s call it situational awareness. Historically, it has been difficult to ensure that quality and service standards and processes are followed on remote jobsites and in mobile environments. The lack of real time visibility often means critical operational decisions and optimized scheduling choices are delayed which results in the inefficient utilization of resources and assets.

Better communication and visibility about the work completed or not completed on remote jobsites can ensure that proper policies and operational and safety processes are followed and assistance is provided when needed. Receiving, processing and sharing sensor (M2M) data from equipment, digital images, streaming video and real time mobile app updates with management and other process experts can often resolve challenging issues quickly and efficiently.

Today mobile applications support mobile data collection, real time database queries, alerts, mobile business processes, work order dispatch, location tracking, optimized scheduling, customer updates and alerts in most areas of the world. Situational awareness is a new capability for most organizations. It virtually enables managers and experts from anywhere in the world to be “digitally present” on remote jobsites. Being “digitally present” is accomplished today using a variety of tools available on most smartphones. These tools include:

Phone
Photos
Video
Voice/Audio
SMS
Email
Augmented reality
Bluetooth add-on equipment
GPS/Maps/Tracking
Custom mobile apps

Most organizations have yet to understand and exploit these capabilities to maximize efficiency and optimize returns. Each of these tools can and do play an important role in a networked field services operation.

The New Networked Organization

The most advanced militaries are developing and implementing strategies based on the concept of Network-Centric Warfare. These strategies, methodologies and concepts have direct relevance to commercial enterprises and field services organizations today under the name Network-Centric Operations or Networked Field Services.

The military uses rugged handhelds, radios, laptop computers, satellites, radio scanners, drones (UAVs), human resources, video surveillance, aerial surveillance, infrared cameras, remote sensors of all kinds and many other embedded mobile devices to create a web or grid of data collection points that are all wirelessly networked together.

Collected data is securely and wirelessly sent to a central server where it forms a real time and unified view of operations that can be used for analysis, forecasting, resource allocation, planning and real time decision making. This networked approach enables users to see where their assets are located, where they are needed and how best to manage them at all times to successfully and efficiently accomplish the mission.

Network-Centric Warfare, goes by the name Network-Centric Operations in commercial environments and is a relatively new military doctrine. It seeks to translate an information advantage (real-time data collected in the field) into a competitive advantage by using it for real-time decision-making. This networking, combined with real-time data, analytics, AI (artificial intelligence) and machine learning, enable organizations to behave and respond in ways never before possible. This strategy is based on the following four beliefs:

A robustly networked workforce improves data sharing.
Data sharing enhances the quality of information and supports situational awareness.
Shared situational awareness enables collaboration, and management and resource agility.
Points 1-3 support an optimized and efficient workforce

In order to optimize the performance of a military operation or a field services organization, it is critical to know, in real time, the location of all resources, the status of each job, the assets and equipment needed, and the time each job will require. When effectively coordinated and managed, human resources, equipment, assets and mobile inventories can be shared between multiple projects, and the right experts with the right levels of experience can be used on the right projects at the right time. The bottom line is that a leaner, more efficient organization can be put in the field that can accomplish more work with fewer resources and generate a higher return on investment.

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Kevin Benedict

Writer, Speaker, 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

Subscribe to Kevin'sYouTube Channel

Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility

Join the Google+ Community Mobile Enterprise Strategies

Real-Time Mobile Infrastructure and Digital Transformation Discussion with Expert Ved Sen

In this Google+ Hangout OnAir, I have the privilege of discussing the findings of my recent report, Real-Time Mobile Infrastructure, with UK based mobile and digital transformation expert Ved Sen. We discuss the challenges identified and possible solutions. Enjoy!

Real-Time Mobile Infrastructure Report, Introduction
Real-Time Mobile Infrastructure Report, Part 1
Real-Time Mobile Infrastructure Report, Part 2
Real-Time Mobile Infrastructure Report, Part 3

Video Link: https://youtu.be/IMYHORGxMYY?list=UUGizQCw2Zbs3eTLwp7icoqw

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Kevin Benedict

Writer, Speaker, 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

Subscribe to Kevin'sYouTube Channel

Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility

Join the Google+ Community Mobile Enterprise Strategies

Real-Time Mobile Infrastructure Report, Part 3

In this new report titled Real-Time Mobile Infrastructure, I ask 80 IT and business professionals involved in enterprise and consumer mobility to answer a series of questions. The results will be shared here in the following article series. This is Part 3 in the series.

Real-Time Mobile Infrastructure Report, An Introduction
Real-Time Mobile Infrastructure Report, Part 1
Real-Time Mobile Infrastructure Report, Part 2

Question: Do you (or your clients’) have IT systems that are too slow or incapable of supporting real-time mobile application requirements?

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Eighty-four percent report IT systems in their inventory that are completely incapable of supporting real-time mobility. It is important for enterprises to take inventory of their IT systems and to thoroughly understand which systems can support real-time mobility, and which cannot, and then analyze the cost of non-support. This inventory must be reviewed alongside forecasted technology and market trends and the actions of competitors. The pace of change, in many cases, is faster than current planning and budget cycles, and without bold action the ability to successfully compete in the future diminishes.

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Question: Will your (or your clients’) IT environment and back office systems prevent you from delivering an optimized mobile application experience?

Optimized mobile applications are viewed as key to the future success of businesses, yet 43% report IT environments and systems that will prevent them from delivering an optimized user experience. This data should be viewed with the seriousness it deserves and should serve as a call to action.

Recent studies find that mobile application users are impatient and only willing to wait for 3-5 seconds for a mobile application to load before abandoning it. Many never to return. This is significant as a higher percentage of commerce is moving to mobile applications.

Question: How important is the speed of a mobile application to the overall user experience?

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All survey participants identified mobile app speed as being “Important.” 80% said it was “Very Important.” Mobile applications by their very nature are often in the hands of a moving user. Location and time are key data points used to establish context in many mobile apps (e.g. this morning’s weather in Boston). No matter how great a mobile application design - delays in retrieving or interacting with back-office business or IT systems equate to negative user experiences and must be resolved.

Benchmarks for acceptable mobile application responses and speeds should be established and used to detect troublesome systems early. Some speed issues may be related to app design or Internet connectivity, but often the problems are in the back-office IT environment and require extensive efforts to alleviate.

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Kevin Benedict

Writer, Speaker, 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

Subscribe to Kevin'sYouTube Channel

Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility

Join the Google+ Community Mobile Enterprise Strategies

Real-Time Mobile Infrastructure Report, Part 2

In my new report titled Real-Time Mobile Infrastructure, I ask 80 IT and business professionals involved in enterprise and consumer mobility to answer a series of questions. The results will be shared here in the following article series. This is Part 2 in the series.

Question: Are your (or your clients’) mobile strategies and plans inhibited or limited because of the current IT environment, infrastructure and/or design?

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Current IT environments, legacy systems and IT architectures are inhibiting mobile strategies and plans according to 78% of survey participants. This represents a major competitive obstacle as data points to increasing use of mobile devices and applications. Both the business and the IT organizations must quickly reach a consensus on how to invest and upgrade mobile infrastructures and supporting IT environments in order to remain competitive.

Question: Will the demand for mobile applications force enterprises to make major investments in their IT environment to better support real-time interactions with mobile apps?

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The strong consensus (83%) is that major IT investment is needed to optimize IT environments in order to support real-time mobile applications. In our analysis, many businesses have yet to understand and accept the size and scope of the investments required.

Consumers are increasingly adopting mobile applications, and using apps as their primary interaction point with their preferred vendors. This transfer to mobile applications increases the importance of optimizing the user experience and the dependent IT systems, integration points and associated business processes.

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Question: What percentage of your (or your clients’) back-office systems are NOT optimized to support mobile applications?

Over half of respondents believe that 60% or more of their IT systems are not optimized to support real-time mobility. If that is not a problem today for an enterprise, it soon will be. As the use of mobile applications and their importance in commerce increases, so also will the negative impact of not optimizing an IT environment.

Read Part 3 in the article series here.

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Kevin Benedict

Writer, Speaker, 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

Subscribe to Kevin'sYouTube Channel

Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility

Join the Google+ Community Mobile Enterprise Strategies

Real-Time Mobile Infrastructure Report, Part 1

In my new report titled Real-Time Mobile Infrastructure, I ask 80 IT and business professionals involved in enterprise mobility to answer a series of questions. The results will be shared here in the following article series. You can read the introduction to this report here.

Question #1: How important will having optimized mobile applications and user experiences be to the future success of your business?

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Thirty-percent answered that optimized mobile applications and user experiences are “Critical” to the future success of their business, while seventy-percent of survey participants answered “Important” to “Very Important.” These definitive responses suggest that businesses understand the key role mobile applications play today and will play in the future.

What is left to be determined, however, is whether businesses fully understand how much effort and investment optimizing mobile applications and user experiences will require. The quality of the user experience, and the performances of mobile applications directly impact the user’s brand perception, and influence whether users will continue to use them.

Businesses that fail to grasp the importance of optimization, will find customers are unwilling to engage with them via mobile applications and will lose out in this quickly expanding sales channel.

Question #2: Is the demand for mobile apps forcing IT departments to rethink and change how they design and architect their IT infrastructure, processes and systems?

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The data reveals that the demand for mobile application development and support is forcing the majority (80%) of IT departments to rethink and alter the way they design and architect IT infrastructures, processes and systems. The data suggests IT environments are not optimized for mobility and this is influencing change.

Companies must transform in order to support a mobile first and data driven world that is utilizing Code Halos strategies, and that thrives on the real-time hyper-personalization of mobile user experiences. Legacy and problematic systems must be updated, upgraded or replaced in order to support the real-time requirements of today’s mobile and always connected marketplaces.

Read the next article in this series here - Real-Time Mobile Infrastructure Report, Part 2.

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Kevin Benedict

Writer, Speaker, 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

Subscribe to Kevin'sYouTube Channel

Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility

Join the Google+ Community Mobile Enterprise Strategies

Real-Time Mobile Infrastructure Report - Introduction

Real-Time Mobile Infrastructure

Fortune 500 firms recognize the ubiquitous use of mobile devices, integrated sensors and broadband access to the Internet are profoundly impacting user expectations and the demand for real-time wireless information exchanges. This can be witnessed in the fast changing expectations and shopping behaviors of mobile device empowered consumers all around us today.

Demands for real-time wireless information exchanges, business analytics, media and transactional data are challenging traditional IT infrastructures, business processes and business strategies that were never designed to support a mobile and real-time world. It is our belief that these demands and the challenges with supporting them will change the competitive landscape in most industries.

Data has a shelf life. It has a greater economic and competitive value the quicker it can be consumed and utilized. If mobile shoppers can open a mobile app and instantly be presented with a hyper-personalized shopping experience that considers their real-time location, buying history, preferences and other relevant physical and “Code Halos” data (all data available for analysis about a person, object or organization), then there is a greater competitive value represented by increased mobile app use, loyalty, positive brand experience, customer service and sales (see Starbuck's Code Halos and Mobile App Strategies). If on the other hand, companies have IT architectures, systems and infrastructures unable to support the speed requirements of real-time mobile interactions, then they will find themselves to be at a significant competitive disadvantage.

I surveyed 80 high tech industry and IT professionals involved in enterprise mobility, analyzed numerous industry reports, interviewed many mobile experts and reviewed current and forecasted technology trends to identify challenges and opportunities related to supporting real-time mobile infrastructure. The following article series titled Real-Time Mobile Infrastructure will detail the survey results and my analysis of the findings.

Business and IT decision makers will be interested in this article series due to the increasingly strategic impact mobile applications are having on businesses. Customers, prospects, partners and employees’ all are using mobile applications to interact, collaborate, research, shop, transact and engage in innovative new ways with companies, their products and services. It is our analysis this trend will continue to accelerate and be the key driver for on-going digital transformation in many industries and markets.

As a result of our analysis we believe the quality and performance of mobile applications and the associated user experiences directly impact and influence brand perception, social sentiment, loyalty and sales volumes.

In the new book titled Code Halos the authors, Malcolm Frank, Paul Roehrig and Benjamin Pring, propose that data is the new competitive arena for businesses. Winners in this competition are those that can collect, analyze and react in real-time to data in a manner that drives improved customer interactions and engagements. Today these engagements are often via mobile applications.

In another recent book titled, Digital Disruption: Unleashing the Next Wave of Innovation, author James McQuivey's writes that competition in business is rapidly moving to a “focus on knowledge of and engagement with customers.” Data is being used to shape and personalize real-time interactions and engagements on mobile devices. Companies are beginning to understand this. They understand that "Code Halos" (people’s digital footprint, the online data about preferences, history, activities, etc.) has great value. This data is the key to personalizing user experiences across all formats.

Businesses are interacting with and engaging their markets in a wide range of different formats today including traditional media, websites, mobile apps, call centers and in brick and mortar establishments. The concept of omni-channel is widely used to mean the ability to interact and engage in real-time with customers and prospects across all of these formats. The ability to effectively support omni-channel requires a lot of thinking, planning and purposeful design. An effective design is not always present in today’s enterprise IT environments. How much of a problem this is will be revealed in the following report.

Businesses today are responding by developing comprehensive data-driven strategies connected to e-commerce portals and mobile applications. These strategies acknowledge the requirement to better understand the needs, preferences and histories of their prospects and customers, so they can provide personalized and optimized user experiences that lead to more sales and happier and more loyal customers.

In a recent report by CIO Strategic Marketing Services (a survey of 414 executives at midsize and large enterprise organizations from around the world) they reveal enterprise IT and back-office systems typically have on average between 3.6 and 4.8 mobile applications integrated with each of them. The systems surveyed were: CRM, E-Commerce, ERP, SMS, DMS, Financial and HR.

These findings highlight how critically important back-end business and IT systems are to mobile applications. Mobile applications, in most cases, are required to query and interact with back-end systems as a core component of their functionality. The speed at which back-end systems can respond to queries and interact with mobile applications is a critical component in determining how successful the user experience will be.

If further evidence to the importance of real-time mobile infrastructure is required, let’s consider that Forrester Research predicts that US online sales will top $400 billion by 2018, and nearly $1 trillion worldwide. No company wants to miss out on this size of market (Mulpuru, Sucharita “The New Paradigm of Retail? Forrester – July 24, 2014).

Today the trend is quickly moving beyond traditional online e-commerce to mobile commerce. That makes mobile application performance even more important. In a recent study of 1,000 mobile shoppers (Contact Solutions, - Mobile Shopping Cliffhanger), 1 of 6 consumers report they struggle with mobile shopping apps more than half of the time. More than half (55%) of shoppers struggle with mobile shopping apps at least 20% of the time. When consumers struggle, 71% will abandon their cart or leave the app entirely. These numbers clearly demonstrate the necessity for an optimized mobile application and user experience.

Our analysis has determined that IT infrastructures for supporting real-time mobile applications are lacking in many companies, and correcting this must be a priority. Without mobile optimized back-end system, designs, processes and IT infrastructures in place that can support a "real-time" environment, an enterprise’s ability to remain competitive is in jeopardy.

Read Real-Time Mobile Infrastructure Report, Part 1
Read Real-Time Mobile Infrastructure Report, Part 2
Read Real-Time Mobile Infrastructure Report, Part 3

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Kevin Benedict

Writer, Speaker, 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

Subscribe to Kevin'sYouTube Channel

Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility

Join the Google+ Community Mobile Enterprise Strategies

Starbuck's Code Halos and Mobile App Strategies

Starbuck's

Starbuck's is expanding the roll-out of their mobile ordering, loyalty and payment app. This is one of the most interesting mobile apps from a major retailer that I have seen. Before I summarize the key features and benefits, let me share the purpose of Starbuck's latest roll-out according to The Seattle Times' Angel Gonzauez,"...to draw more customers into a digital ecosystem that is closely entwined with its rewards program, whose users tend to buy more, and more often." This is part of their plan to double revenue to $30 billion by 2019.

Key points:

Users of the app will be able to order and pay remotely - without being in the store. No lines to stand in.
The mobile app user can see, in real-time, how busy each store is (based on real-time POS data and mobile order volumes), and an estimate as to how long each store would take to deliver the order, and how long it would take you to walk or drive there. The user can then select a store to fulfill their order based on all this real-time data.
Your order will be waiting for you and labeled correctly (matching mobile app order and your name as spelled in your loyalty program account) when you arrive.
The mobile app is integrated with the loyalty program and free drinks are accumulated.
Orders will be waiting for the user when they arrive and packaged for travel.
Starbuck's has found that consumers order more products when they have more time to review menus and research the offers (and look at the delicious pictures).
Starbucks anticipates this will benefit their expanding menus and lunch offerings.

Starbuck's Chief Digital Officer Adam Brotman said the results from early pilots of this program in Portland, Oregon surpassed all expectations for efficiency and customer satisfaction.

Embedded Sensors and Real Time POS

I love their use and analysis of real-time POS and online ordering levels, time, location and distance to deliver the optimal value to the mobile user. They combine the use of sensors (IoT) embedded in the iPhone, plus the real-time ordering and system data, and loyalty program data to deliver the very best user experience personalized for each individual customer. At Cognizant we call this kind of implementation Code Halos strategies. This is where I am spending most of my research time in 2015.

This is an example of the future. We must ask ourselves if our current IT environment can support this level of real-time customer interaction and hyper-personalization of the user experience. If not, then we had better start working because this is where the competitive landscape of the future will be located.

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Kevin Benedict

Writer, Speaker, 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

Subscribe to Kevin'sYouTube Channel

Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility

Join the Google+ Community Mobile Enterprise Strategies

The Library of Kevin Benedict's MWC15 and Chennai Videos

Kevin Benedict & Mani Bahl
Chennai, India

If you missed, ignored or somehow avoided watching the video series I filmed circumnavigating the globe these past two weeks talking about mobile technologies and digital transformation, then you have one more chance for redemption. Here is the complete library for your enjoyment. This series is also very good for healing insomniacs, and for ending a bad date. Enjoy them or not!

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Kevin Benedict

Writer, Speaker, 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

Subscribe to Kevin'sYouTube Channel

Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility

Join the Google+ Community Mobile Enterprise Strategies

Mobile Expert Interviews: Xamarin's Steve Hall

This week I am reporting and working at the Mobile World Congress 2015 in Barcelona, Spain. Between meetings, I hunt down mobile experts to interview and share with you here. Today, we are privileged to have Xamarin's Steve Hall as our victim/guest. In this interview we review Xamarin's latest press releases, partnerships and software development strategies. Enjoy!

Video Link: http://youtu.be/Ob01Io7IOLY

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Kevin Benedict

Writer, Speaker, 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

Subscribe to Kevin'sYouTube Channel

Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility

Join the Google+ Community Mobile Enterprise Strategies

The Following Two Videos on Mobile Technologies are too Controversial to Show Here

Sometimes I record video commentaries about the mobile industry that are just too controversial to publish. They may identify trends, or identify select technologies and perhaps even vendors that you should avoid or embrace, while at other times the information is just too scary. These two short videos, filmed in Barcelona at the Mobile World Congress, are examples of videos I cannot publish.

Video Link: http://youtu.be/BdI5TV3bTw0

Video Link: http://youtu.be/i5fwH2lUn-k?list=UUGizQCw2Zbs3eTLwp7icoqw

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Kevin Benedict

Writer, Speaker, 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

Subscribe to Kevin'sYouTube Channel

Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility

Join the Google+ Community Mobile Enterprise Strategies

The State of Digital Transformation and Mobility in Asia - An Interview with Manish Bahl

I had the privilege last week, while working in India, to interview Cognizant's Head of the Center for the Future of Work in Asia, Manish Bahl. In this interview we discuss the current state of mobility and digital transformation across Asia. Enjoy!

Video Link: http://youtu.be/MtiFgm4P3eM?list=UUGizQCw2Zbs3eTLwp7icoqw

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Kevin Benedict

Writer, Speaker, 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

Subscribe to Kevin'sYouTube Channel

Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility

Join the Google+ Community Mobile Enterprise Strategies

Managing and Cultivating Mobile and Digital Transformation

I have been attending and learning at Cognizant's "Go Digital" Innovation Days in Chennai, India this week. I have seen some very interesting technologies, learned from experienced strategists and interviewed a number of very talented technologist this week. In this short video I summarize some of my learnings for those not able to attend. Enjoy!

Video Link: http://youtu.be/vsHJbABbuJY?list=UUGizQCw2Zbs3eTLwp7icoqw

************************************************************************

Kevin Benedict

Writer, Speaker, 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

Subscribe to Kevin'sYouTube Channel

Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility

Join the Google+ Community Mobile Enterprise Strategies

Kevin Benedict Ponders the Future

Digital Transformation and the First Law of Thermodynamics

It's Time for Technology to Disappear

Mobile Apps - Personalizing While Respecting Personal Privacy

Mobile Apps, Blind Spots, Tomatoes and IoT Sensors

Mobile Apps, Analytics, Code Halos and Mass Personalization

Enterprise Mobility - Adventures and Lessons from the Mobile World Congress with Jon Reed

Networked Field Services and Real-Time Decision Making

Real-Time Mobile Infrastructure and Digital Transformation Discussion with Expert Ved Sen

Real-Time Mobile Infrastructure Report, Part 3

Real-Time Mobile Infrastructure Report, Part 2

Real-Time Mobile Infrastructure Report, Part 1

Real-Time Mobile Infrastructure Report - Introduction

Starbuck's Code Halos and Mobile App Strategies

The Library of Kevin Benedict's MWC15 and Chennai Videos

Mobile Expert Interviews: Xamarin's Steve Hall

The Following Two Videos on Mobile Technologies are too Controversial to Show Here

The State of Digital Transformation and Mobility in Asia - An Interview with Manish Bahl

Managing and Cultivating Mobile and Digital Transformation

Interviews with Kevin Benedict

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