Showing posts with label mobility analyst. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mobility analyst. Show all posts

Digital Transformation and the First Law of Thermodynamics

  1. Jettison the Heavy Baggage and Digitally Tranform
  2. Digital Transformation - The Dark Side
  3. Business is Not as Usual in Digital Transformation
  4. 15 Rules for Winning in Digital Transformation
  5. The End Goal of Digital Transformation
  6. Digital Transformation and the Ignorance Penalty
  7. Surviving the Three Ages of Digital Transformation
  8. From Digital to Hyper-Transformation
  9. Believers, Non-Believers and Digital Transformation
  10. Forces Driving the Digital Transformation Era
  11. Digital Transformation Requires Agility and Energy Measurement
  12. A Doctrine for Digital Transformation is Required
  13. The Advantages of Advantage in Digital Transformation
  14. Digital Transformation and Its Role in Mobility and Competition
  15. Digital Transformation - A Revolution in Precision Through IoT, Analytics and Mobility
  16. Competing in Digital Transformation and Mobility
  17. Ambiguity and Digital Transformation
  18. Digital Transformation and Mobility - Macro-Forces and Timing
  19. Mobile and IoT Technologies are Inside the Curve of Human Time
Kevin Benedict
Senior Analyst, Center for the Future of Work, Cognizant Writer, Speaker and World Traveler
View my profile on LinkedIn
Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict
Subscribe to Kevin'sYouTube Channel
Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility
Join the Google+ Community Mobile Enterprise Strategies

***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:
  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. Communication technologies should disappear into the background, and the quality and utility of the message improved by technologies.
  4. 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.
  5. 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.
  6. 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.
  7. 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.
  8. 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.
  9. 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.
  10. 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.
  11. 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
View my profile on LinkedIn
Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict
Subscribe to Kevin'sYouTube Channel
Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility
Join the Google+ Community Mobile Enterprise Strategies

***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 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
Subscribe to Kevin'sYouTube Channel
Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility
Join the Google+ Community Mobile Enterprise Strategies

***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 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
Subscribe to Kevin'sYouTube Channel
Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility
Join the Google+ Community Mobile Enterprise Strategies

***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 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
Subscribe to Kevin'sYouTube Channel
Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility
Join the Google+ Community Mobile Enterprise Strategies

***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.

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
Subscribe to Kevin'sYouTube Channel
Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility
Join the Google+ Community Mobile Enterprise Strategies

***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.

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:
  1. A robustly networked workforce improves data sharing.
  2. Data sharing enhances the quality of information and supports situational awareness.
  3. Shared situational awareness enables collaboration, and management and resource agility.
  4. 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
Subscribe to Kevin'sYouTube Channel
Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility
Join the Google+ Community Mobile Enterprise Strategies

***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.

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
Subscribe to Kevin'sYouTube Channel
Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility
Join the Google+ Community Mobile Enterprise Strategies

***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.

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?

Click to Enlarge
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
Subscribe to Kevin'sYouTube Channel
Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility
Join the Google+ Community Mobile Enterprise Strategies

***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.

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?
Click to Enlarge

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?

Click to Enlarge
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.

Click to Enlarge
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
Subscribe to Kevin'sYouTube Channel
Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility
Join the Google+ Community Mobile Enterprise Strategies

***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.

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?
Click to Enlarge

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?

Click to Enlarge
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
Subscribe to Kevin'sYouTube Channel
Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility
Join the Google+ Community Mobile Enterprise Strategies

***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.

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
Subscribe to Kevin'sYouTube Channel
Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility
Join the Google+ Community Mobile Enterprise Strategies

***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.

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
Subscribe to Kevin'sYouTube Channel
Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility
Join the Google+ Community Mobile Enterprise Strategies

***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 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!
  1. Digital Transformation, Future Job Opportunities and Chennai India
  2. Merchants of Ideas and Innovations
  3. Managing and Cultivating Mobile and Digital Transformation
  4. The State of Digital Transformation and Mobility in Asia - An Interview with Manish Bahl
  5. Barcelona the Smart City
  6. What's New in Mobility in 2015 - Reporting from MWC 2015
  7. Mobile Expert Interviews: Microsoft's Rob Tiffany at MWC15
  8. Mobile Expert Interviews: Xamarin's Steve Hall
  9. Kevin Benedict Interviews Micron's Mike Bokan at Mobile World Congress 2015
  10. IoT and Sensors from AMS at MWC15
  11. Mobile Expert Interviews from MWC15: Cimarron Buser
  12. Top Trends in Mobility 2015 - From the Mobile World Congress 2015
  13. Circumnavigating the Globe and Learning about Mobility, IoT and Digital Transformation
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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
Subscribe to Kevin'sYouTube Channel
Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility
Join the Google+ Community Mobile Enterprise Strategies

***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 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
Subscribe to Kevin'sYouTube Channel
Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility
Join the Google+ Community Mobile Enterprise Strategies

***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 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


************************************************************************
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
Subscribe to Kevin'sYouTube Channel
Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility
Join the Google+ Community Mobile Enterprise Strategies

***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 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

************************************************************************
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
Subscribe to Kevin'sYouTube Channel
Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility
Join the Google+ Community Mobile Enterprise Strategies

***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.

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
Subscribe to Kevin'sYouTube Channel
Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility
Join the Google+ Community Mobile Enterprise Strategies

***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.

Interviews with Kevin Benedict