Information Dominance as a Company's Mobile Strategy

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

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

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

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

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Kevin Benedict

Writer, Speaker, Editor

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

View my profile on LinkedIn

Learn about mobile strategies at MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Browse the Mobile Solution Directory

Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility

Join the Google+ Community Mobile Enterprise Strategies

Recommended Strategy Book Code Halos

Recommended iPad App Code Halos for iPads

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

Mobile Expert Interview: Mobile Labs' Dan McFall

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

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

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Kevin Benedict

Writer, Speaker, Editor

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

View my profile on LinkedIn

Learn about mobile strategies at MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Browse the Mobile Solution Directory

Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility

Join the Google+ Community Mobile Enterprise Strategies

Recommended Strategy Book Code Halos

Recommended iPad App Code Halos for iPads

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

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

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

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

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Kevin Benedict

Writer, Speaker, Editor

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

View my profile on LinkedIn

Learn about mobile strategies at MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Browse the Mobile Solution Directory

Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility

Join the Google+ Community Mobile Enterprise Strategies

Recommended Strategy Book Code Halos

Recommended iPad App Code Halos for iPads

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Kevin Benedict

Writer, Speaker, Editor

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

View my profile on LinkedIn

Learn about mobile strategies at MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Browse the Mobile Solution Directory

Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility

Join the Google+ Community Mobile Enterprise Strategies

Recommended Strategy Book Code Halos

Recommended iPad App Code Halos for iPads

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

Mobile Expert Interview: Carlo Cadet, Perfecto Mobile

On Fire
M6 Mobility Xchange 2014

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

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

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

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

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Kevin Benedict

Writer, Speaker, Editor

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

View my profile on LinkedIn

Learn about mobile strategies at MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Browse the Mobile Solution Directory

Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility

Join the Google+ Community Mobile Enterprise Strategies

Recommended Strategy Book Code Halos

Recommended iPad App Code Halos for iPads

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

Mobile Expert Interview: Jack Gold, Mobility Analyst

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

Video Link: http://m6mobilityxchange.com/

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Kevin Benedict

Writer, Speaker, Editor

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

View my profile on LinkedIn

Learn about mobile strategies at MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Browse the Mobile Solution Directory

Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility

Join the Google+ Community Mobile Enterprise Strategies

Recommended Strategy Book Code Halos

Recommended iPad App Code Halos for iPads

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

Mobile Expert Interview: Feedhenry's Steve Drake

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

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

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

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



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Kevin Benedict

Writer, Speaker, Editor

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

View my profile on LinkedIn

Learn about mobile strategies at MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Browse the Mobile Solution Directory

Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility

Join the Google+ Community Mobile Enterprise Strategies

Recommended Strategy Book Code Halos

Recommended iPad App Code Halos for iPads

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

Notes from the M6 MobilityXchange Conference in San Diego

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

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

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

Stay tuned for Day #2.

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Kevin Benedict

Writer, Speaker, Editor

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

View my profile on LinkedIn

Learn about mobile strategies at MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Browse the Mobile Solution Directory

Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility

Join the Google+ Community Mobile Enterprise Strategies

Recommended Strategy Book Code Halos

Recommended iPad App Code Halos for iPads

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

The Impact of Digital Transformation and Mobile Apps on Banking

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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Kevin Benedict

Writer, Speaker, Editor

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

View my profile on LinkedIn

Learn about mobile strategies at MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Browse the Mobile Solution Directory

Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility

Join the Google+ Community Mobile Enterprise Strategies

Recommended Strategy Book Code Halos

Recommended iPad App Code Halos for iPads

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

Professors and the Unanticipated Consequences of Digital Transformation

Code Halos - The Book

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

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

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

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

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Kevin Benedict

Writer, Speaker, Editor

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

View my profile on LinkedIn

Learn about mobile strategies at MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Browse the Mobile Solution Directory

Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility

Join the Google+ Community Mobile Enterprise Strategies

Recommended Strategy Book Code Halos

Recommended iPad App Code Halos for iPads

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

Oracle Mobility Emerges Prepared for the Future

Suhas Uliyar

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Kevin Benedict

Writer, Speaker, Editor

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

View my profile on LinkedIn

Learn about mobile strategies at MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Browse the Mobile Solution Directory

Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility

Join the Google+ Community Mobile Enterprise Strategies

Recommended Strategy Book Code Halos

Recommended iPad App Code Halos for iPads

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

Mating Calls, Bird Watchers, Enterprise Mobility and Mobile Apps

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

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

Google Glass for Bird Watchers

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

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

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

  

  The Yellow-rumped Warbler
  Credit Candy Anderson

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Kevin Benedict

Writer, Speaker, Editor

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

View my profile on LinkedIn

Learn about mobile strategies at MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Browse the Mobile Solution Directory

Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility

Join the Google+ Community Mobile Enterprise Strategies

Recommended Strategy Book Code Halos

Recommended iPad App Code Halos for iPads

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

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

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

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

Here are 12 talking points from my latest workshops:

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

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

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Kevin Benedict

Writer, Speaker, Editor

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

View my profile on LinkedIn

Learn about mobile strategies at MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Browse the Mobile Solution Directory

Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility

Join the Google+ Community Mobile Enterprise Strategies

Recommended Strategy Book Code Halos

Recommended iPad App Code Halos for iPads

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

Location Based Services and RFID Help Hospitals Save Money

The words location based services (LBS) immediately brings to mind mobile marketing apps and other location based sales and marketing services based upon GPS coordinates.  If we have an enterprise IT perspective we may think of fleet management, asset management and equipment tracking.  The technologies and strategies behind these technologies, however, are not limited to rugged outdoor, blue collar environments.  They have now also moved into sterile indoor environments.  Let's review a few of these use cases documented by Caleb Benedict, Research Analyst, GIS/IoT.

The use of LBS (location based services) in the healthcare industry is growing rapidly. It is being used to save time, money, and reduce liabilities. Earlier this week an article was published by Pharmabiz.com that described how Tyco Security is providing Indian Hospitals with RFID services to track patients, medical equipment and pharmaceuticals (http://bit.ly/PAIJvP).  Along with knowing patient locations, these solutions allow hospitals to track and maintain security over expensive equipment, and to closely monitor prescription drugs to limit dangerous mistakes.

A recent report by Research and Markets predicts the healthcare RFID market will grow at a CAGR of 35 percent through 2017. As this forecast demonstrates, RFID technology continues to gain traction in the healthcare industry proving that it has moved beyond its roots tracking cargo containers and freight (http://bit.ly/PAIJvP).

LBS technologies are also on the rise.  Markets and Markets reports that the location based services market will grow at a CAGR of 25 percent annually through 2019 and the market will be valued at $39 billion. They also report that the largest portion of LBS growth will come from the healthcare asset management sector. LBS solutions help hospitals monitor patients locations and track ambulances as they respond to emergencies and deliver patients (http://bit.ly/1l7gV10).

It is our analysis, based on a review of publicly available data, that the healthcare industry will continue to adopt these technologies as they are proving to save money, reduce loss and limit liabilities. These solutions, along with GIS applications in healthcare, illustrate the huge potential the industry has in applying location and tracking technologies in everyday hospital operations.

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Kevin Benedict

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

View my profile on LinkedIn

Learn about mobile strategies at MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Browse the Mobile Solution Directory

Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility

Join the Google+ Community Mobile Enterprise Strategies

Recommended Strategy Book Code Halos

Recommended iPad App Code Halos for iPads

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

Insurance Industry Disrupted, The Quantified-Self - Wearables, Telematics, Code Halos and Digital Transformation

By Peter Abatan, Studio Thirteen, Cognizant

The New Finance Meet-up group is currently running a 6 part series over a period of 6 months to determine what could disrupt the Insurance industry. In the most recent meet-up the focus was on how the quantified-self could disrupt the insurance industry. I came away from the meet-up with the conclusion that smart insurers will begin to develop products that are more customizable to the individual needs rather than offering products desiged on demographics, i.e. where you live, your age group, family size etc.

So what is the quantified-self? The quantified-self is the data that has been accumulated on the individual’s behavior, health status, medical conditions and overall well-being by the individual themselves (We call this data Code Halos at Cognizant). In the future many experts believe that it will be the basis on which insurance products are sold to customers.

There is still a lot of controversy around ownership of data and whether once that data has been released to an insurer whether it can be withdrawn, and whether an adverse event could impact or prevent an individual from being able to buy an insurance product. However, many experts have come to the conclusion, that smart insurers would use this adverse data to help customers to manage that event better rather than use it as an opportunity to charge very high premiums.

For example if you drive more in the night you are three times more likely to have an accident than someone who drives during the day (Forbes). In this scenario, your insurance company can help with providing tools that minimize the probability of that happening instead of charging very high premiums for someone who has driven in the night for the last 20 years and never had an accident. There are no guarantees that the person would never have an accident in the future, but the tools provided can help reduce that risk to a minimum.

There were about 40 to 50 delegates that attended and attendees came from new start-ups, the technology and insurance sectors. The session started with a product feature from Francis White from AliveCor. AliveCor is a heart monitor that provides individuals with the ability to track heart health anywhere, anytime at an affordable cost, you can see more about the device at www.alivecor.com. What is great about this company is that it has a cloud strategy in which you can grant access to your ECG data. It also has alerts that will warn you of any impending dangers and therefore recommend that you contact your physician. The device is portable enough to fit onto the back of a smartphone and takes the ECG reading from both thumbs allowing you to take readings anytime and anywhere.

The second product feature was by Matt Lewis, the founder of Quantid (www.quantid.co), a start-up that is aiming to revolutionize the health industry. Quantid already does what MapMyWalk and Training Peaks already does and more. Quantid describes itself as the Facebook of quantified human data. It is a social networking platform, enabling users of personal tracking devices and apps to make profound improvements to their health, fitness and overall well-being by delivering insights and analysis of their quantified personal data. Although at the time of writing this report their website was down, I can say that the founder has some well meaning ambitions.

Quantid supports a rich set of features; the application integrates with most popular tracking products on the market, making it easy for users to access all their personal data aggregated within a single platform; it allows users to share specific datasets with friends, doctors and other practitioners; and it offers the ability to set reminders, goals and challenges. Quantid plans to amass an enormous database of quantified human data. "By leveraging the power of big data analytics we plan to develop sophisticated algorithms to identify trends and correlations, enabling our customers to generate powerful insights into their behavior, health status, medical conditions and overall well-being." The key challenge to Quantid is the matter of trust, and the guarantee that the customer’s data would never under any circumstances be sold or given to third parties.

The host for the meet-up, Eddie George, took 10 minutes describing what the quantified-self is and how wearables are key to this concept. He described it as all the vital health and other data that could affect how you are offered insurance premiums. Your health and activity data or the lack of it will, in the future, affect the premiums that you pay for health and life insurance.  It will also impact your vehicle insurance. This also led to the question as to how much of your quantified-self do you let your insurance company know about you in order to offer a fair premium.

George identified 3 challenges that face the quantified-self namely, aggregation, analysis and access. Aggregation in the sense that currently individuals are in possession of different types of data related to their health and physical training/activity, therefore it might make analysis a lot more challenging, also access to this data is highly siloed and spread across different providers.

After George’s description of quantified-self we were all split up into break out sessions where we discussed whether there is a benefit for insurance companies and the individual when it comes to this subject matter? One key outcome from my break out group was that, if insurance companies could use the quantified-self to help the individual to make better decisions, rather than punish through hefty premiums it will guarantee the survival of that organization in what is considered a very competitive landscape. Another lesson shared was that insurance companies should start to use technology and the quantified-self to bring individuals on the fringe who normally find it difficult to get insurance into the fold and make the insurance products more accessible to these group of people.

From the number of representatives from the insurance industry at the meet-up, one thing was clear, the insurance industry knows digital transformation is imminent, and they do not want to be caught unawares when this happens.  They want to approach it from a position of strength, rather than from a position of weakness by developing a closer and stronger relationship with their customers by offering better products and services that are value for money.

Peter Abatan is a project manager and a team member of Studio13, a design studio which provides product and service design to a wide variety of Cognizant’s customers in various market sectors.

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Kevin Benedict

Digital Curator, 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

Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility

Join the Google+ Community Mobile Enterprise Strategies

Recommended Strategy Book Code Halos

Recommended iPad App Code Halos for iPads

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

Real-Time GIS for Increased Visibility, Accountability and Productivity

By Caleb Benedict, Research Analyst, GIS and IoT

Companies are quickly finding new and innovative ways to recognize value by integrating real time mapping applications into their business processes. Real-time mapping is the GIS process of tracking changes on the earth’s surface and displaying that information on a computer screen. This process can include changes to company assets and resources (vehicles, cargo containers, people), and changes in physical terrain based on weather conditions, construction activity, etc.  Companies are increasingly using real-time GIS to improve workforce and project supervision, oversight and accountability.

Examples can be seen in a variety of industries:

• When port security officials track the location of cargo containers, personnel, and ships as they travel through sea ports.
• When disaster relief officials track the movement of floodwaters 
• When insurance companies monitor impact areas from natural disasters allowing them to estimate monetary damages and number of claims

Recent applications of real-time mapping:

Port security officials in Los Angeles use GIS to increase their security measures by tracking people, ships, cargo containers, and vehicles in real time.  This allows them to monitor all aspects of port operations so that any abnormalities can be easily identified and investigated. (http://bit.ly/1jtqwbM)

A handful of insurance companies have also found a way to use real time mapping to estimate the impact of natural disasters to policyholders by mapping the damage areas from floods, tornados and other events that result in insurance claims. This has been helpful to insurance companies because it allows them the ability to estimate damages and prepare their staff for high volumes of new claims. (http://bit.ly/1h9iHus)

The use of GIS in real-time is another element of digital transformation.  You are using imaging sensors to digitize physical terrain, assets and resources so you can develop algorithms to help you more efficiently understand and manage your business.

Adding sensors from connected devices can also add valuable data to your maps.  Knowing the location and status of your vehicles, equipment, materials and workers can enable sophisticated algorithms that impact scheduling and resource utilization.

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Kevin Benedict

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

View my profile on LinkedIn

Learn about mobile strategies at MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Browse the Mobile Solution Directory

Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility

Join the Google+ Community Mobile Enterprise Strategies

Recommended Strategy Book Code Halos

Recommended iPad App Code Halos for iPads

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

How The Healthcare Industry is Using GIS in 2014

By Caleb Benedict, Research Analyst, GIS and IoT

GIS technology is being used in the healthcare industry today for patient care and preventative medicine among other things. Hospitals and other organizations, with GIS and big data resources now have the ability to collect geographic information from their patients and study trends in illnesses based on where the patients live now and have lived in the past.  By displaying this information on a map it allows healthcare workers to visually see trends in illnesses and predict which communities will most likely to be impacted in the future.  In addition, understanding where patients have traveled over time enables healthcare officials to predict where ground zero for viruses might be located and how the diseases may have been spread.

A recent GIS study conducted in China determined the next likely at-risk region for the H7N9 avian flu virus is located in a northern region of Vietnam. They were able to determine this information by mapping previous cases of the flu virus which created a cookie-crumb trail that helped them predict northern Vietnam.

GIS applications like the one in China can be used for a variety of healthcare trends. If hospitals start building databases using patient locations, they would be able to detect trends based on patient geography. This could allow hospitals to stock medical inventory based on predictive analytics, train their staff in advance of diseases, and forecast the number of patients that will be affected.

Not only can GIS help predict future at-risk areas, but GIS applications can also help hospitals reduce expenses and improve patient care. A recent study in Maryland compared the use of life flight helicopters to ambulances. The study determined that in 31% of cases when a life flight was used, an ambulance would have been a better choice.  Knowing when an ambulance is a better choice could save a lot of money.

The use of GIS technology and big data analytics in healthcare is an emerging area worth watching. Here are some of the use cases referenced above:

A study by the University of Cincinnati uses GIS to compare the use of life flight helicopters and ambulances. (http://bit.ly/1noQnoQ)

GIS is used to study how pollution levels in different regions of the U.S. affect residents. (http://bit.ly/1jIHGoz)

A recent study in China uses GIS to predict the next impact area for the H7N9 avian flu virus. (http://bit.ly/1fU8yBI)

Join Kevin Benedict at the M6 Mobility Exchange in San Diego!

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Kevin Benedict

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

View my profile on LinkedIn

Learn about mobile strategies at MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Browse the Mobile Solution Directory

Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility

Join the Google+ Community Mobile Enterprise Strategies

Recommended Strategy Book Code Halos

Recommended iPad App Code Halos for iPads

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

IoT Devices and Apps for both Industry and Consumers

By Caleb Benedict, Research Analyst, GIS/IoT

Recently Google acquired the home automation company Nest. Nest is a company that sells IoT (Internet of Things) enabled devices that allow homeowners to control the temperature of their homes through their smartphones, plus it sends notifications if it detects dangerous levels of smoke or carbon monoxide. This company is a great example of how IoT is expanding beyond its industrial roots.

Why would Google get involved in home automation systems?  Because their real goal is to collect, analyze and utilize data to provide more personalized online and mobile experiences. Cognizant calls this strategy "Code Halos" strategies.  Nest will provide Google with a much deeper understanding of consumers' "patterns of life."

In the next few years we will see widespread adoption of IoT technologies for consumers. This will include a range of applications such as smartphone controlled appliances, home irrigation systems, alarm systems, home automation systems, smart-watches that monitor vital signs, Internet connected vehicles and new applications that we haven't even heard of yet. There is and will be massive expansion of the IoT for personal use.

IoT is growing quickly and is expanding into new industries. IoT strategies are currently being used in vehicle fleets, home automation and management, healthcare, manufacturing, smart grids, ATMs and much more. Not only are IoT applications being embraced by industry, but also by consumers.  In 2014 we are seeing many new Internet connected devices such as Google Glass, smart watches and smart appliances appear.

Some examples of IoT applications today:

• Tracking vehicle fleets for increased accountability
• Monitoring vehicle performance to maximize efficiency and reduce operating costs
• Viewing electricity usage through smart meters
• Managing production lines through M2M sensors
• Internet connected-alarm systems
• Monitoring vitals for hospital patients
• Home management-systems that control thermostats, appliances, irrigation systems, etc.

Recent IoT market forecasts:

IDTechEx research has found that the wireless sensor market will grow to $1.8 billion by 2024. (http://bit.ly/1i5Q29P)

Gartner predicts the “internet of things” will hit 26 billion devices by 2020, up from 900 million five years ago, and this will increase the amount of information available to supply chain professionals, as well as exposure to cyber risks. (http://bit.ly/1e57GG6)

According to a recent report from Navigant Research, cumulative utility spending on IT systems for the smart grid will total $139.3 billion from 2014 through 2022. (http://bit.ly/1ka16DL)

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Kevin Benedict

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

View my profile on LinkedIn

Learn about mobile strategies at MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Browse the Mobile Solution Directory

Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility

Join the Google+ Community Mobile Enterprise Strategies

Recommended Strategy Book Code Halos

Recommended iPad App Code Halos for iPads

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

Digital and Innovation Expert Interview: Sean Middleton

Something new, this way comes!  Over the past couple of years, in increasing frequency, companies I am working with on digital and mobile strategies are asking advice on how to set-up an environment that encourages internal innovation.  Some have set-up innovation contests (think Someplace has Talent for those that can't sing), and others teach internal workshops.  Why bother?  Often the people closest to problems are those on the frontlines with innovative ideas, but no obvious path or budget to implement them.  These innovative ideas may be the right formulas for competitive advantages and success!

With this subject in mind, I arranged to interview digital and innovation expert, Sean Middleton, COO of the EBA (Emerging Business Accelerators), at Cognizant.  He runs the EBA which is the venture arm of Cognizant.  A place where innovative ideas receive an audience, get peer reviewed, funded and matured.  Enjoy!

Video Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ltSXl84_z5U&list=UUGizQCw2Zbs3eTLwp7icoqw&feature=share

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Kevin Benedict

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

View my profile on LinkedIn

Learn about mobile strategies at MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Browse the Mobile Solution Directory

Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility

Join the Google+ Community Mobile Enterprise Strategies

Recommended Strategy Book Code Halos

Recommended iPad App Code Halos for iPads

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