SMAC Ready Enterprise - Changing Tides in Enterprise Mobility

Over the past few months I have noticed a change in the enterprise mobility space.  Cloud mobility, once a distant vision, now seems to be a mainstream topic.  I have seen a shift from companies believing it necessary to set-up their own internal mobile platforms, mobile infrastructure and mobile security, to looking first to cloud based mobile environments, and then secondly, if not finding their requirements met, moving to the traditional on-premise solutions.  I have seen a great deal more flexibility from MADP (mobile application development platform) vendors with their tools and business models.

I am seeing an increasing reluctance by enterprises to purchase million dollar MADPs even before there are apps to use.  Companies are happy to pay based on realized ROI, but hesitate to invest upfront.

I am seeing an increasing awareness of mobile security needs, but again, companies are now seeking first cloud based mobile security solutions to see if their needs are met there, if not, they look at on-premise options.

I am meeting with companies that have completely moved to cloud based Google Apps, Android and Google Enterprise solutions.  They feel they can better centrally manage and secure their company communications and data through Google Enterprise.

It seems to me as the enterprise mobility market matures, it is also rationalizing.  Early adopters were willing to navigate difficult business and licensing environments, implement expensive POCs and experimental solutions, but today they want a rational, logical, flexible and easy solution that mitigates the risk.

Competition in the enterprise mobility space has now matured to the point that there are many reasonable alternatives, business models and deployment scenarios.  These alternatives, i.e. HTML5, native, hybrid, cloud, on-premise, yearly subscriptions, monthly subscriptions, licenses, etc., motivates all competitors to become better and more business friendly vendors.

All of these rapid changes should encourage enterprises to jump into mobility with both feet, but to implement solutions that do not lock them into a particular mobile device, mobile OS or MADP.

For decades the goal of nearly all software vendors was to entice the end user into using a particular tool, OS or development environment long enough so that the accumulated investment made it very difficult to abandon.  The business model of software vendors was based on creating a large maintenance fee based business.  Although this model offered stability for the software vendor and often the customer as well, it is not suited to the fast paced world of enterprise mobility that requires flexibility and agility.

Today companies should be focused less on a particular mobile devices, mobile OSs and mobile vendor solutions, and more on creating a SMAC (social, mobile, analytic and cloud) READY enterprise.  This is very important!  A SMAC READY enterprise means their enterprise is capable of supporting and thriving in a "real-time" world that is driven by SMAC requirements.  A world rich in data, that requires the ability to analyze it in real-time, and to get the resulting business-ready information into the hands of their mobile works in real-time in order to optimize productivity, decision making, sales and services.

For many enterprises developing a SMAC READY enterprise is a big challenge. The mobile apps are the easy part! Their IT systems, processes and business models were not designed to support the unimagined speed and volume of data that floods over us today (see Code Halos article). This challenge, however, is worth pursuing.  Today a company's success and I would dare say very survivability is dependent upon it.

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Kevin Benedict, Head Analyst for Social, Mobile, Analytics and Cloud (SMAC) Cognizant

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Learn about mobile strategies at MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com

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

Developing Enterprise Strategies for Code Halos

Ben Pring, Malcolm Frank and
Paul Roehrig

My colleague and Cognizant's Co-Director of the Center for The Future of Work, Ben Pring shares in this guest post, his insights into the idea of "Code Halos" and the role they play in digital transformations and SMAC (social, mobile, analytics and cloud).  The concept of "Code Halos" is a useful way to help us understand and develop strategies for the effective use of all kinds of enterprise data.

In my previous post I introduced the idea of “Code Halos” --  the digital fingerprint each one of us is creating with every click or swipe of our phone, tablet, laptop, Glass, Nest, FuelBand, dashboard, or other smart device, which says who we are and what makes us tick. We also noted that these “personal” Code Halos are migrating into businesses in increasingly significant ways (and not just with the digital service providers such as Pandora or Amazon). In this piece we outline a number of key areas in which we see “business” Code Halos emerging and the changing what organizations do and how they do it.

Customer Code Halos: Customer-centric Code Halos — leveraging consumer data and insights — are creating enriched customer experiences through the use of sophisticated algorithms being applied to individualized code — i.e., past usage, input given to systems such as the Amazon Betterizer, artist selections added to Pandora streams, etc. This is not just reserved for companies with a “born-digital” DNA. Disney, for example, is launching a “Magic Band” bracelet to help guide visitors through its amusement parks, manage ticketing, act as room keys, personalize the guest experience and even work as a portable bank. The Magic Band is set to transform a day at a Disney park from a one-size-fits-all experience to a highly personalized one.

Product Code Halos: Every day we see move evidence that we are moving into the era of the “Internet of things.” From mobile phones to GE aircraft engines to even personal grooming tools such as toothbrushes, more and more devices today are becoming network-aware. They all have the potential to generate rich Code Halos that interact with the halos of information from people, business processes and organizations, and generate streams of data ripe for deriving meaning. As Code Halos grow, the “software” of these products becomes far more valuable than their associated “hardware.” For example, with a smart toothbrush, the physical tool itself is a commodity, while brushing habits, dental hygiene history and health needs create a halo of information that is of premium value. In many sectors, new business processes, industry models and products are being formed at this Code Halo intersection.

Employee Code Halos: Halos are being built around individual employees – think LinkedIn – which are creating new models by which knowledge work is conducted. In fact, our employee Code Halos can be far richer and more powerful than many consumer halos, as they comprise our work histories, subject matter expertise, perspectives, work styles and experiences. Employee halos facilitate getting the right work to the right person at the right time, all contextualized within a work stream — delivering the most appropriate organizational assets to the individual. In much the same way that Amazon’s consumer Code Halos and algorithms individualize the shopping experience, employee halos and organizational algorithms individualize and transform the work experience. This is changing how companies and organizations, such as Southern California Edison and Arlington County in Virginia, collaborate to capture business opportunities.

Partner Code Halos: With new technologies and more collaborative mindsets, traditional supply chains (primarily linear and designed for physical products) are re-forming into tightly integrated systems for sharing and co-creating knowledge assets. People will still need tangible things, but companies in life sciences, banking, and insurance, healthcare and manu¬facturing are now using innovative technologies to create more efficient and effective partner ecosystems.

Enterprise Code Halos: Your company’s brand is a Code Halo. Think of all the digital interactions associated with your company or business unit. Information about products, clients, partners and employees creates or destroys value every day. Angry customers, positive media coverage, financial data and a million other infor¬mation sources create a perception of your company as real as the bricks and rebar of a manufacturing plant. Whether you manage it or not, your company is increasingly defining itself by its Code Halo. In many cases, this halo of informa¬tion has much greater clarity and authority than the efforts of your marketing department.

These five enterprise Code Halos – and the skillful management of them – are increasingly separating those companies that are forging ahead into the brave new digital world and those that are simply playing defense; trying to hang on to old outdated approaches and sustain business as usual for as long as possible, or at least until next quarter’s results.

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Kevin Benedict, Head Analyst for Social, Mobile, Analytics and Cloud (SMAC) Cognizant

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Learn about mobile strategies at MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility

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

Infonomics and Using Information as a Competitive Advantage

Do you value and treat your enterprise information like it is a strategic asset?  Do you view your information logistics system (including your enterprise mobility system) as a competitive differentiator?  Enterprise mobility is more than just a convenience for people on the move.  It is about how to use information to optimize productivity and achieve competitive advantages.  How can the effective use of mobilized information change and improve your business?

I have shared some of this article before, but I believe it is important enough to review.  In an insightful article by Gartner Inc.'s Douglas Laney, titled Infonomics: The Practice of Information Economics, the value of company information is explored.  I read this article with great interest and interpreted it in the context of enterprise mobility.

Here is Laney's description of Infonomics, "When considering how to put information to work for your organization, it’s important to go beyond thinking and talking about information as an asset, to actually valuing and treating it as one. This is the basis of the new theory and emerging discipline of Infonomics which provides organizations a foundation and methods for quantifying information asset value and formal information asset management practices."

In my mobile strategy workshops, I spend time with my clients exploring the value of "real-time" information to a company and the role enterprise mobility plays in it.  Laney's article takes it to the next level by treating it as a discipline.

Here is another excerpt from Laney, "Infonomics posits that information should be considered a new asset class in that it has measurable economic value and other properties that qualify it to be accounted for and administered as any other recognized type of asset—and that there are significant strategic, operational and financial reasons for doing so."

If the right information can be available to a mobile worker, on the right device, at the right time, in the right amount so that "right" decisions and actions can be made, then that is a huge benefit!

Let me add some context, if you have a mobile workforce in the field and you know the following real-time information:

• Location
• Job status
• Next job site
• Skills and qualifications
• Inventory
• Equipment
• Costs (hourly wage)

...then you can make many important decisions as to how you can optimally schedule and utilize your workforce.  Much of this can be automated using business analytics, and artificial machine learning as well.  In contrast, if you don't have real-time knowledge of the points listed above, you cannot.  There are significant competitive values to this real-time information.  Laney's article explores how you can measure that value.

Once you have placed a value on real-time information, then you can determine an ROI for developing and implementing a system that supports the use of real-time information (and mobilizing it).  I see this a lot when discussing mobile workforce scheduling solutions.  Many organizations simply do not have the IT systems in place that can support real-time scheduling based on real-time information (location, job status, etc.).  This is a limitation.  This prevents them from transforming their company into a real-time enterprise and effectively competing with companies that are.

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Kevin Benedict, Head Analyst for Social, Mobile, Analytics and Cloud (SMAC) Cognizant

View Linkedin Profile

Learn about mobile strategies at MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility

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

Mobile Expert Video Series: Bridget Bradley

In this interview with mobile expert Bridget Bradley from AnyPresence, we discuss cloud mobility, pricing models and mobile platforms.  Enjoy!

Video Link: http://youtu.be/GMc4guRJM44


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Kevin Benedict, Head Analyst for Social, Mobile, Analytics and Cloud (SMAC) Cognizant

View Linkedin Profile

Learn about mobile strategies at MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility

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

Mobile Expert Video Series: Tathagata Nandy on Healthcare

In this video I interview mobility and healthcare expert Tathagata Nandy on the trends he is seeing around enterprise mobility in the healthcare industry in 2013.  Enjoy!

Video Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sar9h73k940&feature=share&list=UUGizQCw2Zbs3eTLwp7icoqw

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

Kevin Benedict, Head Analyst for Social, Mobile, Analytics and Cloud (SMAC) Cognizant

View Linkedin Profile

Learn about mobile strategies at MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility

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