Real-Time Mobile Infrastructure Report, Part 2

In my new report titled Real-Time Mobile Infrastructure, I ask 80 IT and business professionals involved in enterprise and consumer mobility to answer a series of questions.  The results will be shared here in the following article series.  This is Part 2 in the series.
Question: Are your (or your clients’) mobile strategies and plans inhibited or limited because of the current IT environment, infrastructure and/or design?
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Current IT environments, legacy systems and IT architectures are inhibiting mobile strategies and plans according to 78% of survey participants.  This represents a major competitive obstacle as data points to increasing use of mobile devices and applications.  Both the business and the IT organizations must quickly reach a consensus on how to invest and upgrade mobile infrastructures and supporting IT environments in order to remain competitive.

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

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

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

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

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

Read Part 3 in the article series here.





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Kevin Benedict
Writer, Speaker, Senior Analyst
Digital Transformation, EBA, Center for the Future of Work Cognizant
View my profile on LinkedIn
Learn about mobile strategies at MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com
Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict
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?
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Thirty-percent answered that optimized mobile applications and user experiences are “Critical” to the future success of their business, while seventy-percent of survey participants answered “Important” to “Very Important.”  These definitive responses suggest that businesses understand the key role mobile applications play today and will play in the future.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Kevin Benedict
Writer, Speaker, Senior Analyst
Digital Transformation, EBA, Center for the Future of Work Cognizant
View my profile on LinkedIn
Learn about mobile strategies at MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com
Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict
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.

Barcelona the Smart City

In this short video I review the recent Smart City award that Juniper Research recently gave to Barcelona and what it takes to be a smart city these days.  Enjoy!

Video Link: https://youtu.be/ticVDU8V2fY


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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.

Circumnavigating the Globe and Learning about Mobility, IoT and Digital Transformation

I just circumnavigated the globe over a two week period.  I have never done that before.  I learned about mobile solutions, digital transformation, IoT, big data, Indian culture, the British Empire, English East Indies Company, Barcelona history and many other interesting subjects on this trip.  In this short video I summarized what I have learned about technologies and the latest trends over the past few weeks.  Enjoy!

Video Link: https://youtu.be/-pISDSvz9aY?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.

IoT and Sensors from AMS at MWC15

Last week, at the Mobile World Congress 2015 in Barcelona, I had the opportunity to learn some very interesting details about IoT sensors.  In this short video interview I ask AMS to demonstrate and explain how their IoT sensors work.  Enjoy!

Video Link: http://youtu.be/JWY7UGOjWMU?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.

Kevin Benedict Interviews Micron's Mike Bokan at Mobile World Congress 2015

In Boise, Idaho, Micron is a very big deal.  They employ thousands of engineers and technicians in Boise to design, develop and manufacture memory for smartphones, sensors, computers and any other type of system requiring memory.  They are also a major donor to Boise State University and many other organizations in the region.  They are also a big deal in the rest of the world as their memory is found in most mobile and wireless devices at the Mobile World Congress 2015 in Barcelona this year.  In this interview with Micron's Mike Bokan, VP of Worldwide OEM Sales, we discuss the different kinds of mobile and IoT devices that require memory.  Enjoy!

Video Link: http://youtu.be/xyr4r2TKhgU


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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.

Interviews with Kevin Benedict