Print this article

Comments

Email this article

As mobile solutions move from over-hyped and failed pilots to mainstream technology, CIOs are under increased pressure to guarantee the success of corporate mobility initiatives. The result: CIOs are now looking for answers to questions that more or less revolve around security, connectivity, access, productivity, control and determining the enterprise mobility solutions that best suit the business needs.

The answer lies in the challenges that CIOs are trying to overcome and the business benefits companies are trying to achieve. This, in turn, has put the onus for success on designing the most effective and appropriate enterprise mobility strategy to help achieve the targets and benefits. And to maximize RoI and justify investments. Providing a stable connection, regardless of location, and enabling users to access their information while on the go, should be a well-thought out and planned exercise, advises Gregory Wade, director, Asia Pacific at Research In Motion.

The first transition (to a mobile enterprise) is related to the enterprise's strategy. Investment in mobile enterprise solutions requires careful consideration of the 'business value versus cost' issue. With shrinking budgets, it is very critical to understand what enterprise mobility can deliver and where it can improve, optimize and transfer the bottom-line. In order to avoid 'fragmented' transformation, enterprises should have a common vision, leadership support and a strategic path to implementing enterprise mobility solution, explains Jain.

Building Blocks
According to Ponnanna Uthappa B, head, Enterprise Solutions and Marketing, Team Computers, enterprise mobility needs various building blocks, which include-appropriate user devices (laptops, PDA's, handheld devices); the right flavor of the enterprise application so that it can be effectively used by the remote user; connectivity and hosting environment to make the application available; well designed security systems and policy; and training for user level awareness and usage methodology. Dhiren Savla, CIO, Kuoni Travel (India) sums up infrastructure, business applications and mindset as the three major factors for effective adoption of enterprise mobility.

The fundamental is that any employee who does any amount of work while away should have the option of using a handheld device (such as a smart phone) as a 'tool of choice'. According to Subodh Rustagi, country head, India and South East Asia, SCO, this degree of mobile enablement goes far beyond PDA-like functionality, even beyond 'MS Office on the phone' functionality, to include secure access to any backend systems an employee would be authorized to use in the normal course of work.

Apps Appropriate
Getting the right apps in place is the first step towards evolving the right mobility strategy. This requires doing a requirement analysis and, accordingly, choosing the mobility apps that best meet those requirements. According to Wade, companies should consider investing in wireless solutions only when well-defined business challenges have been identified and prioritized.

With the wireless adoption curve in its evolutionary stage, the temptations to fall prey to fancy applications are huge. A word of caution from the experts: steer clear. However, a discerning eye on possible requirements over the next few years is also critical in order to ensure that the investment doesn't turn obsolete soon.

Getting to understand what mobility means to an individual enterprise is integral to the process of zeroing in on the appropriate apps. Mobility has different meanings for different segments in a corporate set up. For the top management, mobility means accessing information, critical to the corporate on the mobile phone, notebook or PDA. For a sales person on the field, mobility means the ability to report on the move. Whereas, field executives are doing online transactions using mobile phones, PDAs and smart phones on their ERP applications running at their corporate office. Hence, getting the objective and the target audience clear is essential for getting started in the right direction. This will also help in deciding whether to build new apps and integrate with the existing once or mobile enable the existing apps.

According to Rustagi, the greatest impact today is felt when backend system functionality such as order entry, inventory management and customer data are securely accessed directly by sales people and other field workers. In the very near future, these kinds of 'get your work done wherever you are' capabilities will be extended to all enterprise employees with legitimate mobile needs. Afterwards, robust mobile self-help capabilities will be extended directly to customers and business partners. Again, the underlying theme will be 'tool of choice at the moment of choice' whereby people will use their desktops, laptops and handhelds interchangeably as their work situation changes.

In general terms, for a wireless solution to be most useful within a corporate environment, it must enable data access that users really need. This is much easier said than done, and requires a solution that offers stable connectivity for users, regardless of location.

Getting Started
For companies beginning the wireless journey, pervasive applications like SMS and email are good starting points. These applications are often the easiest to identify and implement and the benefits to productivity are also easy to measure.

According to Jain, currently the usage of SMS as a medium for enterprise mobile applications has been adopted for data gathering, tracking, remote monitoring, and business communication to customers and business partners. However, limitations remain in terms of space constraint, which is 150 characters in normal GSM phones, delay in deliveries and lack of storage capacity.

Page(s)   1  2