Mobile Organization of the Future

October 30, 2015

Mobility is no longer an initiative, a program, a discrete channel or a passing institutional fad. It is a pervasive lens through which the organization must consider its fundamental tenets: how it interacts with its employees and customers, how it develops and delivers products and services, and how it applies physical, human and digital capital. Businesses now must cater to the individual-centered economy. To do this, it is essential that companies build a mobile organization structure to accommodate their customer expectations, which are set by mobile app experiences.

The use of mobile device types has increased dramatically. New devices include smart user devices, rugged devices, machine-to-machine, and wearables. In addition, the availability of many apps has resulted in disjointed app deployment. These apps span from those that are custom developed such as marketing apps and customer loyalty apps, to 3rd party apps used for expense reporting and customer relationship management, to internally developed apps such as a campus map or company directory. Within the mass utilization of mobile devices and apps, information flow, technology integration and data analysis are nonexistent, creating chaos. This chaos can be further understood by the following example of disjointed operations. Twenty-two hundred tablets were procured and a 3rd party application was bought and fully deployed to all vehicles in a field. However, IT was not involved in the project. The widespread use of mobile devices by different departments resulted in disconnection and miscommunication within a corporation.

The emergence of big data, social, mobile, cloud and analytics is fundamentally changing how we live, work, and interact. Sixty-seven percent of global consumers want to use mobile devices to check out, eighty percent of new apps will be distributed or deployed via the cloud, and forty percent of people socialize more online than they do face-to-face. Even more, one-third of consumer data will be stored in the cloud by 2016. There are hundreds of statistics reflecting these technology enablers, and they are fueling the future of how consumers and employees want to interact with business, bringing about opportunities to revolutionize business models while also causing serious disruption.

Leaders are redefining their agendas and re-prioritizing investments to focus on reshaping their digital presence. Seventy-three percent of CEOs are prioritizing investments in customer insights, seventy-four percent of CIOs say mobile solutions are part of their vision for increasing competitiveness, eighty-two percent of CMOs plan to increase the use of social media, and seventy percent of COOs identify supply chain visibility as the top challenge in delivering on their agendas. To meet increasing customer and employee expectations, the mobile organization of the future must rethink the optimization of end-to-end customer experience. Increasingly, employees and customers expect instant access to information, products and services. They also expect to be engaged as individuals, on their own terms, anytime and anywhere. Finally, they expect transparency from the companies they interact with. Customers desire and need seamless experiences that match product and service quality.

The mobile organization of the future must put mobile first because customer expectations are set by mobile app customer experiences. Today, the smartphone is the crucible of life. It will change how companies operate in all aspects. How do we modify roles to create a mobility-centered organization? Below we have outlined four steps to follow in order to organize mobile for the future.

Step 1: Create a Mobile Center of Excellence (MCoE).

This should serve as a cross-functional team with representatives from key areas of the organization. Your cross-functional team will consult on mobility projects to internal employees and customers. Particularly, this team will involve the overlap of Marketing and IT.

Step 2: Assign a Chief Mobility Leader.

This person needs to have the knowledge of mobility from an IT and marketing perspective. They will serve as a liaison between different departments. They will lead the effort of the MCoE and manage the cross-functional team.

Step 3: Create a Mobility Team.

This team will cover the key functional areas of mobility and maintain a cross-functional team to assist in mobility strategy. Skills needed for this team include mobile device administration, mobile Cloud, mobile security, mobile app development, mobile app testing, and mobile app designer.

Step 4: Engage a Mobility Partner.

The Mobility Partner is an organization that one can create, design, and implement applications. They will help with technology creation and ongoing management. The Mobility Partner will be an expert to manage assets, cloud, data, security, and create, deploy and manage ongoing technology.This partner should assist the Mobility Team and MCoE with all aspects of the Key Functional Areas.

The following Key Functional Areas that have to be within this team effort include:

Mobile Asset Management & Distribution: There will be inventory needs in addition to internal projects and apps that need procurement and deployment. There will also be a need for training to implement new technology. Finally, you will need asset management and price controls.

Mobile Cloud & Data Management: You will need to have the ability to integrate data together across multifunctional areas of the organization. Also, you will need to manage data that goes out to the customer. Finally, you will need analytics to make sense of data that you are collecting from employees and customers.

Mobile Security Management: Implementing security software and applications are critical pieces as you deploy data. It is necessary to secure data that transfers from the cloud to the device.

Mobile App Development/ Mobile App Factory: It is necessary to have a team developing apps to help operational efficiency, drive customer loyalty, help the organization with efficiency and brand awareness, and selling their product.

So what are the next steps to becoming the mobile organization of the future?

1. Put mobile first, because this is the first point of engagement for your customers, partners, and employees. The end user has to be the focus of any mobility department.

2. Create a Mobility Team, MCoE(Mobile center of excellence) and engage a partner to assist in Technology creation and ongoing management.

3. Integrate Mobile apps into the backend processes to deliver a more meaningful and engaging Mobile experience.

4. Apply flexible, intelligent security to protect your business boundary in a way that doesn’t degrade the Mobile experience. Security is a key factor as we centralize mobility.

5. Update any apps currently optimized for iOS 8 only, so that mobile apps are functioning with With iOS 9.

In conclusion, mobility should now be a fundamental aspect of an organization and how we relate within that organization. Furthermore, our companies must reflect customer expectations, which are set by mobile app experiences. With questions regarding mobility organization of the future, contact Kevin Whitehurst.