13 January 2015, 00:12 a.m.
Mobility is a star in this environment and it's where future careers and reputations will be built. And mobility is not easy, so being successful in this arena will differentiate you from the throng.
What is so hard about enterprise mobility to make it a worthwhile resume highlight? MGI Research published a survey on enterprise mobility last year. It showed that 71% of enterprise mobility projects generate only average or below average return on investment (ROI) – not a great result in an area where ROI is the low hanging fruit of the project.
The real business gains come from achieving better in-field compliance, increased productivity and improved work quality by minimising paper systems and supplying workers with relevant supporting data to enhance the quality of their decisions. And these project failures come from taking a traditional IT stance, driving design and usability to fit with back office systems rather than designing to the use case of the mobile worker.
In mobile, the paradigm has shifted. Usability and robustness of the app are everything as the mobile user needs to rely on the solution and know that it is, at a minimum, as fast and as reliable as using paper.
The second cause of mobile project failure is the selection of what to mobilise. There is a difference between apps of convenience and apps that deliver ROI. For example, mobilizing purchase order approvals or expense claim submissions is considered an app of convenience that does not achieve ROI. To achieve ROI and as a result, increased productivity, larger business problems need to be tackled.
A few industrial examples include recordings of operators in oil fields, maintenance activities of technicians, quality inspections required in a manufacturing process, proof of delivery in transport and compliance inspections by government or general service delivery. The list is long but there is an easy way to identify the right apps to create for your company – look at where your company has touch points with the customer or conducts activities that are at the core of your organisation's purpose in the market. No company is here to solely approve purchase orders or submit expense claims.
Finally, the value of mobility of your resume will be relevant for years. Just like the lessons learned in the early days of the Web, the challenges of mobile will keep emerging over the next decade. There will be no one easy solution, no ubiquitous coverage to mitigate the issues of being offline nor will generational change remove the challenges of ease of use. The good news is that your experience and discovery of answers to these challenges will be valued in the market.