Sudin Apte
Since last eight to ten years, Information Technology industry has witnessed hype around particular technology – ERP, Y2K, E Business and now Enterprise Mobility.
What I see today is, a race amongst the Information Technology service providers. Be it Indian or MNC, There is a tussle to gain initiators’ advantage in market for adopting the newest member amongst emerging technologies. High executive interest, direct involvement of CEOs, companies listing range of mobile devices within their organization circulating them amongst employees in projects. I even see service providers make new investment plans, set up centers of excellence, build partnership, and develop application store! It is a party! But factors for consideration are more than what meets the eye.
Enterprise adoption is actually much slower than expected
The question comes, how open-heartedly is mobility accepted? Is it just device hype, trying to drag vendors into this rat-race; or does business process really needs mobility? Are they using mobility to its maximum potential considering the buzz? Yes, I am calling it a hype. This is still few years away from delivering true business benefits.
Why a Hype?
A technology while at peak of its ‘hype’, offers maximum visibility (not maximum returns) for all clubs-involved providers, supporters or even users. Here are results from our 300+ NA and European IT buyers, where we asked them questions around mobility:
- Apple, Samsung, smart phones and tablets are driving corporate adoption of mobility. CEOs buy device first and then they ask IT to implement apps on it. Very few people confirm that actual business process demand drives mobile adoption.
- Clients are actually confused regarding expectations to be set from enterprise mobility. They want moon ( reduced sales cycle, increased revenue, resolve customer issue faster and so on)!
- Clients aren’t really sure about what mobility infrastructure and service providers to be approached and deploy. They approach all. A clear indication of space which have not fully matured yet.
- IT infrastructure is not yet completely ready to adapt to the change rush. After a couple of trial and error, 31% companies want to go back to their drawing boards and evaluate their options with mobility from a more mature prospective. Clearly, IT is not yet ready to take up mobility upfront supported by the fact that, 42% respondents of our survey indicated an opposing attitude towards mobility adoption as of today.
- Deploying a new technology calls for a few change in things. Change in process, underlying technology, people and training. Our survey suggest, mobility deployed without any change in process or underlying technology, makes it difficult to propagate beyond a particular project. Is just a patchwork on existing technology – a welcome sign for new technology?
I am not bidding good bye to enterprise mobility of course. We should give enterprise mobility another two years to mature and get fully absorbed. My belief is, maturity would arrive when business process centricity would drive enterprise mobility rather than just being device centric, without really achieving much of the value. Till then IT would take its time maturing and adapting to requirements needed to absorb mobility. Mobility calls for changes in business process, application and strong helpdesk for supporting the same. A more matured understanding of enterprise mobility and its best practices are needed before it could help extract more value for client.