Time to Own Your Mobile Initiatives

History has a way of repeating itself.  So does our failure to recognize the patterns that signal disruptive changes.

These points are reiterated in the book, This Time Is Different, where authors Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff recount numerous financial crises over the past 800 years. For each crisis, the experts of the day thought their crisis was fundamentally different and that old rules of valuation and solutions did not apply to their situation. In effect, these experts failed to recognize impending disruptions.

Living in the world of technology, I can’t help but draw parallels. As in the financial markets, information technology (IT) organizations have overlooked the onset of major tech shifts before.

Picture the time when IT organizations were riding the wave of client-server development and saw websites as a niche technology. IT did not take ownership of their web initiatives then and often outsourced departmental projects to third-party vendors who understood the technology. Rather than developing a deep understanding of this technology and the capability to create websites themselves, businesses constantly relied on outside experts, and found themselves unable to keep up with their organization’s rapidly changing needs.

As websites evolved to web-based apps, capable of transactions and business process support, IT recognized the advantages, including the ability to deliver an application on any desktop, regardless of the operating system.

Today, web development is central to IT strategy and the paradigm for application development.  Businesses use the web to test new ideas and deliver new capabilities to drive competitive advantage as well as create, deploy, and maintain applications for employees and customers.

Enterprise mobility is today’s business driver

Companies should not think of mobile apps as niche technology. Mobile devices are enabling employees to interact with customers and stay connected to critical business data from wherever they are, thus driving an increase in productivity, internal efficiencies, and customer satisfaction. Therefore, enterprises should embrace this technology and drive adoption, while keeping in mind that the mobile device market is highly fragmented and users – from customers to employees – will demand access to their enterprise apps from a range of mobile devices.

A Gartner 2011 report states that the combined sales of smart phones and tablets will be 44 percent bigger than the PC market. The analyst firm also predicts that 31 billion mobile apps will be downloaded in 2012, up from 18 billion apps in 2011.

What do these stats mean for the thousands of global businesses who have yet to implement mobility into their organization?

Mobile apps are here to stay and a smart enterprise mobility strategy is necessary to boost competitive edge and increase market share. In talking to customers, we see rapid adoption of targeted mobile apps by departments or business units. We see IT teams yearning for more efficient development tools that free them from writing code for each mobile platform. 

Take control. Drive competitive advantage.

To help a company be more successful, the corporate IT team should utilize technology that enables them to take control of their mobile initiatives and bring these capabilities in-house.  IT leadership should understand the benefits and inherent challenges of the technology, plot a course for its use, decide on what to try, what to experiment with, and what to build. Teams must have an understanding of the technology, a plan for its use, and the ability to act without going through an intermediary.

By leveraging the technology that allows you to take ownership of your corporate mobile initiatives, you can:

• simplify app development, deploy simultaneously across multiple devices, and reduce costs.
• make ongoing changes so that apps are always up-to-date with latest features, functionality, and data to meet market demands and drive business adaptability.
• align mobile apps with rapidly changing business requirements, market needs and IT deliverables.
• interact better with customers and appeal to the new generation of consumers.
• make employees more productive, efficient, and responsive.

These benefits are broad and far reaching, and impact a business beyond the needs of any one department or unit. In recognizing this, IT can see that mobile applications are much more than just a niche technology.

So, learn from the past. See what’s coming and recognize that your ability to take advantage of a new technology will depend on your willingness to embrace it.

Mobile technology is the next wave. Own it and make a difference.

Do you agree?

Steve Levy is the chief executive officer of Verivo.