The Role of Mobile Strategy and Use Case in Driving Business Value
Introduction
With the introduction of the smartphone, organizations have wrestled with how to appropriately
establish mobility as a core technology, whether in response to demands for BYOD, the need for
secure data and network access, or to the LOBs clamoring for mobile apps. Projections are that, within
two years, three-quarters of customer interactions will originate from mobile devices. That may help
explain why the CIO – once among the biggest skeptics of mobility – has become one of its biggest
champions.1
Current estimates are nine out of ten CIOs expect to deploy mobile apps over the next 12 months.2
But, here’s the problem – research reveals that only about one-half of organizations have a mobile
strategy.3 A strategy is needed to ensure the effort and outcomes truly benefit the organization.
As smartphones, and later, tablets, swept
through the consumer environment and
into the workplace, end users have been –
and continue to be – the dominant driving
force behind increased enterprise mobile
adoption and access. (Figure 1)
It is widely recognized that IT has
been generally ill-prepared to respond
to mobility. Initially seeking email
and data access, end users now
increasingly expect to quickly deploy
apps, resulting in the latest round of IT
stopgap measures intended primarily to
apply some measure of control – and stem
the tide of phone calls.
Figure 1: Pressures Driving EMM Adoption. Source: Aberdeen Group.4
IT soon discovered, however, deployment of so-called “point solutions” had very limited results –
lacking flexibility, adaptability and scalability as devices and platforms rapidly evolved along with
increased internal demands for new apps. IT, which has historically led new technology deployment,
found itself taking a backseat to its marketing, sales and other internal customers, who began
aggressively proposing innovative ideas to grow the business.
This paper explores why organizations – in a quest for deployment shortcuts and short-term results –
fall prey to common traps that waste time and talent, rather than seize opportunities that create value.
We will discuss how respected organizations confronted mobility and overcame significant internal
challenges to become textbook examples of how to deploy mobility through effective strategy and use
case validation. Finally, we will outline various best practices that organizations can use to derive the
greatest benefit from mobility in the least time.
1.
MDM is not a strategy.
On the Mobile Maturity
scale (of IT mobile life
cycle support capabilities),
Mobile Device Management
(MDM) is the first phase
of deployment for most
organizations – establishing
control and governance over
corporate-liable devices
and an increasing array of
personal devices, on both the
platform (e.g., iOS, Android,
BlackBerry), and form factor
(e.g., tablet, smartphone,
laptop) levels. (Figure 2)
Mobile Life Cycle
Management
Mobile Service
Management
Mobile Device
Management
•Organizational Readiness
•IT Readiness
•Strategy Development
•Device and Service
•Provisioning and Security
•Mobile Operations and Support
•Service Desk Support
•Compliance and Security
•Data Loss Prevention
•Expense Management
•Full Mobilization and Productivity
•App Development, Provisioning and Management
•Analytics
•Activity Tracking, Trending and Reporting
•Continual Service Improvement
Some IT organizations
are content to stop there;
Figure 2: Three Stages of Mobile Maturity
however, all they have
accomplished is a defensive (reactive) maneuver – one that fails to exploit the strategic potential of
mobility and provide a return on investment.
IT and the LOBs must step back to see the big picture – the short and long-term needs and
opportunities for the enterprise, as well as those of end users. While the big picture includes end
users and LOBs as primary drivers of technology adoption and app development, it must include a
broader enterprise plan with a timeframe extending 12-18 months.
An app is not a strategy, either.
A global manufacturer’s sales organization was requesting senior level approval to develop new
mobile apps. One field sales app promised to dramatically enhance sales call productivity by
enabling remote network access of secure company and customer data, allowing the sales rep to
identify unmet customer needs and close more sales.
The LOBs assured senior leadership all necessary due diligence had been performed – risk and
security assessments, and cost/benefit analysis – and an MDM technology solution had been
identified. IT, which had not been a party to use case development, expressed concerns regarding
security risks and app support requirements.
For its part, senior leadership expressed doubts whether the organization was prepared to
proceed, citing the lack of a strategy and risk mitigation. It raised questions about broader internal
capabilities to deliver the desired outcomes, and the commitment to provide ongoing availability
management and support.
Outside mobility experts were engaged to evaluate organizational readiness, make
recommendations regarding people, processes and technology, and establish a strategy and tactical
roadmap. Following a two-week study, the strategy and deployment plan were approved on the
basis of thorough readiness and risk assessments and use case validation. Several apps with the
2.
greatest short-term impact were prioritized for immediate development. As a result, measurable
business value would be realized in a matter of weeks through a new collaborative effort between
the LOBs and IT.
According to Propelics, a leading mobile strategy and app development company, it is vital to
understand the difference between an app and a strategy. “It’s important to understand what you
hope to achieve with mobile. Is it to increase revenue, shorten sales cycles, improve the customer
experience, or make your employees more productive? It could be all of them.”
Ready… Fire… Aim! How the best intentions derail the realization of value.
“It’s not uncommon for LOBs to act in their own self interest rather than
seeing the corporate implications of their wants/needs. A balance is required
in assessing mobile apps to ensure they meet the needs not only of the
LOB, but also the needs of the organization as a whole.” 5
Too many organizations launch mobility with a tendency to be ill-prepared – armed with suboptimal
solutions and insufficient analysis regarding exactly where they are going, what resources are
required, and what long-term success looks like.
Perhaps because mobility is relatively new and creates a sense of urgency, it encourages a
pioneering spirit among champions and end users. Too often, however, mobility isn’t subjected to
the discipline of stakeholder analysis, risk assessment and use case scrutiny typically required in
other enterprise or IT infrastructure initiatives. As a result, there are four key areas where this
breakdown becomes evident and significant.
Vision and Strategy. Too few companies invest the intellectual capital necessary to establish from
the outset a vision and strategy for mobility. Because some IT and LOB managers are short-sighted
and reactive, they fall into the trap of reacting to BYOD end-user demands, departmental pet
projects, or LOB concerns over losing ground to competition.
Strategy revolves around the rationalization of demand – the identification of business drivers
and evaluation of stakeholder and customer needs. It comprehends the type and maturity of use
cases coming from the LOBs. The strategy articulates how overall mobile success is defined and
how the use cases create value. Cool apps have no place in the marketing portfolio if it cannot be
established how they improve business results in terms of:
• productivity
• revenue
• profitability
• customer loyalty
Process. Companies often fail to follow a deterministic process when deploying mobility, evaluating
use cases and building a roadmap. This can be largely attributed to the fact mobility brings with it a
wide range of complex issues that are unfamiliar to organizations – for example, making it difficult
to get a grip on IT policies, processes and end-user support; and governance, risk and compliance
issues.
The often overwhelming demand to enable devices results in a rush to deployment, whereby use
cases are not adequately evaluated on the basis of demonstrated value. A process must be
3.
established that identifies and prioritizes valid use cases – those with the greatest potential value,
and deployable in a short amount of time.
Analysis. Organizations run the risk of not performing thorough due diligence on several levels,
including analysis that –
• establishes enterprise and stakeholder needs
• assesses infrastructure, network and data security
• establishes cost/benefit
• identifies management and support requirements, capability gaps, and IT - organizational
readiness – the people, processes and technology required to deploy and support mobility.
Resources. At the end of the LOB presentation, the CFO wanted to know, “And how exactly will
this be paid for?” The all too common lack of planning invariably leads to the realization that
funding is either inadequate or nonexistent, leading managers to scramble for sponsors who can
fund the mobility initiative.
More significant, however, is the short supply of knowledgeable professionals on mobile technology
process and design. Will the organization have the people to plan, develop, deploy and support
the proposed use cases? More than a few managers have seen their mobility initiatives come to a
sudden halt due to lack of resources.
Organizations must decide early in the planning process if they are capable of objectively
evaluating organizational readiness, risk exposure, business and governance requirements, and
capability gaps. Too much is at stake for managers to acquiesce to internal overconfidence that
the organization can get it right. As the manufacturer learned in the earlier case study, outside
expertise may be the best insurance to make sure the vision is relevant, the strategy achievable,
and the delivery of business value, assured.
What drives value? A healthcare organization plays ‘whack a device.’
A respected, metropolitan healthcare organization found itself wrestling with the chaotic onset of
BYOD, driven by departmental end users with various use cases for mobility. While IT appropriately
established itself as governance gatekeeper – requiring acceptable use agreements, controlling
network access, tagging corporate assets, and providing limited end-user hardware and software
support – departments were allowed wide discretion in device purchasing and virtually unrestricted
device use.
For example, some physicians were allowed to use tablets for collaboration, meeting notes and
email. In other areas of the hospital, patients’ families were provided loaner tablets for personal
entertainment, with IT setting up and wiping the devices with each use. Meanwhile, in other areas
of the hospital, few mobile devices were similarly adopted.
Nevertheless, IT was reacting daily to a random series of end-user requests, crisscrossing devices
and platforms that were beginning to stress the hospital’s clinical wireless network. Without a
corporate strategy, an almost anything-goes environment was effectively sanctioned.
The organization has yet to determine the value that might be realized if mobility were applied to
the entire stakeholder community – taking advantage of emerging opportunities to improve peer
collaboration or patient care across the entire organization. As it stands, hospital administrators
and IT are just beginning to recognize their current mobile practices are unsustainable.
4.
“…mobility is one of the most transformational movements in healthcare
and represents the new face of user engagement. HDO (health delivery
organization) CIOs need to assess how mobility opportunities and
challenges will impact their organizations.” 6
Whether in healthcare, manufacturing or retail, mobility must drive value in one or more ways –
through productivity, revenue or new business opportunities. The chart below is a good starting
point for framing discussions around strategy, business drivers, rationalizing use cases and the
creation of value.
Theme
Drivers
Examples
Mobility as
Productivity
Enhancer
Mobility as
Productivity
Enhancer
Mobility as New
Business Model
Enabler
Run the business better
Grow the business
Transform the business
• Productivity
• Faster response time
• Improve brand image with
potential hires
• Increase revenue
• Increase customer satisfaction
• Increase customer engagement
• Customer loyalty
• Competitive response
• Brand image with customers
• New revenue stream
• New market
• Business model disruption
• New products and services
• B2E: Email, calendaring,
virtual desktop access, field
force enablement, management
dashboards
• B2C: Store applications, store
locator
• M2M: Remote monitoring of
equipment, devices, processes
• B2E: Sales force enablement,
mobile POS
• B2B: Agent enablement
• B2C: Mobile couponing
• M2M: Vending machine telemetry
• M2M: Connected car,
connected home, smart grid
• B2C: Retail ‘geofencing’
Figure 3: Mobility Value Map. Source: Gartner.
Strategy and use cases that drive the greatest value in the least time
Today, enterprise IT functions are based upon large applications – ERP, CRM, sales force
automation and supply chain management – and these are being rapidly adapted for mobility. By
2015, 50% of business application use by managers and end users alike will be by mobile device.7
Aberdeen Group, in its annual study
of enterprise mobile app adoption
analyzed B2C, B2B and B2E (business to
employee) app adoption plans among 345
organizations worldwide. The research
reveals not just current app development
plans, but how enterprise priorities
are shifting, e.g., to help drive internal
productivity.8 (Figure 4)
Mobility has the greatest impact on the
enterprise when applications are based
upon validated use cases that enhance
employee ability to do their jobs, or make
it easier for existing and new customers
to acquire your products and services.
The improvement in employee or sales
productivity should be measureable - and
Figure 4: Mobile Software Strategy Evolution, 2011-12. MSI – Mobile
Software Initiative. EMA – Enterprise Mobile Apps
5.
be measured - over time to establish both value and life cycle effectiveness, as the life expectancy
of applications is generally a matter of months in many cases.
As noted earlier, developing an effective mobile strategy includes evaluating and prioritizing use
cases, first by rationalizing the business demand and running them through validation “filters,”
because some apps will not result in a return on investment.9
• How will customers want to interact with the business in the future? What about employees,
distributors and resellers?
• What are the productivity, revenue enhancement and business transformation opportunities?
• What apps do we need and how do we prioritize them?
• How do we evaluate the need for MDM, cloud/SaaS or on-premise solutions?
• How will we demonstrate apps will deliver measurable business value vs. perceived value?
A critical step is to understand current state maturity to develop, deploy and support the highest
priority use cases and do so in a logical manner. These should be accomplished in small steps
as part of a methodical process that does not require significant expense or capital, but which
results in a short time-to-market. This evaluation – including a go-to-market tactical plan – can be
accomplished in as little as 2-4 weeks.
• What new competencies and capabilities (people, processes and technology) are required by
IT and LOBs?
• How do we integrate various mobile devices with our corporate data stores?
• What type of policies must be established, including regulatory, legal and human resource
issues?
• What infrastructure and security aspects must be evaluated, including network, data and
device/platform?
A retailer rationalizes use cases to find the “critical few” winners.
Recently, a specialty footwear retailer, the largest in the western hemisphere, planned to deploy
mobility in its retail environment of over four thousand stores. IT managers engaged the business
teams to better understand their needs, identifying 10-12 use cases designed to support both
sales associates and consumers. IT also initiated broader discussions to analyze the needs of an
expanded group of stakeholders – operations, distribution and store development.
The analysis dramatically changed their working assumptions on device, platform, infrastructure
and security requirements, as the number of primary stakeholders increased dramatically, and
use cases swelled to over 120. A deadlock inevitably ensued among stakeholders due to a lack of
consensus over how – and whose – use cases would be prioritized and funded.
A breakthrough occurred as this paper was in development. Senior managers charged IT and
the LOBs with developing a strategy and assessing readiness – to include people, process and
technology capability gaps; risk exposure; security, business, long-term support and funding
requirements.
At this writing, it appears the strategy and ultimate deployment will take a prudent approach in
recognition of internal resource constraints. Rather than commit to too much, too soon, the tactical
roadmap being prepared will be based upon “bite-sized” objectives, targeting development of a
6.
critical few use cases. These select use cases would represent the best opportunities for “quick
wins,” and delivery of improved sales associate productivity, sales revenue and time-to-market of
just a few weeks.
Are we ready and where do we start?
It isn’t difficult to avoid the common dilemmas organizations encounter – lack of strategy, process,
analysis and adequate resources. A balanced approach is required, one that comprehends both
short and longer term perspectives – an understanding of the organization’s needs over the next
12-18 months.
Know where you’re going. Step one is to develop a basic plan, even if it doesn’t cover the entire
organization. What do we want mobility to accomplish for us and our customers? The plan can
start out small, limited to the first few use cases that allow you to get mobility off the ground, and
establish a logical framework that says, if we do “x” to accomplish “y,” we can expect a benefit of
“z.”
Know you’re working on the right things. In many respects, this is the most straight-forward
task of all – picking those use cases that are most meaningful to the company, and whose value
can be measured. These use cases will have sponsors and funding. They will align to the direction
of the company and to the needs of stakeholders. The best use cases have a short time-to-market
and payback.
Understand your requirements and limitations. As with any initiative seeking to modify or
transform some aspect of the organization or IT infrastructure, it is critical to understand the
people, processes and technology issues related to mobility. Short-term mindsets can conflict with
the need for thorough risk assessment, business and policy requirements, or cost/benefit and
capability gap analyses – yet these are the foundation that determines how successful we will be.
Fortunately, the due diligence involved does not require a significant amount of time to accomplish.
Organizations conduct IT and organizational readiness assessments and build actionable plans in as
little as four weeks.
Forge an IT – LOB partnership. IT Service Management (ITSM) espouses a service-oriented
approach for IT – viewing stakeholders as customers, and making it a practice to understand their
needs in order to better support them. Unlike most technology deployments where IT is the SME,
under mobility, LOBs bring the critical perspective – how the technology will be applied, and the
value derived from it. For this reason, IT should form a working partnership with end users. As a
result, IT receives the infrastructure, management, support and security mechanisms it requires,
while, at the same time, enabling the LOBs to quickly deploy mobile solutions.
Seek expert input and process expertise.
“Enterprises are turning to external service providers for help in mobility
initiatives for the following reasons: lack of internal capabilities, new set of
unfamiliar issues, quest for innovative thinking on the “art of the possible”
and the need for speed.” 10
7.
Most organizations lack the specialized skill sets – internal capabilities, process mindset and
innovative thinking required to effectively plan, design, build, deploy and support mobility. If
there’s one take-away from the experiences of the organizations discussed earlier, it is simply this—
they were making significant decisions without benefit of strategy or adequate understanding of the
risks and requirements. Most crippling of all, they lacked both a process and roadmap to effectively
accomplish these critical tasks.
As these organizations struggled with the issues of mobile deployment, they ultimately decided that
objective, outside expertise would be critical to success – helping them focus their efforts, uncover
critical gaps, increase speed to market, and measurably improve their business results.
Final Thoughts
In our view mobility will continue to represent a significant challenge for organizations at all
levels of mobile maturity for some time because, as IBM and others have observed, “… enterprise
mobility is not simply a layer on top of existing business processes, but is instead transformative to
the entire organization.”11
Perhaps that helps explain why, according to surveys, while most CIOs now embrace mobility, they
readily admit BYOD is still very much a problem to be addressed. Of course, it’s much bigger than
that – organizations continue to struggle with how to manage corporate-owned devices, as well.
In our experience, it is only when organizations rationalize use cases based upon business drivers,
requirements and value, that the people, process and technology issues come onto focus for the
first time.12, 13
As with any aspect of the IT infrastructure, the successful deployment of mobility is dependent
on two fundamentals – effective planning and execution. Both of them, in turn, are dependent on
leadership at every level of the enterprise.
About Pomeroy
Pomeroy provides high quality managed IT infrastructure services, professional and staffing
services and procurement and logistics services to Fortune 500 corporations, global outsourcers
and the public sector throughout the U.S., Canada and Europe. A recognized leader in the service
desk and managed desktop services markets, Pomeroy’s ITIL certified professionals employ a
process-centric approach to working with clients, either remotely or on-premise, to plan, design,
deploy, manage and ultimately optimize each client’s IT infrastructure, leading to the creation of
tangible business value and return on IT investments. Learn more at www.pomeroy.com.
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REFERENCES
1
“Mobile and the Nexus of Forces: Creating the New Experience,” Gartner, June, 2012. 2“The ‘Enterprization’ of Mobile Apps:
Moving from Corporate Liability to Business Asset,” J. Gold Associates, December, 2012. 3“The Need for IT to Get in Front
of the BYOD Problem,” Osterman Research, October, 2012. 4“Enterprise Mobility Management 2012 – The SoMoClo™ Edge,”
Aberdeen Group, April, 2012. 5“The ‘Enterprization’ of Mobile Apps: Moving from Corporate Liability to Business Asset,” J.
Gold Associates, December, 2012. 6“As the Mobility Movement Gains Momentum, Healthcare Delivery Organizations Must
Prepare to Adapt,” Gartner, May, 2012. 7“Mobile and the Nexus of Forces: Creating the New Experience,” Gartner, June,
2012. 8“Mobile Software Strategy Evolution, 2011-2012,” Aberdeen Group, December, 2012. 9“IT Strategy to Support
Mobile,” Propelics, November, 2012. 10“Emerging Service Analysis: Enterprise Mobility Consulting, Application Development
and Integration Services,” Gartner, December, 2011. 11“Market Alert: IBM Goes All Out, Puts Mobile First,” Aberdeen
Group, February, 2013. 12“The Need for IT to Get in Front of the BYOD Problem,” Osterman Research, October, 2012.
13
“Emerging Service Analysis: Enterprise Mobility Consulting, Application Development and Integration Services,” Gartner,
December, 2011.
© Pomeroy, 2013. All rights reserved. All trademarks, trade names, service marks referenced herein are the property of
their respective companies. V1313.
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