By Chris Hale, Stratix
Today, any enterprise can capitalize on mobile devices to trigger a host of benefits, including cost savings with productivity improvements, faster speed to market, enhanced customer experiences and new revenue streams. To tap mobility’s benefits, however, retailers must harness the challenges of creating a mobile-enabled culture.
A 2015 enterprise mobility survey by Citrix found that the number of devices managed by respondents increased 72% from 2014 to 2015. This and other survey findings, Citrix reported, “highlight the evolving nature of work and emphasize the need for organizations to both empower and manage employee mobility in order to meet security, agility and productivity demands.”
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Managing the proliferation of mobile devices accessing corporate information begins with creating a mobile enterprise strategy and aligning it with the strategy of the retailer. This strategy, which is essential to keeping up with vast transformations underway in technology and consumer behavior, needs to be initiated at top executive levels.
Even with a sound strategy in place, the enterprise will need to deal with the day-to-day management of the mobile infrastructure. According to IDC, however, most enterprises lack the technology, staffing and processes to turn the mobility megatrend into competitive advantages. IDC analysts believe that third-party services are crucial for effectively implementing a mobile enterprise strategy.
Lacking expertise in managing a diverse mobile ecosystem, companies are increasingly turning to managed mobility services providers. MMS elevates the lifecycle management of mobile devices to a strategic level that encompasses their integration with business goals.
Gartner defines managed mobility services as “the IT and process services provided by an external service provider that are required to plan, procure, provision, activate, manage and support mobile devices, network services, management systems, mobile applications and application stores.”
These issues typically land on IT’s plate. But mobile’s complexity transcends the organization chart — not just IT. The complexity begins with employees seeking fast, easy access to information. Line-of-business managers feel the pressure, too, as they try to keep up with corporate mandates for improved productivity, lower costs and better customer experiences. These pressures can easily mushroom into security risks, insufficient bandwidth, redundant processes and rogue applications unknown to IT.
The managed mobility services approach provides an arsenal of capabilities to help the enterprise tackle mobility issues, without diverting its focus on core competencies. For starters, managed mobility services give businesses a straightforward way to deal with all the “plumbing” involved in deploying, provisioning and managing the mobile infrastructure. In addition, some managed mobility service providers offer related services, such as:
- Defining and designing the mobile environment;
- Training employees and providing them solutions configured to individual needs;
- Operating a 24×7 mobile help center to resolve user problems — including device repair; and
- Monitoring key performance indicators on device types, carriers, applications, business usage, etc.
Managed mobility services experts can help with all of these tasks and more.
There’s no question that the mobility infrastructure will keep growing in size and complexity. As any organization adapts to rapidly changing market and technology landscapes, the C-suite will find themselves increasingly drawn into mobility-related issues. That’s why forward-thinking retail executives are seeking ways to transform mobility’s challenges into business opportunities.
Chris Hale, Vice President of Marketing for Stratix, has developed and led growth and innovation strategies for more than 23 years, primarily in enterprise software and services.
