information systems homework

IIM-I300 Assignment 3

Directions: Read the included PDF file “SAP” to answer the following questions. This assignment introduces you to the “white paper”; a white paper is a paper produced by industry, such as a company like SAP. White papers are generally not considered as good as journal articles in terms high quality and rigor (because they are not peer-reviewed), however they often contain excellent information about various subjects, and are a good starting point when investigating new technologies or business processes.

Full credit will be given for completely and thoughtfully answering the question and ALL its parts. Put your answers in a MS Word document and upload through ‘Assignments’ in OnCourse before the due date.

I. Discuss the key enterprise mobility trends presented in the white paper. Include in your comments, the consumerization of IT, mobile application explosion, and cloud computing. (10 points)

II. SAP is a key player in the enterprise mobility market. Using the case studies, describe how SAP’s mobile technologies helped a business meet its objectives for enterprise mobility. (10 points)

III. How is the mobility paradigm disruptive to business? (5 points)

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Mobility and consumerization are creating complexity in the enterprise, but embracing the change can lead to more productive mobile workers as well as better communications with employees, partners, customers, and consumers. The trends in the enterprise mobility landscape drive a need for technology solutions to emerge. While many products on the market address pieces of the enterprise mobility puzzle, many companies are looking for a partner that will provide a comprehensive portfolio of solutions.

When considering enterprise mobility solutions, companies should take into account the following key points:



Solution

diversity. One of the most daunting aspects of enterprise mobility is the sheer number of vendors participating in the space and the range of technology solutions that may be offered to solve any one customer problem. There is no one-size-fits-all solution; instead it requires significant research and thought to determine the right solution to fit an enterprise’s needs.

 Mobile strategies. Mobile decisions need to be made to support all initiatives or companies will find themselves with a disjointed patchwork of point technologies instead of a cohesive solution framework. Companies must think about their business needs as one project across mobile development platforms, apps, and management and security of devices and applications.

 Choosing solutions and delivery models. As customers decide which mobility offerings their business needs, they investigate opportunities to purchase products à la carte or fully integrated solutions. Service providers recognize the importance of flexibility not only in the availability of products but also in the delivery models, which range from full self-service to fully managed services. Businesses should adopt the products and service models that best match their needs and enable them to leverage existing internal resources as well.

IN THIS WHITE PAPER

In this IDC White Paper, we discuss some of the key trends taking place in the enterprise mobility landscape today, such as consumerization of IT, the mobile application explosion, and cloud computing. We then explore how these paradigm shifts create opportunity while also driving the need for new technology solutions. Next we take a look at how SAP’s mobile enterprise solutions map to these requirements and

Global Headquarters: 5 Speen Street Framingham, MA 01701 USA P.508.872.820 0 F.508.935.4015 www.idc.com

learn how various customers across the mobility ecosystem are leveraging SAP’s mobile technology to meet their business objectives. Finally, we wrap up with essential guidance to help end users and partners develop a strategic plan.

SITUATION OVERVIEW

The information and communication technology (ICT) industry is in the midst of a shift that takes place once every 20–25 years to a new technology platform for growth and innovation. IDC calls it the 3rd Platform, built on mobile devices and apps, cloud services, mobile broadband networks, big data analytics, and social technologies. These paradigm shifts are intertwined and rapidly impacting organizations around the world. In fact, from 2013 through 2020, IDC believes that 90% of IT industry growth will be driven by 3rd Platform technologies that, today, represent just 22% of ICT spending.

M o b i l i t y : D i s r u p t i o n L e a d s t o O p p o r t u n i t y

While each of the 3rd Platform technologies impacts organizations around the world in myriad ways, mobility is one of the most disruptive trends that the enterprise has had to deal with in a long time. The reason? Advances in mobile device technology, operating systems, security, and applications can largely be credited with starting the übertrend known as consumerization of IT (CoIT). Although consumerization is often associated with the ability to leverage one’s personally owned mobile device for business use, it goes beyond that to encompass the use of any consumer technology in a business setting. Thus, the issues that CoIT can bring to the table are more complex than may appear at first glance, but the scope of the trend enables a plethora of positive business outcomes as well.

We can start by exploring one of the more obvious outcomes of consumerization, the opportunity for employees to bring their own device (BYOD) to work. As more and more companies accept BYOD, decisions around which devices IT will formally support become difficult. This is true not only from an operating system perspective but from a device perspective as well. For instance, when the company starts to consider if it will support Android, it has to make a decision around whether all Android devices will be supported, or only those from certain manufacturers with advanced security software, or perhaps only certain models from certain manufacturers. As a result of this diversity, IDC found that in 2012, developers writing applications for enterprise customers wrote to at least two to three different mobile environments with continued heterogeneity expected. This creates a range of challenges that we delve into further in the next section of the paper.

Now that companies are chock full of employees with powerful mobile devices and a high level of comfort with using them, mobile application enablement projects have started in earnest. Companies are looking to deploy not only applications and content that their own employees can leverage for mobile working but externally facing applications to partners and consumers as well. Cloud computing is an important paradigm shift that helps companies embark on these mobility projects in a more timely and cost-effective way. While in the past many technology projects required expensive infrastructure, implementation, and training costs, cloud computing removes these barriers by offering the ability to get up and running fast, with little up-front investment. Although there is a

point at which the costs between an on-premise and a cloud deployment may even out, typically, cloud models allow for faster time to deployment and the ability to scale over time — two important factors for most mobility projects.

K e y C o n s i d e r a t i o n s f o r t h e M o b i l e E n t e r p r i s e

It is clear that mobility and consumerization are creating complexity in the enterprise, but embracing the change leads to more productive mobile workers as well as better communications with employees, partners, customers, and consumers. However, getting from point A to point B requires serious thought about what tools an enterprise will need to successfully navigate the waters of enterprise mobility.

As a first step, companies need to think about their mobile worker populations and make decisions about what their corporate-liable device (CLD) population will look like in addition to how they would like to deploy a BYOD program. IDC believes many companies will continue to have a mix of BYO and CL devices so they will need to find mobile enterprise management solutions that are appropriate to securely manage a mix of OS types as well as liability schemes. For instance, an organization may want to have full control of the device platform on a CLD but may only want to have responsibility for managing and securing the corporate footprint of information (apps, data, and content) on a BYOD. Either way, given the increasing amount of sensitive data being accessed on mobile devices, security is a key consideration that should be evaluated — ideally before any applications are rolled out.

Next, an organization needs to assess its mobile application requirements. Again, this calls for an evaluation of the mobile worker population and deciding on applications and content requirements for various worker groups including process and productivity applications. For a consumer-facing company, this needs assessment may also include consumer mobile applications. Given the range of mobile applications any one company might be looking to deploy, evaluating a flexible platform that offers the ability to build a range of application types (B2C, B2B, B2E) and architectures (native, hybrid, Web, etc.) makes sense. This platform needs to offer a streamlined way to integrate with a variety of back-end systems as well as next-generation tooling on the front end to create compelling, user-friendly applications. In addition to deploying custom applications, many companies seek prepackaged mobile applications that offer 80% of the functionality they need out of the box and the ability to customize the rest. Finally, enterprises need a streamlined way to configure, deploy, and manage these applications after deployment. Customizable mobile enterprise application stores and integrated mobile application management offerings are two increasingly popular ways to handle this need.

With more usage on mobile devices, a larger and growing percentage of these devices are now accessing vast amounts of data. Such scenarios may require companies to consider the role of mobile analytics to better understand what types of users are leveraging which devices and what content on those devices. In addition, getting down to the app level to recognize what functions are used the most and how much time is spent on a particular job activity is extremely critical to continue to improve the mobile app and thus the mobile worker experience. Once a company has progressed in developing, building, and managing applications, the next stage of optimizing the application is critical.

Finally, enterprises need to determine how they want to manage and deliver these mobility solutions across the organization — and whether that is something they want to take on in-house or engage with a third-party provider for. When making this decision, organizations must understand the capabilities of their IT departments. Does IT have the time, resources, and knowledge to deliver and manage a mobile solution? It doesn’t have to be an all-or-nothing proposition as service provider delivery models range from full self-service to fully managed services while also offering customers an option for partially managed hybrid solutions. Businesses adopt the service model that best matches their needs and can leverage existing internal resources as well. Interestingly, many companies migrate from one service model to another as they evolve their corporate mobile strategy.

While some companies have only begun to explore the business benefits of mobile solutions and therefore may evaluate “best of breed” products that address their needs, companies further along the path likely need a comprehensive mobile solution spanning all these areas: mobile application platform, applications, mobile enterprise management, and mobile content management solutions. And a solution that is well integrated and provided by a single vendor can have the technical and business benefits preferred by these companies. For example, an MEAP platform tightly integrated with existing mobile applications allows easier and more sophisticated customization of these applications. In a similar way, mobile applications closely integrated with mobile enterprise management software often allow more robust mobile security features and analytic capabilities that may not be feasible through point solutions from an array of providers. In addition, customers frequently prefer a single vendor interaction for more practical reasons like effective customer support and quicker resolutions to cross-solution technical problems or needed enhancements.

S A P M o b i l e E n t e r p r i s e S o l u t i o n s

SAP Afaria

SAP Afaria is SAP’s enterprise mobility management solution that combines mobile device management and mobile application management technology. Offered via the cloud using Amazon Web Services or via an on-premise deployment, SAP Afaria enables organizations to manage and secure mobile devices and applications across various device and mobile worker population types.

The key features of SAP Afaria are:

 Centrally manages all mobile devices and applications:

 SAP Afaria leverages real-time SAP Business Objects analytics reporting for insight into key mobile device management processes such as inventory management, device status, license management, and telecom expense management. SAP Afaria is the industry’s leading mobile enterprise management (MEM) software, based on 2012 revenue share, that gives IT a way to centrally deliver business-critical IT services, including VPN, email, apps, and WLAN access; an integrated enterprise app storefront for application management; and scalability for thousands of devices.

 Protects devices and data with advanced security features and real-time analytics:

 SAP Afaria offers a client-side application portal from which to deliver apps quickly and securely; the ability to leverage advanced security features such as native lock and wipe, password enforcement and gated access, and securely containerizing enterprise email with Android-enabled NitroDesk TouchDown; the ability to secure devices with an enforced passcode policy and two-factor authentication; and provision policy compliance prior to device enrollment.

 Enables BYOD strategies across multiple device types with confidence:

 SAP Afaria allows companies to selectively wipe and remove business apps and related data while leaving personal data intact, match BYOD device permissions with company-approved mobile apps, easily configure devices with role-based access to an administrative console, identify risk profiles for common security issues on personal devices, and monitor, enforce, and audit costs with applied metrics for BYOD analytics.

SAP Mobile Platform

The SAP Mobile Platform is SAP’s mobile application development platform that allows companies to quickly build and deploy both employee- and customer-facing mobile applications across a range of device platforms. The platform is available on-premise or in the cloud and offers enterprises the ability to tap into a broad community of resources and connections to speed application development.

Highlights of the SAP Mobile Platform are:

 Designing and building:

 The SAP Mobile Platform allows companies to build compelling mobile apps faster by being able to take advantage of a robust set of services and libraries while leveraging in-house skill sets to create innovative mobile apps with a cutting-edge user interface (UI) design. Companies can leverage third-party commercial IDEs, open source SDKs, and the SAP IDE to design or build apps. Time-consuming tasks such as security control, data access, and synchronization are simplified as they are included as a core component of the platform. On the SAP Mobile Platform, organizations can easily integrate messaging services such as SMS, USSD, and MMS in their mobile apps.

 Deploying and operating:

 With the SAP Mobile Platform, companies can deploy, secure, operate, and manage apps using a single, scalable infrastructure. Key capabilities include the ability to automatically scale to changing workloads; ensuring high availability of mission-critical apps; maximizing visibility across all apps, including authentication and connectivity information; and seamlessly integrating with mobile device and application management to secure devices and content.

SAP Mobile Applications

In addition to the ability to build custom applications on the SAP Mobile Platform, companies are also taking advantage of hundreds of packaged mobile applications from SAP and partners. These applications are built using the SAP Mobile Platform and delivered via the SAP Store so companies are able to leverage one platform for all of their mobility needs. Businesses can engage with SAP designers, architects, and developers to create custom applications. Applications offered directly by SAP fall into the following categories:

 Line-of-business (LOB) mobile apps: Companies can extend their business reach by deploying mobile LOB apps. SAP offers packaged apps across many common lines of business, including finance, HR, manufacturing, procurement, sales, service, and supply chain.

 Industry mobile apps: Companies can explore a wide array of industry-specific mobile apps to help them redefine customer and partner relationships, cut costs, and improve productivity.

 Business analytics mobile apps: Organizations that need the ability to make faster, more informed decisions from anywhere, anytime can leverage SAP’s packaged mobile analytics apps.

 Consumer mobile apps: With consumer mobile applications, companies have the opportunity to deepen customer relationships — while also improving transaction volumes and service levels.

SAP Mobile Documents

SAP Mobile Documents is SAP’s enterprise mobility management solution for mobile content and document management. It provides the security that IT needs and gives users anytime, anywhere access to view, present, and collaborate on personal business documents and corporate content. This enterprise-ready mobile content management system provides must-have access to content for greater productivity, increased efficiency, and improved operations.

With SAP Mobile Documents, employees can have access to content — including Microsoft Word documents, spreadsheets, presentations, videos, and other content — instantly on PCs, laptops, smartphones, and tablets. SAP Mobile Documents lets users access these files while they are online or offline, present documents, share content with team members and business partners, and store content in the cloud or on-premise.

The solution provides a rich set of features and functions that meet IT requirements and user needs. For IT, SAP Mobile Documents enables the control and management needed to secure the business content stored on mobile devices. It offers identity-based access, security controls, encryption of content, and the ability to separate business documents from personal documents.

SAP Managed Mobility Solutions

SAP offers managed mobility solutions via trusted managed mobility partners — mobile network operators, telecom expense managers, and systems integrators. SAP establishes partnerships with market leaders that sell licenses of both individual products and the entire mobile suite to their customers. Leveraging the SAP software and layering on additional services, partners like Verizon, Rogers, Telefónica, Accenture, Capgemini, HCL Technologies, HP, Swisscom, and Atos manage mobility solutions such as mobile device management, mobile app development, and application management for customers. Service delivery ranges from full management to self-service as well as offering hybrid options. The level of management is customized based on each individual customer relationship — accounting for customer needs and SAP partner capabilities. SAP partners manage the relationship with customers, yet SAP can be involved during the sales cycle and implementation stages. SAP partners offer managed mobility solutions to customers with the following attributes:

 Delivery of solutions: SAP partners deliver their products via a SaaS model.

 SAP involvement: Based on the needs of partners and customers, SAP’s level of involvement in the sales cycle and implementation of products varies.

 Products: SAP partners sell and manage solutions to customers leveraging the SAP software. Partners have the flexibility to layer additional services and their own applications on top of this software, choose selected parts of these products to sell to customers, or sell all of these products.

 Partners: Partners include primarily mobile operators and systems integrators. These partners work directly with end customers to determine mobility needs and delivery strategies.

CASE STUDIES

S e v e r s t a l R e s o u r c e s — P B S C o a l s

PBS Coals Inc. is the seventh-largest coal producer in Pennsylvania. PBS Coals produces high-quality metallurgical coal from both surface and deep mines. Although PBS Coals has domestic customers, the majority of its customers are international metal producers in Europe, Asia, and South America.

Mobile Profile

Because PBS Coals is a mining organization, the PBS Coals mobile worker population includes both mobile field workers and mobile knowledge workers. The company first decided to mobilize the business processes of its knowledge workers in 2012, and the next leg of its mobility journey will likely extend out to include the field workers. PBS Coals has a corporate-liable deployment of iPhones and iPads in place today, with seven apps deployed according to employee geography and role. The company is also evaluating Android, particularly as a potential platform on which to deploy mobile applications to field workers requiring a rugged form factor.

Challenge

The key challenge for PBS Coals centered on an initial mobility deployment to provide real-time access to business-critical exploration, manufacturing, and sales information from anywhere at any time. In an industry where instability is the norm, executives need to make sure they have the most up-to-date information at any time to make the best decisions for the business. This inherent volatility of the mining industry also forces the company to look for ways to ensure costs stay under control.

Evaluation

When PBS Coals originally began considering its mobility strategy, the decision to evaluate SAP’s offerings in the space was driven by a need to leverage as many back-end systems as possible. As the company went through the due diligence process, it found SAP already offered packaged iOS applications for many of the business processes it wanted to mobilize, and other apps PBS Coals needed were planned. In addition, the ability to leverage the SAP Mobile Platform for other custom needs was important — as was being able to get a mobile device and application management solution from one provider.

Solution

Today, PBS Coals has deployed the SAP Mobile Platform, six packaged mobile apps from SAP, and one custom app that it built using the SAP Mobile Platform. The company has also deployed SAP Afaria to help with version management. The six packaged apps are Payments Approval (to approve outgoing payments via Bank Communication Management), Travel Receipt Capture, Travel Expense Approval, Timesheet, Quality Issue, and SAP BusinessObjects Mobile for iPad. The custom mobile application is a Purchase Order Approval app used by all top management.

Benefits

PBS Coals found partnering with SAP has saved it time and money in several ways:

 Saved significant development effort by leveraging several SAP mobile packaged apps

 Reduced integration time and complexity by leveraging the best practices of a trusted provider

 Helped the executives who use these apps in their day-to-day jobs feel that they are able to make better decisions faster

Next, PBS Coals will be evaluating additional packaged mobile applications from SAP for field workers including mine inspectors. And PBS Coals will broaden out its use of SAP Afaria to add device management to the application management in place today.

L e a d i n g E u r o p e a n A i r l i n e L e v e r a g e s V e l i Q M o b i l e P l a t f o r m a s a S e r v i c e

In addition to offering mobile software and development environments directly to end- user customers, SAP also works with partners across the ecosystem in various capacities. Based in the Netherlands, VeliQ is one such partner that leverages SAP mobile technology including SAP Afaria and SUP to provide a mobility platform as a service (mPaaS) to its customers, typically systems integrators and services organizations. VeliQ offers a fully customizable, true SaaS-based offering to large enterprises and other third-party services organizations providing mobility services to their own end customers. This mobility platform includes mobile enterprise management software, mobile middleware, security software, and the integration hooks needed for cloud solutions to connect with on-premise software solutions.

Mobile Profile

One of VeliQ’s most successful customer stories to date is a leading European company in the airline industry. The organization is currently leveraging the mobile enterprise management capabilities of the platform (based on SAP Afaria technology) for a corporate-liable deployment of iPads. The main users are the airline agents at the gate. While all of the iPads are company owned, some are allowed to be taken home at night by the agents and others are used only in-airport as functional or group devices.

Challenge

The airline business is highly competitive and cost conscious; companies must always strive for the highest customer satisfaction or risk churn to another provider. Although some of the issues that cause customer frustration cannot always be avoided — for instance, delays due to weather conditions — anything an airline can do to reduce avoidable issues and keep customers informed is important. The airline viewed this mobility deployment as a competitive differentiator that would allow airline agents to provide customers with higher levels of service as a strategic imperative.

While the airline was excited about the possibility of enabling its mobile workers with tools to improve both their jobs and the customer experience, there were also some very real concerns. The mobile applications that the agents would be using link to several of the airline’s most important and sensitive systems — including departure control, flight information, and passenger information. Concerns around unauthorized information access were extremely high for the company. While some of the potential negative outcomes could just be minor annoyances, the airline business holds the potential for very serious issues as well.

Solution

Before rolling out the mobility strategy, it was imperative that the airline found a way to manage and control the risk around the devices and apps containing this sensitive information. The airline knew that having an automated way to do so would be very important, having learned the inefficiencies of manual approaches to mobile device and application management from a past deployment. Because it was not yet ready to make major capital or staff investments in mobile management infrastructure, the

company thought that a SaaS-based mobility solution provider such as SAP partner VeliQ offered a compelling way to dip its toe in the water and then scale up as needed. Today, the airline uses application management to update and manage the apps on the iPad and device management for asset/configuration management, remote wipe/lock, and policy management.

Benefits

Once the organization selected VeliQ, the full deployment was complete within a month. This fast time to market was a key benefit the airline was looking for as it wanted to start rolling out the new apps to its employees as quickly as possible. The deployment of mobile enterprise management software delivered all the positive outcomes achieved by the mobility project, as it was critical to manage the potential risk if the device was lost or stolen or landed in the wrong hands. This organization believes that its mobile application enablement project — powered by mobile management and security software — has provided better customer service and satisfaction, higher rates of customer retention, and increased revenue.

V e r i z o n L e v e r a g e s S A P t o P r o v i d e M a n a g e d M o b i l i t y S e r v i c e s t o I t s C l i e n t s

Verizon is a prime example of a service provider partnering closely with SAP to provide managed mobility services to its clients. Verizon is working to develop technologies that utilize the power of networking, connected machines, mobile workforce, and cloud computing, changing the way people and businesses stay connected. Verizon provides wireless and wireline services to consumers, businesses, governments, and wholesale customers across the globe. Verizon operates a 4G LTE network, provides services over a fiber-optic network, and delivers integrated business solutions to customers in more than 150 countries, including all of the Fortune 500. There is no disputing that mobility is on the rise, with many users carrying multiple devices that are connected to the Internet; Verizon is working to deliver the solutions that customers need to deliver innovation, security, and applications to users and their connected devices.

Verizon ‘ s Mobility Perspective

Verizon’s enterprise customers have rapidly increasing mobility needs and challenges. Verizon sees businesses and IT departments supporting multiple devices that are employee and corporate owned — with OS and form factor variation. Additionally, these businesses also want to leverage the mobility explosion to equip each user and their mobile devices with applications that enhance productivity and employee connectivity. These initiatives create challenges for central IT to effectively balance its requirements with the growing demands of the workforce, at a manageable cost and within required time frames. As a result, enterprises are looking to partners such as Verizon to help manage and deliver these managed mobility solutions.

Verizon believes that value-added solutions, such as managed mobility, help mobilize the workforce while tackling the growing mobility needs of enterprises. At the same time, offering managed mobility solutions leverages Verizon’s mobility expertise and the applications experience of SAP, creating a dynamic partnership that enables

businesses to quickly build and deploy both employee- and customer-facing mobile applications across a range of device platforms. Verizon recognizes that it is imperative to build out comprehensive and customizable solutions for its clients. Leveraging software from existing industry-leading business application vendors in the market will help ensure Verizon meets the needs to help clients seamlessly mobilize their businesses.

Verizon ‘s Mobility Solutions

Verizon decided to launch a portfolio of managed mobility solutions, leveraging the software products of partners like SAP and layering professional services on top of these solutions.

Currently, two of Verizon’s portfolio of mobility solutions include SAP products that address enterprise needs:

 Mobile device management using SAP Afaria

 Mobile services enablement using SAP Mobile Platform

Based on customer requirements, Verizon realizes the importance of ensuring flexibility; thus Verizon allows customers to choose services à la carte or the full solution. Offering this choice allows customers to customize the solution to their own needs. One important element to Verizon’s offerings relates to how services are delivered. Verizon decided to offer customers a flexible delivery solution — ranging from self-service to full management. To create a truly comprehensive and customized mobile environment, Verizon can also integrate other technologies into these solutions from vendors aside from SAP to create comprehensive life-cycle mobility solutions.

Choosing SAP

Verizon began offering managed mobility solutions in 2008. At the same time, Verizon strategically chose to incorporate SAP’s software into its client solution. Verizon first partnered with SAP to use the SAP Afaria solution; since then, Verizon’s solution has expanded to include SAP Mobile Platform for app development. Verizon initially chose SAP because of its experience and scalability. According to Verizon, SAP offers the software functionality and capabilities that make up the critical pieces of its mobility solution as well as the cloud-based infrastructure aspects that provide customers flexible deployment models. SAP’s cloud-based approaches enable Verizon to deliver and manage solutions for customers with efficiency — specifically related to deployment and solution updates. Verizon believes the experience and reach of SAP help strengthen its managed mobility solution, not only based on functionality but also by expanding its customer reach.

A Symbiotic and Strategic Partnership

Verizon views its relationship with SAP as a strategic partnership central to its enterprise mobility business — where Verizon leverages the SAP brand during conversations with potential clients and Verizon provides SAP with feedback about product usage. This level of open communication ensures that SAP’s products continue to match the needs of clients. In the future, Verizon plans to continue to enhance its managed mobility solutions as well as continue to collaborate with SAP.

CHALLENGES/OPPORTUNITIES

The enterprise mobility ecosystem is a rapidly shifting space. While embracing mobility offers many potential business benefits, there are also several challenges customers will encounter along the way.

One of the most daunting aspects of enterprise mobility is the sheer number of vendors participating in the space and the range of technology solutions that may be offered to solve any one customer problem. The BYOD phenomenon represents a perfect example of an issue where many enterprises are struggling to figure out what approach is the best fit for their organization. One vendor may approach the problem from a device-centric view, another from an application-centric view, and a third through a network-oriented lens. Given the particular customer need, any of these approaches, or a mix of all three, may be an appropriate approach, but since there is no one-size-fits-all solution for all companies, it does require research and thought.

Beyond the vendor and market complexity, companies must also make difficult decisions around how they want to deploy new mobile technology and how much responsibility they want to take on in-house versus outsource to third parties. For instance, organizations will have to deliberate the pros and cons of cloud versus on-premise deployments of mobile enterprise management software and mobile development platforms, whether they want to build or buy mobile applications, and whether the burden of managing mobile devices and telecom expenses is something their own IT department can take on or whether a managed mobility provider is a better option. Cost, company culture, and existing IT infrastructure and IT resources must all be taken into consideration when making these decisions.

Despite the many decisions companies need to work through in developing a mobile enterprise strategy, the benefits enterprises can realize from doing so are numerous. These include, but are certainly not limited to, the ability to make better informed decisions faster, enhanced customer relationships and retention, increased revenue generation opportunities, and time and — ultimately — money saved. Mobility also offers companies a perfect opportunity to reassess their current processes/workflows and align them to more efficient and profitable ways of doing business.

RECOMMENDATIONS

IDC offers the following essential guidance for companies building an enterprise mobility strategy:

 Think strategically about mobile: Among other benefits, mobility represents an opportunity to build better internal business processes and stronger customer and partner relationships. However, proper mobile app and security infrastructure decisions need to be made to support those initiatives or companies will find themselves with a disjointed patchwork of point technologies instead of a cohesive solution framework. IDC suggests that whenever possible companies think about their business needs across mobile development platforms, apps, and the management and security of devices and applications as one project — and then put leadership in place that can stretch across several different IT and LOB teams.

 Create a “mobile profile” of your organization: IDC always recommends organizations complete a thorough profiling of mobile worker types across the company. At a minimum, this profile should include all workers that will be accessing corporate information on a mobile laptop, tablet, or smartphone; whether the devices are corporately owned or BYOD; what applications, application types, and content the mobile worker will be accessing on that device and over what network types and in what kinds of situations (i.e., for some mobile workers, offline access is very important). It is difficult to ascertain what kind of application types, management, and security technologies need to be put in place to address the majority of apps, devices, operating systems, and machine- to-machine (M2M) interactions.

 Leverage existing investments/talent: Although embarking upon a mobility project does require that folks across the organization learn some new skill sets, most companies will also have existing assets that can be leveraged for mobility projects. For example, if your company has a good base of Web developers, perhaps building hybrid applications and pure native apps when needed is a good approach. Or, if your employees are used to working in a certain back end, perhaps building a mobile application that has a similar (albeit pared down) workflow will help speed the learning curve and spur adoption. People are often resistant to new ways of doing things, so anything that assists with familiarity and offers a good or better user experience will be appreciated.

 Curtail implementation challenges: When choosing to embark on the implementation of mobile solutions, consider using a managed mobility partner instead of internally building it all. Third parties can help assess your current and future mobility needs. However, when choosing a managed mobility partner, consider how the provider aligns with the organization’s internal environment. Assess the provider’s flexibility — offering fully managed and partially managed solutions — which will give organizations the opportunity to grow their mobile strategy.

CONCLUSION

Mobility is one of the most disruptive computing trends that the enterprise has had to deal with in a long time. From taking the time to build a comprehensive mobile profile to developing application and security requirements across the company, creating a mobile strategy is not a simple task. Despite the many decisions companies need to work through in developing a mobile enterprise strategy, the productivity improvements alone will quickly benefit enterprises.

With the vast array of service providers and products in the market, enterprises must take the time to understand the full scope of their mobility needs first or risk making shortsighted niche product decisions. The products and solutions an enterprise chooses must evolve with its needs and complement internal competencies. SAP is one provider that integrates a broad array of enterprise mobility solutions including mobile enablement, app development, management, and security in a variety of deployment options, supported by an array of software and services partners. While each company must assess how its own requirements align to any one vendor’s products and services, the ability to work with one provider across many of these needs will be seen by many customers as a compelling long-term approach.

C o p y r i g h t N o t i c e

External Publication of IDC Information and Data — Any IDC information that is to be used in advertising, press releases, or promotional materials requires prior written approval from the appropriate IDC Vice President or Country Manager. A draft of the proposed document should accompany any such request. IDC reserves the right to deny approval of external usage for any reason.

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