Editor’s Note: Welcome to our weekly Reality Check column where C-level executives and advisory firms from across the mobile industry share unique insights and experiences.
Enterprises face significant disruptions to their business if they do not have coherent strategies to deal with the leading technology trends centered around the nexus of mobility, social media, cloud computing and data. That is one of the key conclusions from research firm Gartner in its recent report entitled “The top ten strategic technology trends for 2014.”
The report, produced annually, lists the main technology trends globally each year and highlights factors that could cause them to have significant impact on enterprises, including:
–High demand for a technology from end users or business leaders.
–The potential for disruption to IT or the business.
–The need for major investment in technologies.
–The risk of late adoption.
Gartner concludes that in some cases the impact of the trend will be the need for enterprises to radically change the use of technologies, IT processes or business processes, resulting in significant cost and disruption.
At the top of the list of trends that will have the biggest potential for “significant and disruptive enterprise impact” over the next three years are:
–Mobile device diversity and management.
–Mobile apps and applications.
–The Internet of everything.
Indeed, mobility will be at the heart of changes in the way enterprises conduct business with employees, customers and partners in future.
But mobility can be transformational as well as disruptive – provided enterprises take steps now to fully evaluate the risks and benefits associated with specific technologies and practices, and to put in place a coherent, end-to-end strategy throughout the organization.
Mobility is not just about the technology, of course. The ability to fully integrate technologies with business processes is one of the biggest challenges facing enterprises in the next few years. Many organizations already realize that they risk drowning in a sea of mobility choices. The only way forward is through collaboration, with enterprises forming partnerships that lead to elastic models in order to deliver scalable solutions as and when they are needed.
Many aspects need to be considered if enterprises are going to put a successful, long-term mobility strategy in place. Design, development, testing, security and management of apps and devices all need to be carefully evaluated, for example. Enterprises will need to identify the intellectual property, methodologies, frameworks and partnerships that will set them apart in increasingly competitive markets.
Only by putting the right policies, technologies, processes and people in place, in a coherent manner across the entire organization, can enterprises hope to truly enhance the mobile experience for employees, customers and partners. In so doing they can hope to turn disruption into competitive advantage, using mobility as a springboard for transformation.
Fernando Alvarez is VP and leader of Capgemini’s Mobile Solutions practice. A thought leader and mobile solutions/technology subject matter expert, Alvarez has worked closely with multiple multinational corporations as well as global independent software vendors with regard to their enterprise mobile needs and strategies. Prior to joining Capgemini, Alvarez was president, CEO and chairman of Abaco Mobile, an Atlanta-based software company that provided enterprise mobile software solutions for more than 21 years. In 2000, Alvarez was honored as one of the 100 most influential U.S. Hispanic business leaders by Hispanic Business magazine. He is also a past recipient of Ernst & Young’s Entrepreneur of the Year Award. Alvarez has a background in business, economics, and law, and is a frequent guest lecturer at industry events around the world.
