Mobility – Part I – Anytime,Anywhere, Anyway.
The strategy around mobility was something that evolved on a large scale in the view of corporate managers. In the field of solutions, we were in an earlier era with remarkable features:
- Goals more committed to architectural building standards.
- A relatively small group of equipment to integrate.
- A world of hardware and software well controlled supporting the set of applications approved in each company
- Well defined silos between the CTO, the CMO, the CIO.
It was the facts that ultimately formed a strategy for mobility.
All this has really been stirred by the market, by consumers, by new generations requesting the use of a new way of thinking about mobility strategy.
A multiplicity of devices with different purposes, with different means of communicating and meeting consumer needs are not only choices of personal use, but also are specific objectives of being integrated in a secure way to the corporate environment. Bring your own application, your own device, any tablet, any smartphone (or a phablet, a half way between the two) and you’re expected to be connected ready to use without threatening sensitive data from organizations and individuals. Here are the BYOD (Bring your Own Device / Bring your Own Application; BYOD / BYOA) technologies. Consumerization is a discipline that brings this theme to IT managers, and has been defined as the use of application provider services in the cloud and associated with social media.
Mobility today is present in the business world with the Customer Experience and multichannel approach enabling mobile devices as key players in buying, customer care and marketing.
The phenomenon of social networks has been transforming the behavior of connected people in several senses. They are approached in the new society, from the times of knowledge acquisition and how information was consumed to how the interpersonal relationships were built and maintained.
The infrastructure that manages mobile communications is growing dramatically, and the voice world with copper-based voice communication is becoming old. Operators and suppliers seek to innovate to be present in the world of mobility, massive use of social applications at no or very low cost.
Applications and many business data migrate to the cloud and security policies are booming, adapting to this new world.
The theme of mobility brings diverse choices for consumers and together, the market disputes by suppliers. The operating systems that support the devices have specific characteristics and are preferred according to the type of market (more mature markets have preferred Apple’s iOS while the Android system is more popular in emerging markets). New devices equipment objects before not intelligent is the theme connected to Internet of Things (IoT). Smart cities are connecting the mobiles in every corner or houses. Buildings, cars or appliances connect to make a world more comfortable for citizens. Wearable, mobile devices coupled to the body, or the most conspicuous term in English, wearables bring innovation by increasing traffic, capillarity and functionality of mobiles.
Technologies linked to the physical interface of mobiles use are also in full evolution.
In these choices, various technologies expand or park, depending on the adherence of developers and mainly consumers. Being updated with new technologies today means reading a lot in the media, suppliers, service providers and listening to social networks.
Mobile application development technologies, partner ecosystems, evolution of established platforms (such as HTML with the Html5 standard being the standard potential for Web evolution), as well as developments in Telecom (involving the adhesion curves of technologies such as LTE, LTE-a, 5G, HSPA, GSM, etc.) are facilitators consumption pave the way to mobility.
Other disputes or choices are made by integrating mobility features, standards or applications such as: Mobile Payments or Mobile Banking; Consumption of media articles (music, videos, etc.); Location Services; Sales Force Automation; Automation of Field Professionals; Cloud Solutions … A more complex, sophisticated world of super-fast changes is the chessboard ahead of managers of the mobility strategy in companies.
Business Strategy
Managers are realizing that the new mobility trends require a repositioning:
The number of people disconnected totally or partially in time is something that is in full decline. Consumers are always connected at anytime, anywhere, in a number of ways.
The adoption of smart devices like smartphones is definitive and very significant in relation to any other device. The adoption curve is in full slope in any updated analysis.
A drastic change in behavior and inclusion (territorial, age, social status, etc.) is in full swing.
A digital world, connected, awaits these people and their mobile to consummate information and applications, and if it is considered that there will be in 2020, 50 billion connected devices.
Therefore, selling, marketing, improving image, increasing customer satisfaction and having excellence in care changes completely from the point of view.
There is no recipe that the business manager follows to give your company a privileged position serving mobile consumers or otherwise present in a world of mobility. However, looking at the technological trends of this world and connecting with business goals can make a return on investment in innovation in mobility faster.
What trends would these be, and how to bear fruit from them from a business strategy point of view? From the answer, the mobility strategy will be customized for each company.
However, what innovative technologies are on the menu to compose a business differentiation strategy? This is what we propose in the topics below, addressing item to item:
1. Mobile Payments, M-Commerce
There is plenty of money on the table involving payments with mobile. The forecast is that by 2017 we are close to 1 trillion dollars in the global market using mobility according to IDC Financial Insights.
Here, we make a distinction, since Mobile Payments is specifically a payment using a mobile device (using NFC technology – Near-Field Communication, for example), while Mobile-Commerce presupposes a more complete offer of services for sale (and payment) at the end, but with marketing functions, service, content, etc.
What is expected is a large growth of Mobile-Commerce, driven mainly by financial groups, often supported by IT service providers and Telecom for a complete solution to the customer.
A wealth of applications, tools, accelerators and development kits are available to further this market.
In fact, the mobility involving commerce and payments, today falls into the categories:
- The Mobile at the point of sale: Use of the device for payment (with NFC technology for example) in a traditional point of sale.
- The Mobile as a point of sale: It includes the use of the device with some additional device (credit card reader, for example) to enable the customer to acquire something using the seller’s mobile device. In this case, “mobility” is the point of sale itself.
- M-Commerce Platform / Mobile Payment: In this case, a complete platform is in the hands of the consumer, physically dispensing the use of bank or money cards and wherever they can connect. There is good convergence for this modality with wide investment as a new sales channel.
- Direct Billing via Operator: In this case, the consumer also does not use credit cards and consumes products or services being debited directly into his account with the telecom operator. It is a very quick and simple way to buy with a mobile, but it is usually restricted to SMS messages or very specific applications and digital assets.
- Mobile Payments in a Closed Circuit: Having the emblematic case of Starbucks, the company creates a kind of mobile coupon, where the consumer carries a certain value and consumes it through a specific application. Interesting, but being implemented with private solutions, has more restricted membership.
2. Service platform, Knowledge Management
The Customer Care area wants to increase satisfaction by offering a set of solutions, information, and for this either interacting via mobile device with the customer or consumer through a platform of service or specific applications of the mobile. Thus, it allows the user or consumer to choose and best way to communicate – to switch use of voice, with other modes – via social network post, via application or specific platform, via point-to-point post with the company, via a chat, etc.
The important thing is to align a self-care, service and information with the company’s mobility strategy. To do so, managers will eventually need to derive this strategy from marketing guidelines and digital channels.
Mobile becomes a source of information in the day to day of people and informing them well about the products and services provided is important in this journey around mobility.
3. BYOD, Secure Data Management
The subject of BYOD and BYOA is the guideline of corporate mobility management. A policy that gives employee comfort also increases productivity and speeds corporate goals.
Letting personalization be an option, the employee chooses which device and which application is the best. Of course, agreeing to this does not mean having it all resolved with a simple decision. Security technologies and policies, internal and partner development rules need to be appropriate, modernized.
Working securely with business data (B2E – Business to Employee) is already a step towards bringing this same security into the business and consumer relationship (B2C – Business to Consumer).
Mapping a feasible BYOD strategy is essential and should be implemented over time with clear goals.
4. Cloud Computing
Mobility and Cloud are two themes that really combine.
Offering applications in the cloud already assumes performance, security, location and availability as expected functions, and all this relates to mobility and hand-devices. In our day to day, we already use applications that keep much of the information in the cloud, outside of the physical hosting of the mobile device.
We tend to be extra careful with our bank information, passwords, etc., but it seems that behavior has largely changed, and mobile applications with cloud data is already a commonplace. Of course, there are a number of legal commitments in the corporate dealings of customer data, resulting in security policies. But the seduction of mobility is a great impetus for an adjustment of all these factors.
5. Startups based on Mobility
If start-up companies, i.e., entering the market – have a lower overall capital than the big players in their industry, then they may need to balance their investments in innovative technologies. It is also true that a new digital world, exposed in mobile devices, with platforms in the cloud, can democratize the choice around comparable solutions between small, medium and large companies.
That is, innovative, well-integrated, well thought-out solutions can pair with sophisticated and extensive solutions. It is important to invest in the right place. For example, in a virtual enterprise approach, yet offering a more mature and sophisticated platform for e-Commerce, service and digital marketing can give an unprecedented competitive advantage to the entrant in the market.
Innovations have never been so accessible to flexible cloud applications (in terms of business capacity and functionality), with integration of specialized partners bringing data in principle out of reach, linking with Telecom and banking operator services. This can create more success stories in the startup market.
6. Integration of Welfare and XaaS consumption
Welfare through mobile devices is like a companion that gives alerts or recommendations, interacts with location and agenda in the various sectors of the life of each one.
Health, nutrition, care, leisure, culture, tourism, learning. All these disciplines can have applications built under the prism of mobility by making this company to the consumer, interacting via mobile device.
Opportunities for Sale, Use of Applications and services, Digital Marketing will hitch on these services.
The world XaaS – Anything as a Service also proposes that (mobile) services are the face consumed by the client, even if an application, a platform, infrastructure behind this offer exposed by an icon or alerts in the device mobile.
7 Connected Home, Connected Car, M2M, Internet of Things
Whether you are a contentious participant in discussions around technology or not, it’s hard not to hear about cars and connected homes, the Internet of Things (IoT), and machine to machine (M2M) connections. A world connected to objects and people, with mobility working intelligently with each device according to its application. For example, a house connected by giving metrics to the owner to manage electric consumption, return excess consumption to the network, give comfort and control to remote or automated actions in the operation of the house. A connected car can give anonymous traffic information to peers or authorities. If connecting is no longer uniqueness of persons, whether connected in a fixed or mobile manner. Understanding this world and its new demands improves the creation of mobility strategies by relying on a private, public or hybrid network of connected objects and people. According to the company’s performance, figuring out how to leverage business with the new insights of this world is a competitive differential. The information ends up having an unprecedented wealth, since knowing that a family consumes with a certain standard, circulates in certain places, has a certain profile improves marketing actions, from attention to sales. There are several ways to approach the client, but doing so in a way relevant to their mobility is very advantageous.
8. Usage of Wearables, Content Rendering on Any Device
Also, widely spoken, is the use of Wearables, i.e. any device attached to our body, which communicates in any way with any other device or network, in order to provide more information, more comfort, more convenience. For example, high-tech manufacturers are currently competing in the market for connected clocks, with special or replicated functions of tablets or smartphones. These devices each have a way of interacting with their owner, through screens of all types and sizes or through audio or other interactive way. Being a challenge for mobile application developers, to include them in an open world, the mobility manager needs to be up-to-date with the innovations that come from there, what kind of deals can come with Wearables?
9. New Analytical Guidance and Big Data for Mobility
As we have seen dealing with this new number and dealing with different data, of different types, but relevant to the company’s performance. Otherwise, in a connected world, a much larger volume of data is available.
Treating these new dimensions also requires innovation.
Normally, in order to segment profiles from information collected from traditional systems, we would analyze in detail the behavior of customers within the company, use the data warehouse and analytics. This technology has evolved and companies include Big Data as a new paradigm for understanding this new data family (greater volume, variety, heterogeneous origin, cloud, social media, etc.).
It is in fact an instrument to manage mobility strategy, as it allows a richer and more adequate analysis to the digital world, connected, previously unthinkable in traditional corporate processes.
10. Developers meshes, Partnerships, Hybrids
It is already a fact in the development of applications for the mobile world, a good cooperation and development in blocks of functionalities, eventually connecting to other developers and building mobile applications or even mobile services. These services can once again be recomposed in an application and a new service in the context of your company, offering an unprecedented resource in the interface with the client or final consumer.
Applications and mobile services, exposed to the customer, need to leverage from this world of partnerships, hybrid solutions, global developer networks. Therefore, understanding this world is important to choose how you can help it, which cannot serve the moment of the company, which needs to be adapted according to security or regulatory policies.
In short, building a business strategy in the company is not trivial, and managers should be interested in innovation, telecommunications, software development, new generation behavior, digital marketing, and so many other disciplines … yes, a major challenge, increasingly common to the manager of the new digital world.
About The Author
Renato Botto
BSS OSS Innovation & Tech