I always attempt to push the envelope and ski the expert slopes. Going to undergrad university in Colorado helped fuel that extreme ski hobby. A few Wide World of Sports crashes along with pointers from really gifted athletes helped even more. Pointers from experienced enterprise mobility experts offer the same guidance in the new Enterprise Mobility Strategy Map here. Whether beginner, intermediate or expert there are many trails or best practices to follow. A few suppliers offer the entire mountain, most offer only one or two type of slopes as is true in the ski industry. Let’s have a quick look at the map including real-time advice from Map contributor Maribel Lopez.
For starters, the easy green slopes often start with enterprise mobility management. The suite includes mobile device management, content management, app security and distribution. Many firms offer these basics often as highly-stylized “window pleasing” loss leaders. The underlying functionality is often dependent on the APIs or software levers exposed by the device manufacturers. For most enterprises this translates to iOS, Android and Windows Phone 8. Providing industry access to APIs is one of the primary reasons that Blackberry failed to hold onto enterprise leadership and support in EMM suites. No ski lift, few skiers as other slope operators simply offer more attractive operations.
Enterprises looking for the Blue Intermediate slopes are after mobile applications. These include field service apps, workforce management apps, retail analytics apps or even point of sale apps. SAP offers more than 300 mobile apps as a starting point here. Of course, enterprises will often want to customize or modify a mobile app to meet their specific needs including support for cross platform development and offline data. Business users often don’t start sequentially on the “easiest” slopes instead realizing the productivity gains of incorporating mobile apps in their businesses like Phillips 66 or Hallmark via Verizon. Both of these examples point to the larger trend of businesses looking to suppliers offering the entire mountain experience of the Mobile Strategy Map.
The tram doors open at top of Snowbird ski area in Utah during a complete whiteout. With a bit of experience beforehand, a few strategically placed guideposts and even a mountain guide the trail down is exhilarating. This is based on a true story in Snowbird and taking my then 13-year old on his first trip to Utah. Ascending to top of the Mobile Strategy Map through a trusted tram enterprise IT owners and their users will get to use all of mountain’s slopes. Case study in point here is National Grid, owner and operator of the electricity and gas transmission network in the UK including overhead lines, underground cables and pipes, substations and compressor stations. This “half pipe” snowpark example shared their own story here and included comments such as: “combining core business functionality with enhanced capabilities, like taking photographs at the point-of-work and on-demand access to asset and work history, which dramatically improve decision-making and cost savings.”
Hopefully you’ve enjoyed this picturesque mobile journey as much as the SAP Mobile extended team did in building it for our customers, partners and prospects. I think you’ll agree after taking a few of the trails that there are a number of great and highly customizable approaches to your mobile journey. One size certainly doesn’t fit all and no business should start the mobile journey without considering what the future holds. Now there is a mobile map available to help point out the pitfalls and benefits of enterprise mobility for all levels of users.
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