Mobility: Shaking up the Enterprise

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2 2 Mobility: Shaking up the Enterprise Most companies treat mobile as a set of discreet projects, separately funded and separately executed often resulting in limited success. All kinds of chaos ensues when Marketing goes after a mobile loyalty app, Sales builds a CRM app, the head of Asia resellers builds a mobile dealer app, and everyone's on different platforms, using different technologies and security standards, and a non- exempt employee wants to know whether or not checking his work on his tablet at home counts as overtime. Gartner estimates that by 2014, 60% of typical Fortune 1000 companies will have failed to put a comprehensive mobile strategy in place. Because mobile adoption across the enterprise continues to grow at a rapid pace, it's increasingly difficult for large companies to keep up. IT departments struggle to stay ahead as new devices appear on the shelves one a year, mobile OSs update twice, and employees want to bring their own devices to work. Simply put, mobility is disruptive. It's not a bad thing: changing environments and emerging technologies can provide a wealth of opportunities for growth and innovation. Still, the adoption of mobile technologies is scary for many organizations. Mobility makes structure and control increasingly difficult. Here are just a few of the new challenges that arise with mobile: Eligibility Who's eligible? And for what kind of device? Who gets what kind of access? Data & Services What tools, apps, and information are going to be provided and accessed? What information is going be collected? How can that information be used productively across the enterprise? App Delivery How are employees and customers going to get the apps? Through the App Store or Google Play? Will updated versions of company software get pushed through the cloud to the employees' devices? Reimbursement How much will employees get reimbursed for their data usage? Will employees get a stipend to buy a mobile device? Device & OS Management What kind of "Bring Your Own Device" (BYOD) policy should be adopted? What OSs and platforms will the company support? Security What kind of information can be accessed on a mobile device? How can it be secured? Can existing policies be leveraged? Privacy Is employees' data private? How will the company treat their data? Legal Concerns Does mobile use count as overtime for non- exempt workers? What about the personal use of company devices? What is an enterprise to do? It's not like mobile is going to go away, and it's not like we want it to: the ubiquity of mobile devices creates many opportunities to increase employee productivity and to engage clients in a positive, familiar fashion. The ability to provide company- interactions through a medium many customers are comfortable with and use every day can provide great benefit to everyone involved.

3 3 To balance the business needs for mobile devices and applications, as well as the organizational and technical resources required to maintain and service those devices and applications, you need some way to bring everything together that is effective for both business and IT. You need a mobile center of excellence. The Solution: a Mobile Center of Excellence The concept of a center of excellence has been used within large corporations for over twenty years. Historically, IT centers of excellence have focused on Service Oriented Architecture, Quality Assurance, and Business Intelligence. Now, with the exciting opportunities and challenges brought on with the advent and adoption of mobile across the workplace, a new need for a center of excellence arises, for a mobile center of excellence. So what is a mobile center of excellence (MobileCOE)? Essentially: A mobile center of excellence is a premiere organization providing an ever- evolving set of principles and practices geared towards the effective and efficient use of mobile technologies across the entire enterprise. A MobileCOE is a resource, a vision, and a (benevolent) source of standards and policies for mobile within the company. As technology and requirements change, the mobile center of excellence too will change and adapt to identify the best practices and keep them in use. Why You Need One: Obvious Benefits and Stuff You Get for Free A mobile center of excellence can serve a variety of roles depending on the needs of your organization. At the very least it provides centralized leadership in the deployment and management of mobile projects, policies, and infrastructure. The mobile center of excellence helps companies avoid the situation described above, where multiple departments take on independent mobile initiatives and silo the knowledge of what works, what doesn't, and the information they collect. A mobile center of excellence will provide mobility subject matter experts and serve as a trusted source of advice across the organization. It should leverage existing processes and people from across the enterprise, marrying IT and traditional LOBs to create a MobileCOE that can best serve the overall business needs of the company. It will also provide a centralized way to review and evaluate mobile practices across the enterprise, making the aggregation and analysis of mobile data that much easier and effective. The mobile center of excellence can create standards for not only internal use, but standards and requirements for the selection of mobile vendors' technologies, providing standardized capability and mobile security for the entire enterprise. The mobile center of excellence will be able to provide guidance in bringing in new partners and consultants in the mobile sphere, so when the CFO decides she wants to fund a mobile expense approval initiative, she has help in figuring out who the best people are to turn to. In addition to the benefits enumerated above, the adoption of a mobile center of excellence for your organization creates exciting opportunities for mobile ideation, to think outside the box, and provide solutions to problems that may not have even been previously identified.

4 4 Frequent users of mobile devices can help identify problems with the current state of mobility, and often have ideas about apps or processes to make their work lives more productive. The establishment of a MobileCOE provides these invested users a centralized place to give feedback. By engaging these users, the MobileCOE not only gains new perspective, but also dependable feedback during the rollout of MobileCOE projects and initiatives. Getting Started: Primary Considerations You've identified the great benefits of the adoption of a mobile center of excellence for your enterprise, but how to get started? What are the essential things you need to know to begin? Remember that the creation of a mobile center of excellence is a bootstrapping, iterative process. Rome wasn't built in a day, and your mobile center of excellence won't be either. Because of this, it is important to have buy- in from stakeholders not only from IT, but from all lines of business. Mobile can have an enormous impact across the entire enterprise, and a senior buy- in and sponsorship helps signal the importance, legitimacy, and urgency of the effort. The success of your mobile center of excellence will hinge on selecting the right leader. This leader should be a strategic visionary who understands the possibilities for mobility in the enterprise, and one who already has gained credibility with both LOBs and IT. The leader should be an entrepreneur, someone who loves diving into new technologies and ideas, and has experience in managing IT projects. Beyond this, there are five main things to consider when creating a mobile center of excellence: 1. Reach and Scope It is important to define the reach of the project, both in the short and long term. The reach and scope of the MobileCOE will drive all your projects moving forward. What is the core function of the

5 5 MobileCOE? Who does the MobileCOE cover? Internal users? External Users? Both? How will the MobileCOE play nicely with IT? The reach of the mobile center of excellence will be defined by the needs of the company. At the very least, the mobile center of excellence should provide a centralized authority to ensure that mobile initiative align with business goals. There are a few different models of how this could be achieved: A. The Depository model the MobileCOE functions like a storage repository of best practices for mobile, white papers and information on standards, tools, and component library. In this model, the mobile center of excellence is collaborative community for mobile initiatives, providing infrastructure and discovering and pointing to the best practices and resources for mobile. B. Strategy and Consulting model the MobileCOE functions as a competency center for technical and strategic mobile expertise. In this model, the mobile center of excellence advises projects, provides some oversight of mobile efforts across the enterprise. C. General Management model the MobileCOE concentrates its efforts on mobile governance and the management of mobile projects. In this model, the mobile center of excellence provides answers to many of the policy questions concerning mobile, as well as hands- on guidance of mobile efforts. D. "Full- service" model the MobileCOE is an internal consultancy advising as well as governing mobile projects within the enterprise. In this model, the mobile center of excellence has the authority as well as the technical know- how to evaluate and monitor mobile projects, providing the benefits of all three of the models above (A + B + C = D). As the creation of a MobileCOE is iterative and bootstrapping, it may very well be the case that your enterprise will start with one model and then build up to the Full- service model. The important thing is to get started. 2. Current Mobile Maturity It is important to evaluate the readiness of your organization and IT environment to implement and deploy mobile projects. Many MobileCOEs fail due to unrealistic goals and expectations set forth before understanding the resources, processes, and culture as it relates to mobility within the company at the start. Doing a maturity assessment helps enterprises identify the gaps that need to be filled, what processes and policies are already in place relating to mobility, and helps determine how efficient and effective the existing processes and policies are. In analyzing the corporate data assets that impact mobility, a maturity assessment helps characterize organizational risk. Being able to document and explain the current risk profile regarding mobile helps stakeholders understand how the MobileCOE will affect the enterprise, providing a further resource when garnering buy- in from the various LOBs. 3. The State-to-Be It is important to define the state- to- be of the MobileCOE: what should it look like when it's fully functioning? These goals will be based on your understanding of the scope, reach, and current maturity of the MobileCOE supporting groups and processes. Which elements will feature in your MobileCOE will vary depending on the business motivators driving the mobile effort.

6 6 Goals for the MobileCOE should be defined along a number of lines, including: Vision: What should the MobileCOE be in the future? What role will it play in your enterprise? Mission: How will the vision be accomplished? Objectives: What must be done to move forward? Critical Success Factors (CSFs): What area(s) should receive attention to achieve the vision? Key Performance Indicators (KPIs): What metrics will be used to indicate and track success? Optimal MobileCOE Structure: What people and resources are needed to support the mission? Short- and long- term goals should be identified aligning with the short- and long- term planned scope of the MobileCOE. As most MobileCOEs are bootstrapped in the initial stages and staffed up over time, decisions regarding the allocation of full- and part- time resources become very important in defining the goals of the MobileCOE. A Note on Defining the Optimal MobileCOE Structure Although what specific roles will be required for a MobileCOE will be different for every company, the key roles will include: the MobileCOE Lead, Technical Architect, Mobile Architect, Mobile UX Specialist, and Mobile Strategist. Role responsibility definitions for members of the MobileCOE team should be determined by the vision and intended deliverables of the MobileCOE. These roles also can include the partners and vendors within your ecosystem that support the MobileCOE. 4. The Mobile Roadmap After laying out the state- to- be of the MobileCOE, you need to determine the steps needed to get there. Building a MobileCOE roadmap involves outlining the people, processes, and technology tactics needed to build a successful MobileCOE. Technology tactics are organized into a Tactical MobileCOE Roadmap Matrix, a tool used to identify, prioritize, and phase the creation of the MobileCOE. In Agile speak, the Roadmap Matrix can be thought of as a Kanban board for the creation of a MobileCOE. The Roadmap Matrix lays out actionable steps prioritized by value, readiness, and cost. The Roadmap Matrix is organized into iterative phases that align with the short- and long- term goals already identified. The Roadmap Matrix also facilitates communication with stakeholders and LOB leaders, giving them greater insight into the needs of the MobileCOE as well as the positive impact it will have on the enterprise. This understanding will prove extremely useful when determining resource allocation.

7 7 5. Get Started A.S.A.P. MobileCOE Rule #1: It's not about getting it right on day one, but about getting things started. This last step sounds simple, but it turns out that this is where many companies get stuck. In a world where technology is changing at an increasingly fast pace, it may seem difficult to know when to begin. You will need to accept that the strategy you are designing now might become at least partly obsolete in 24 months. For some, this is an exciting thing: innovation and change bring new opportunities and new ways to interact with customers and LOBs. But even if you don't find this an exciting prospect, it shouldn't stop you from developing a long- term strategic vision for mobile in your enterprise. Coupled with short- and mid- term tactical approaches, a well- thought out vision for a MobileCOE will allow for any changes in technology. The MobileCOE will re- focus their project iterations into opportunities for learning and growth. Evaluation and Metrics: How You Know it's Working It is important throughout the process to be aware of the progress the MobileCOE is making. Goals and metrics should be set out upfront, and there should be an iterative process to periodically reevaluate and refresh those goals and metrics. Which goals and metrics will be evaluated will change for each organization, but there are some general questions that can guide your evaluations: Is the MobileCOE effective at setting standards and policies for mobile? Are the solutions the Mobile COE suggest scalable?

8 8 Is the MobileCOE maintaining rules and policies without being tyrannical? Is the MobileCOE staying relevant with new technologies? Are the executive sponsors and stakeholders still engaged? Most unsuccessful MobileCOEs fail due to unrealistic expectations. If stakeholders and resource managers have no insight into what the MobileCOE is working towards, when uncommunicated expectations come out unmet, funding and support get withdrawn. Regularly evaluating and revising the practices of your MobileCOE will help ensure the success of the project. Final Thoughts Enterprises can no longer afford to ignore their mobile strategy. Creating a MobileCOE will provide resources, vision, standards, and policies for mobile within the company, but the hardest part is getting started. But by creating a MobileCOE, your enterprise will be able to effectively take advantage of the huge benefits presented by mobile technologies.