Enterprise mobility has transformed the way businesses function. Enterprise mobility goes beyond the integration of mobile technology but also refers to a culture change in which the organization as a whole readily embraces and supports innovation. However, mobility can only be successful if you have a strong mobility strategy in place.
With the right enterprise mobility strategy, you can improve the adoption rates by users and by the entire organization, maximize your organization's productivity, boost brand recognition and perception, and maximize returns on investments.
In this article, we'll discuss some simple steps with which you can enact an effective mobility strategy.
1. Defining your Business Goals
One of the biggest mistakes you can make is jumping straight into your mobility plan without actually considering what you're trying to achieve.
You need to start by defining what you're trying to achieve. You need to consider how your employees and consumers engage with your business and its products. And if they do engage with your business through mobile platforms, will advancing your mobility plan translate into a new or improved business? You also need to consider if your current applications and technologies are up to date and whether you need to manage them better.
2. Selecting the Type of Mobile Experience
When you decide to go ahead with mobility, you have two options — a mobile website and mobile application (app).
A mobile website refers to the development of a traditional website that's specifically designed for small screens. Mobile app refers to the development of an application meant for specific devices that the user will have to download into their phones to access.
There are benefits to both the mobile website and the mobile app approaches. A mobile site is easy to build and change, and anyone can access it, visitors don't have to download an app, and will attract new visitors. Mobile apps are incredibly user-friendly, offer an opportunity for user engagement, and easily support data processing and storage.
You need to figure out which of these experiences works better for your target demographic and focus on that.
3. Providing Speedy Application Updates
Mobility calls for an extremely speedy and continuous cycle of developments and updates. Once you develop an application, you need to maintain a team that can continuously update it, revise it, and ensures that it can continue growing. To provide this, your company needs to embrace extremely speedy development and deployment methods through the adoption of Agile methods in software development.
4. Using Secure APIs
Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) are a window which end users can gain access to the application's back-end information. This allows them to use that information to create an entirely new mobile app without actually affecting the original. When this is handled correctly, enterprises can access new markets and customers. However, API management must be extremely secure.
5. Managing and Analyzing Information
Once the mobile application is deployed, you also need to monitor it to analyze the data being accessed. You need to analyze what information the users are accessing and what they do with the information. You also need to ensure your users have access to the data and application when the network is weak. Furthermore, you need to make sure that the data is completely secured and users can get access to the information they need while preventing any of it from falling into the hands of external entities.
6. Enforcing End-to-End Security
You need to implement security policies and secure back-end transactions happening between the clients and the servers. This is especially true if you use APIs because potential hackers can exploit your weaknesses, which can open your organization to various threats, for example, SQL injections.
7. Managing Mobility
Finally, you need to clearly determine who will manage the mobility and who gets to make decisions regarding mobility. Every department in your organization, be it manufacturing, marketing, or HR, will have their perspectives on mobility. You need to clearly understand who is empowered to make decisions at the very beginning.
Conclusion
The only way to truly succeed in your enterprise mobility goals is to strategize and create a mobility map at the very beginning. Your end goal should be to integrate a mobility plan that everyone in the organization can buy into and one that can enhance your productivity and visitors experience. If you follow the steps mentioned in this article, you'll be well on your way to effective mobility.
