In the quest to implement a successful enterprise mobility program, it can be helpful to have guideposts to reference. While asking, “how will we know if our program is successful?” is a simple way to qualify success, having more specific guidelines in mind can keep your program on track.
Though at the end of the day, every organization’s mobility needs are going to be different, there are a number of factors that each and every organization should keep in mind as they weigh the success (or lack thereof) of their respective programs.
In a recent article for CIOReview, Dave Schuette, EVP and President of Enterprise Business at Synchronoss Technologies, outlines what his organization considers to be the ‘three pillars’ of enterprise mobility maturity. We liked these three pillars–productivity, security, and contextuality–so much that we thought we’d share them with you today.
- Productivity: “Measuring the degree and variety of benefits delivered,” says Schuette, “is a crucial part of assessing an organization’s maturity.” Certainly, ‘simple’ productivity enhancers like mobile email and calendar are important, but the most significant productivity gains come at the hands of tools with more advanced functionality like information sharing and proprietary business functions.
- Security: Of course, significant productivity gains mean little if your mobile deployments aren’t secure. For Schuette, “the ultimate aspiration is to have sufficiently robust device security in place” that employees can use their device to authenticate their identity to access external data sources. Regardless of your organization’s ultimate goals, securing data and permissions at the app level are an excellent way to manage company information, even on employee-owned devices.
- Contextuality: Schuette’s final pillar isn’t one you hear about often, but it’s a terrific one that organizations should focus on more rigorously. In his view, it isn’t enough to just rely on basic assessments about app usage and satisfaction (though those are indeed helpful). Rather, “it’s about gathering and analyzing contextual data,” like what apps workers use, when they use them, what features they use, what data and files they access, “to measure progress.” The more deeply organizations understand the context in which employees use apps, the more effectively they can develop apps to meet employees where they are.
Even if there’s no such thing as a silver bullet for enterprise mobility, each of these three elements plays off of the others to form the foundation of a successful enterprise mobility strategy. Keeping tabs on these pillars would be, in our view, an excellent way to gauge the success of your program.
As you examine and evaluate your own mobility program, how do you fare in the areas of productivity, security, and contextuality? If you need help weighing the success of your enterprise mobility strategy, or are looking for a product to help you better understand your employees’ behavior within your mobile applications, reach out to us today.
