Ever heard the saying that “perfect is the enemy of good”? It applies to many situations in the business world where quick decisions sometimes trump long deliberations. Still, not too many people would be surprised to hear that technology adoption moves more slowly in the enterprise than it does elsewhere.
Which is exactly why it was so refreshing to hear a comment in a recent interview about how companies should be approaching the enterprise mobility process.
In a conversation with Enterprise Mobility Exchange’s Jason Koestenblatt, Tom Hogan, the CEO of Kony, a mobile app development firm, spoke at length about a number of issues relevant to ‘mobile’ companies today. When asked how CIOs today should wrap their heads around mobility, Hogan had an insightful answer:
The first thing CIOs and IT directors need to realize as they embark on their first app project is it’s about “progress not perfection.” In the digital world, it’s better to get the first app and then keep updating and enhancing in an agile fashion based upon user feedback and market opportunities. Your first app most certainly will not be your last. And as you start to deliver, expect demands from the business to balloon, with multiple divisions requesting new features or entirely new apps.
As a result, even if your ambitions are modest at first, it’s important to choose tools and processes that will enable you to scale and grow your success into the future. It is essential to have the right technology and approach to keep pace with the speed of digital innovation, beyond the limited scope of the projects you may envision in the beginning.
Put another way: don’t let perfect be the enemy of good in your business. While we don’t think you should take the approach of throwing things at the wall and seeing what sticks, we do think there’s value in finding a viable software solution that can scale with you, and getting started with mobility sooner than later.
Even today, there are still many companies without any mobile apps–we run into them every day. Whether they’re concerned about security, worried about cost, or just paralyzed by the sheer number of options at play, many companies choose inaction over action when it comes to enterprise mobility. The beauty of technology like App47 is that it enables you to take an iterative approach to app building by collecting feedback and offering a streamlined development process. Even if your first app–or first bite of the mobility pie–isn’t perfect, there are plenty of opportunities to hone and perfect down the road.
To echo Tom Hogan, then, the enterprise mobility lifecycle is about progress, not perfection. Perfection is something you can work towards, but your enterprise mobility program will never be perfect if you don’t take the first step.
