As mobility adoption across the enterprise continues at a rapid pace, IT organizations are trying to deal with many challenges that are unique to mobility. We are often asked to share recommendations on how companies can structure their business to support this environment. This is the next topic that we are exploring in the Mobile Sense series; specifically we’ll talk about Best Practices for Setting up a Mobility Center of Excellence. A whitepaper was written on this topic by SAP mobility expert Vishy Gopalakrishnan. A webinar on is being held on Thursday December 1st from 1-2pm eastern and registration is now available.
To get started on this topic, first we should explore some of the unique pressures that mobility is placing on enterprise IT departments. In future blogs, we’ll dive deeper into specific recommendations.
- There is an unprecedented rate of change across the ecosystem - The pace of change in innovation and technology in mobility is faster than other IT areas. This rapid pace of change results in the need for greater alignment between lines of business and IT on mobility initiatives, to prevent duplication of effort.
- Mobility has the potential to be applicable across the entire organization - Mobile devices are everywhere and being used by everyone from true road warriors to information works and well beyond. This pervasiveness creates opportunities to make employees more productive, to engage with customers in a more targeted and deep way, and to collaborate with partners in a streamlined fashion. IT needs to be ready to meet a diverse set of requirements while being agile to meet these needs in a timely manner.
- End user expectations of delivery lifecycles are significantly different - As consumers ourselves, we are used to the relatively smooth and easy process of downloading and using mobile apps from the various app stores. This experience has conditioned people to expect a relatively rapid application development (and enhancement) timeline, without compromising on the quality and user experience of the application.
- There are implications for security - Enterprise IT needs to put in place the appropriate infrastructure, processes, and organization to ensure it can get the desired visibility and control across the lifecycle of these mobile assets (devices, users, and applications). The blurring of lines between professional and personal devices leads to diversity and complexity, as well as data security considerations. IT needs a robust set of tools that automate as much as possible the operational complexities of a mobile infrastructure and still provide actionable insights to deal with issues and exceptions as needed.
Now that we understand the context of today’s mobile environment, we can next look at what a Mobility Center of Excellence actually is. In essence, it is an attempt to coalesce around a set of principles—organizational and architectural—for an effective and efficient use of mobility across the entire enterprise. I’ll dive deeper into Vishy’s opinions on this topic in the next blog. For now, don’t forget to register for the webinar. You’ll also receive a copy of the whitepaper when you register.
