The origins of modern enterprise mobility can be traced back to the introduction of connected devices in the early part of the last decade. Enterprises were fortunate to have a provider such as BlackBerry that could extend corporate e-mail to secure devices as employees left the "four walls" of the business.
New mobile issues
However, as smart devices continued to evolve and demands on the functionality of those devices has increased, CIOs have had to turn their attention towards issues such as security, fragmentation and cost-versus-savings ratios. As these issues have been brought under the CIO's remit, the idea of extending mobility to core business systems, such as enterprise resource planning (ERP), customer relationship management (CRM) or human capital management (HCM), has also grown.
In short, as businesses have gained a better understanding of the mobile phenomenon, they have begun to tackle the next level of mobile granularity - business applications, says Phil Lewis, Solution Consulting Director, EMEA Channel at Infor.
At this point, two deployment options present themselves to most mobile-enabled enterprises:
1. Licensing packaged applications that are delivered by software vendors, with stable integration to a given mobile platform, but little ability to customise.
2. Building customisable applications, often requiring substantial integration in order to align to the specific business needs or processes.
Those that opt for the first strategy do so because they often face issues related to resourcing a full-mobility project. Further, this group may not have a complete understanding of the current mobility needs within the business, so an easy-to-deploy, integrated solution is a quick win.
Those who have invested in the second option are likely to have a more mature understanding of the business user's requirements. Yet, they can become stuck with supporting custom integrations and a potentially complicated security scenario. This makes for a disruptive environment and added stability risk.
Mobile business value
As mobility continues to sprawl into the enterprise, it is clear that both options have merit, but come with challenges. The optimal result lies somewhere in the middle. Mobility should not disrupt the IT ecosystem within a business, but it should expose the existing value and add a unique mobile aspect that drives new and modern efficiencies.
To preserve existing investments, companies should look for mobile solutions that build on and standardise interfaces to allow for easier development. This will allow them to leverage back-end services regardless of size or budget. This empowers a community of developers to carry forward and bring mobility to life.
Once the business has a better understanding of enterprise mobility, IT will want the ability to easily deploy apps that have an out-of-the-box type of integration functionality and support myriad industry "best" security protocols. Companies should look for solution partners that are able to deliver high-quality apps and use them as a reference point for assessing their mobile enablement tools and platforms.
The modern CIO is presiding over an exciting time of transformation in which they are able to deliver new services to their organisation. Mobile apps can leverage specific ERP, CRM and HCM features that are used extensively on desktops today, and extend them in a way that brings value to the enterprise and make sense for the end-user.
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