The “Upwardly Mobile” Enterprise - Setting the Strategic Agenda

Much as e-business represented a fundamental business shift in the early part of this century, mobile technology offers a unique opportunity for organizations today.

Far more than simply an emerging consumer channel, mobile capabilities are disrupting traditional business models, providing businesses with new sources of data and insight, and driving top- and bottom-line results.

Our survey of over 600 companies and interviews with 30 mobile leaders suggests that less than half of organizations have comprehensive strategies in place to encompass the spectrum of mobile efforts and address the broad challenges of implementation. Further, only a handful of mobile strategy leaders have put into place the needed building blocks to take full advantage of these new mobile opportunities.

Significant opportunities exist for companies to improve their mobile strategy development efforts, leverage mobility to reinvent business and operating models, and deliver more effective mobile IT processes and solutions.

“This will get to the point where it is a fundamental way we do business. The value proposition will be that it is embedded in what we do. In 5 to 10 years, we will look back and wonder what all the fuss was about.”

This quote could be from a futurist describing the Internet in the year 2000. But, in fact, it is how a senior automotive executive we interviewed recently characterized the future of the mobile enterprise.

Organizations are currently in the midst of a new wave of mobile capabilities that can drastically reshape business models; drive increasing levels of employee productivity; and reinvent how customers learn about, interact with, and purchase goods and services.

Much as the Internet has created, and continues to offer, a seemingly unlimited set of possibilities for companies, mobility adds yet another set of emerging opportunities into the mix. It enables large segments of the global population to more rapidly access information and engage with others on a scale never seen before.