The prevalence and ease of use of mobile devices in our personal lives has left some companies believing that mobility is easy. However, the complexity of developing and maintaining an enterprise mobility strategy and solution set will quickly shatter this belief. In this article, you'll learn how SAP, using their co-innovation approach, works closely with customers to help them navigate the waters of enterprise mobility and come up with a mobile solution that's the perfect fit for their company.
The consumerization of IT has led some companies to believe that the process of going mobile is easy. After all, when you can download a consumer app on your iPhone in 30 seconds, get GPS directions to a hotel on your Android, or watch a toddler using a tablet device, there is a tendency to think “Mobility is simple. We can do that.”
Don’t be fooled. On the front end, mobility might appear simple, but behind the scenes, developing and maintaining a comprehensive enterprise mobility strategy and solution set is anything but simple. It requires mobile-specific resources and technical expertise that most IT organizations do not currently have in house. In addition, unlike the apps on personal mobile devices, enterprise mobility apps are not standalone, single-function widgets. Rather, enterprise apps function as streamlined interfaces to connect mobile users to complex back-end systems already in place. Choosing or designing the right set of mobile solutions with the correct fields, based on the right architecture to seamlessly integrate with the back-end systems, is not a minor undertaking.
Of course, the payoff to a successful enterprise mobility strategy and solution set is well worth the effort. The right mobile solutions can strip away layers of complexity between the front end and the back end and bring functionality to an entirely new universe of IT users, dramatically increasing the value of your overall IT investment. When it’s done right, mobility can open new doors.
Business Value Comes First
For most companies, there is no shortage of ideas about how mobility can be applied to their business. End users across a variety of organizations are pitching IT on a “killer app” to mobilize a unique business process and help their organization be more productive. But just because a process can be mobilized doesn’t mean it should be. That decision must be made based on the business value gained by mobilizing the process and deploying an app.