1. Understanding the business needs
Understanding what business needs you and why you want to implement a enterprise mobile strategy have is quite essential in succeeding with the mobile strategy. Is the motivation to save money, enhance security or employee satisfaction?
To succeed with a mobile strategy a company should think about what kind of industry demands they have to follow. E.g., an oil and gas company have document the safety on their work sites.
They also have processes for: Drilling, Production, Completions, Well Testing, Well Intervention and Characterization.
2. User needs
One of the biggest mistakes when making an enterprise mobile strategy, or any software strategy for that matter is to not take into account the user needs. If your workers have been using old solutions like pen and paper on a clipboard in their whole career the transition to a complicated technology solution might be huge. The technology should therefore be easy to use and easy to adjust t for the field workers at the same time as it covers all the aspects your company needs covered.
3. BYOD
There are both benefits and risks attached to implementing a “bring your own device strategy” (BYOD), but most benefits. Surveys show that customers are more satisfied at work when they can bring their own device. When employees can bring their own device the day-to-day work also become more flexible, as the work can be done from anywhere. Most people are also comfortable using technology they use in their day-to-day life. The implementation of a mobile strategy therefore potentially run much smother if employees can bring their own device.
With a BYOD policy, the hardware cost is moved from the enterprise to the employees. For the company this is a huge advantage, as the switching cost to a new software is reduced to a minimum, given that the new software enables a BYOD policy. Surveys also show that most employees in fact does own a smart device and that private equipment often is more state of the art than company owned equipment.
SEE Forge takes less than 3 minutes to fully setup and roll out across an organization with no training required. How long does SAP take? Months?
4. Choosing the right mobile app software
There is literally a jungle of software providers. Choosing the right one can therefore be a challenge. When choosing a software there are some general necessities that need to be present, e.g. the software needs to be able to deliver on the necessary tasks that your business demands.
Another important aspect when choosing software is to make sure the new software is compatible and able to integrate with the existing software.
Finally yet importantly, in the jungle of software providers there might be some that have a closer relationship and knowledge to the industry you are working in. Knowing the industry means that the software provider understands your needs and that the software probably is specialized to fit your demands.
5. Implementation of the enterprise mobile enterprise strategy
The last thing you need to think about is how you are going to implement the mobile strategy.
How much is the mobile strategy going to cost you? The answer to this question might be more complicated than it seems. Obviously, the software that you are buying have a price. However, when calculating the price of the software you also have to take into account the switching cost for the new software. If you have to buy a lot of expensive equipment in order to use the software, the price might become much higher than you expected. Another thing you have to take into account is the training cost of training your employees on using the software. Not considering these factors might cause your mobile strategy to become surprisingly expensive. This is exactly why companies are choosing easy to use software with very little training required. Mobile app software should not be time consuming to implement.
SEE Forge takes less than 3 minutes to fully setup and roll out across an organization with no training required. How long does SAP take? Months?
Finally yet importantly, how is the software going to be used? This might seem like yet an obvious question, but streamlining how the software is going to be used is actually a crucial factor in implementing a mobile strategy. It is important to be open about the changes and invite your employees to give input on how to implement the software, in order to make you employees take ownership of the new software and thus making the implementation run as smoothly as possible.
Mobile enterprise software must be easy, flexible and cost efficient.