Mobile solutions and their implementation bring to my mind a sense of deja vu. Remember when ERP or e-business was getting popular, how many software development companies sprang up to address that market? And then a lot of them fell by the wayside as they were unable to meet the demands of IT-savvy users. The same will happen for mobile solutions. Just as in conventional solutions, it is easy to build mobile solutions that look good and even perform well in a small scale. But then when changing requirements of an enterprise need to be met and more users get on board then the “easy-to-build” mobile solutions start getting flakey. By then it is too late for a company’s CIO to take corrective action and a lot of time and money would have been spent in an unsuccessful project. CIOs should dig a lot deeper into the underlying technology of a mobile solution before taking the shortest and easiest path.
Another unusual difficulty faced by companies is that unlike conventional business solutions that are restricted to a place of business, mobile solutions can be perceived by end-users as possibly invading their privacy. Once, at the end of a user training session, a young sales person came up to me and asked me whether his movement in the field would be tracked by the mobile solution. He was genuinely concerned and it is such concerns that often result in resistance at the user level and consequently in unsuccessful implementations. Companies must train their field workers adequately to allay such fears before they introduce mobile solutions.
Ultimately, success for an enterprise mobility implementation is measured only by the value it brings to the company and on whether that value generation can be sustained. But if the company’s top management does not appreciate this value then the mobile solution will become yet another failed IT project. Top management support and sponsorship is absolutely essential for success.
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