Mobile Mixdown: Five Experts On Mobile Trends
Chances that you’ll be on your phone today – perhaps you’re on it right now. In today’s world, so much of life happens on your tablet or smartphone. From shopping, to writing, to connected with friends and family – everyone is on mobile all the time.
But what does this mean for business?
Organizations and IT leaders are racing to meet the demands of the billions of mobile users around the globe.
In a special episode of IT Visionaries, we pulled some of the most interesting thoughts from our IT Visionaries on how mobile is changing the face of IT – and changing the lives of CIOs and CTOs everywhere.
Jo-ann Olsovsky, Salesforce
Jo-ann explains that her team has shifted to mobile tech to keep up with emerging trends.
“Personally, I do everything from a tablet or on my phone,” she says. “I can do whatever I need to do from those devices.”
Taking that mindset and applying it to customer service is becoming a focus throughout the industry. But it’s not simply providing mobile apps and widgets. You need to learn about the entire customer experience and figure out a way to become more customer-friendly.
“All too often, IT organizations don’t take the time to just stop, get out of our own four walls, and get out to experience what our customers are experiencing,” Jo-ann says.
Dion Hinchcliffe, Constellation Research
The demand for mobile apps is unrelenting, and that has proven to be a challenge in the IT industry.
“There is no good way to manage mobile devices effectively and on a consistent level,” Dion says.
In order to come close to the effectiveness and consistency necessary to produce good mobile apps, companies need to shift their priorities and their resources. Not enough companies are doing that, leaving the door of opportunity open to those that are willing to take a different approach.
“If your building a giant IT organization and suddenly the world shifts and mobile become a bigger part of the IT experience, you should be allocating a requisite portion of resources over to the mobile side,” Dion says. “That never happens in most organizations.”
Vala Afshar, Salesforce
Vala explains that it falls on the CIO to stay up to date on everything that is happening in the mobile sector. He says that the most successful CIOs find ways to take advantage of different ideas and opportunities that might come about through untraditional means.
“Successful CIOs look at shadow IT as an opportunity to learn and understand the urgency and understand that businesses and customers aren’t going to wait for IT,” he says. “The demand for mobile app development is five times greater than what IT can produce today. Ninety percent of the time we spend on mobile devices are spent on an app, and only ten percent behind a mobile browser – so companies have to act like software companies.
“If you’re a company and you don’t have a mobile app … you’re going to lose market share.”
Tony Bradley, Techspective
While mobile technology has come a long way, Tony says that it’s important to remember that there are still a lot of things your phone can’t do.
“I’m still going to use my PC for a lot of things,” he says.
It’s true that there are companies that would not exist if it were not for mobile technology and apps, but there are still companies that do not need to focus on mobile in order to be successful.
“If your business is such that there wouldn’t be a reason for your customer to pull out their smartphone to try to do business with you, then you don’t need a mobile app,” Tony says.
Leyla Seka, Salesforce
On average, we spend about three and a half hours on our phones every day, and those numbers are likely to rise. So what is the future? Leyla predicts that voice technology will be huge moving forward, and she also explains that shadow IT can and should be used to move the ball forward, but only if done in a safe and secure way. The CIO will be responsible for managing all these avenues, and she has to be prepared for an influx of new technology, ideas, and threats.
“If people shift their thinking and start building for the phone, all of a sudden we’re going to have a greater influx of technology,” Leyla says. “The CIO needs to be able to manage what that looks like.”
To listen to the entire mixdown, click here.
