My Article - Designing an Intelligent Mobile Strategy

My recent article.

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http://mobileenterprise.edgl.com/how-to/Designing-an-Intelligent-Mobile-Strategy66576

Posted Date: 2/4/2011
Designing an Intelligent Mobile Strategy
Author :By Vadiraj Aralappanavar -->By Vadiraj Aralappanavar
Not long ago, the terms “mobile” and “smartphone” were exclusively associated with the consumer world. All of the growth we have seen so far has been due to the consumer market, which consists of individuals ranging from homemakers to businessmen.
But as Bob Dylan sang, “The times they are a-changin.’” A decade ago, most enterprises were only beginning to explore phase one of enterprise mobility: voice, generally deployed on a basic feature phone. Phase two of enterprise mobility was more associated with the delivery of e-mail on a mobile device. This has changed significantly in the last few years with different mobile applications being explored for different scenarios. Companies in the transportation/logistics were the early adopters of handheld devices for specific business functions. These were primarily rugged handheld devices with expensive proprietary hardware and software.

The third phase of enterprise mobility resulted in these handheld devices being utilized in other industries such as consumer and packaged goods and manufacturing. During this phase, businesses started to recognize the value of enterprise mobility. As mobility benefits such as cost reduction, increased productivity, and customer retention started to emerge, CIOs got on the bandwagon.

Where We Are Today
We are now in the fourth phase of enterprise mobility, where smartphones are being widely used instead of their predecessors, such as PDAs that required proprietary software. The consumer and enterprise worlds are converging. The strategic decisions of some of the leading companies such as RIM and Apple highlight the trend. While RIM—traditionally a very strong player in the enterprise space—has reworked its strategy to provide consumer-oriented devices, Apple is a very strong consumer company that has been trying to gain a footing in the enterprise market with its recent software releases.

A few years ago, when mobile phones—and later, smartphones—were first introduced, enterprises expressed concern that employees would resent this change. Today, however, such concerns are largely irrelevant; staying connected has become essential, and employees and organizations have realized the value of this disruption.

Before just delving into enterprise mobility, however, companies need a sound strategy that outlines the benefits and value of a mobile initiative to the company as well as to the employee. Strategies should also align with the overall business objectives in terms of ROI and take into account economic and financial implications.

Who Needs Mobile Tools?
Enterprises also need to consider the potential users for any enterprise mobility applications. Workforce segmentation helps business leaders understand which employees requires enterprise mobility and which features and applications are required for each group. Though it may vary from organization to organization, workforce segmentation can be broadly categorized into two categories:
Customer-facing employees
Professionals spending 30% or more of their time out of the office
Professionals spending less than 30% of their time out of the office
Internal staff
Mobile internal staff who spend 10% or more of their time out of the office
Local support staff who spend less than 10% of their time out of the office.
Enterprises should also have a technological understanding of the various smartphone platforms available on the market today, as there is significant fragmentation in space.

A company mobilizing its business processes and workflows must also consider the nature of its transactions and the type of applications needed for specific worker segments. These applications also need to be customized for specific business functions.

When developing a mobile strategy, enterprises should be sure to consider another critical element—governance. It’s extremely important that businesses develop the right usage policies for the company and employees and consider the complex issues involved with security.

Executing Your Strategy
There are a number of different ways to execute a mobile strategy. Depending on the enterprise’s needs, the CIO office typically has to prioritize elements ranging from cost, control, time to market, maintenance/support, performance, and functionality.

These approaches essentially fall under build-vs-buy buckets:

Buy mobile extensions from bigger players like SAP, Oracle: A large enterprise that has a sufficient budget and large-scale deployment would consider this option. The nature of the application and associated maintenance is complex. Also, the business requirements in this scenario likely will scale up in the future. Usually in such companies, there are existing investments in enterprise software such as Oracle, SAP, and others.
Custom/homegrown mobile solutions. This approach is suitable for medium-scale businesses that have a decent IT team and specific business requirements that need to be mobilized. Scale of deployment is not huge.
Custom solutions from a third-party provider. This is a similar scenario to the one above, but involves a small- to medium-size business that does not intend to increase its IT team, and the company would prefer to work with a third party provider. These companies also have worked with an outsourcing vendor in the past and realize the benefits.
Purchase specific product-based solutions. Such companies will be similar to the first bucket but they are usually not very large enterprises. These companies also would have a specific set of business requirements that need mobile enablement, and time to deployment is key. Though they might have sufficient IT staff, these groups prefer to invest in product-based offerings from smaller enterprise mobility platform vendors.
Hosted solutions. Companies would have lesser concerns of security and are usually small- to medium-scale businesses with a limited IT team and IT budget. They also have specific business requirements that are identified for mobilization.
Currently the decision to deploy mobile enterprise solutions is a double-edged sword. There are multiple mobility options, technology approaches, and potential benefits. However, the deployment process can be challenging given the fragmentation that exists in the mobile.

What’s Ahead
In the coming year, the enterprise mobility landscape will become more intriguing as there are increased operating system choices for enterprises in 2011, including BlackBerry, iPhone, Android, and Windows 7, not to mention the different tablet OSes. The addition of the iPhone to Verizon’s network in the U.S. will also add an interesting dimension to the decision-making process for the enterprise. Ultimately, the criteria for enterprise mobility will revolve around standardization, utility, security, ease of deployment, maintenance, and cost.
In addition, tablets will become increasingly popular in the coming year. The iPad form factor will continue to lead disruption in various segments of the enterprise. Tablet devices also will begin to displace desktops and laptops from the IT landscape.
Remote access, virtualization, and VPN solutions for mobility will also be hot topics in 2011 with regard to security and threats. Also, there will be slow but sure movement toward cloud-based mobility services. Internally managed and controlled cloud-based services will become popular.
Mobility will be essential to an enterprise’s competitiveness. The deployment timing may vary, but mobile solutions eventually will become and remain an integral element of enterprise IT strategies.

Vadiraj Aralappanavar is the head of the Mobile Applications Practice at MindTree Limited.
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Pt Bhimsen Joshi, INDIA

Pandit Bhimsen Joshi, India

The post card that this god gifted genius used to receive would only have the address mentioned in the title “ Pandit Bhimsen Joshi, India”. Such was his popularity across the breadth of India that even a rickshaw driver would know him and relate to his music. He was a musician whose voice and music skills transcended and admired by aam aadmi as well as the learned musicians of the era. It is sad Pandit is no longer physically with us, but his music will reverberate and echo in our ears and minds forever.

One is indeed lucky to have lived in the same era as of this maverick Hindustani vocalist. Infact, Panditji was not just a “Hindustani classical musician” but could be actually termed as “Hindustani musician” because his melody was liked by not just people who understood and liked classical music but also common people. “Mile Sur Mera Tumhara” in raag Desh was a testament to that fact. Even after almost 2 decades, the music just brings forth the indianism in each of us. I remember , while still in school, I would remain glued just to hear this particular song amidst all busy chores that I would be involved in and even amidst possibly a slot during the cricket match.

Such was the passion to learn music in the young Bhimsen Joshi that he left his home and parents at the tender age of 11 in search of his guru. He endured a lot of struggle in the quest for his guru and he travelled across north and east of India ( Gwalior, Kolkata ). It is ironical that his eventual Guru – Pt Sawai Gandharv was in Kundgol, which is just around hundred kilometers from his home in Gadag. In our present generation, we may not be able to even comprehend the difficulty during pre-independence and post-independence times – lack of financial resources, lack of connectivity/information. Anybody who has been successful in those times is purely because of their persistence, passion and skill. It is sad but we have indeed lost a few of them in the past few months – Gangubai Hangal, Gawai and now Pt Bhimsen Joshi. Infact, Gangubai Hangal and Pt Bhimsen Joshi learnt music together under Pt Sawai Gandharv at Kundgol and had tremendous respect for each other. Apparently, when he was a kid, he heard Ustaad Abdul Karim Khan singing on radio and that moment , Young Bhimsen had decided and had made up his mind to sing like him. It was probably the defining moment in his life.
Pt Bhimsen Joshi was also known for the actions, gestures and movements during the performances. Once someone asked him about the same and he responded saying that while he was performing, his actions were the means to connect to God. He used to get completely immersed in music and would very often continue on the ‘raag’ for 3 hours with different unique ‘taan’s’, which is extremely difficult by any standards for an accomplished vocalists. Panditji is also known for the fantastic breath control and was probably god-given gift. Most of the musicians of the era vouch for that.

Panditji also is credited with the creation of the annual Sawai Gandharv music festival. It is one of the best events in the cultural circuits in India, wherein many renowned musicians play and enthrall the audiences every year. Apparently, Panditji also attended the same the last event a few months back in a wheel chair and almost everyone present were on their foot and some of them were into tears.

Panditji was also known for this interest in automobiles and cars. He had acquired a second hand Mercedes during his career and was very often seen driving himself in his hay days. He had travelled across the world to countries such as USA, Italy, Canada, Holland where he enthralled the audiences. However, he had struggled in the initial part of his life but remained persistent on the quest of musical knowledge. It is said that renowned singer Begum Akhtar had recommended a job for him at AIR ( All India Radio ) , Lucknow on monthly salary of 35/- which actually was the beginning of his masterly musical innings that will be forever etched in history. He had a great voice and great breath control and tremendous hardwork and riyaaz only made his music magical.

It is also a matter of pride for me that I belong to the same region of North Karnataka / Hubli-Dharwad where Hindustani music possibly was ingrained in the culture in the olden days. I have had only one opportunity to actually hear Pt Bhimsen Joshi sing in 2004 along with L Balamuralikrishna, renowned carnatic vocalist in Bangalore. It is of even more pride to state that we lived in the same era.