Enterprise Mobile Apps Will Transform How We Do Business

No longer tied to the office desk, new mobile hardware, infrastructure and the increasing use of enterprise mobile applications offer organizations a new way to compete and win in today's global economy.

The technology remains breathtaking. A cascading series of new mobile hardware introductions continue to capture the imagination of everyone from consumers to Wall Street making it easy to lose sight of what it all ultimately means: unshackled enterprise.

Mobile devices — from smart phones to laptops — have broken down and disposed of the traditional office cubicle. Yet many companies continue to organize themselves around the traditional corporate campus, unable, or unwilling to make full use of the productivity revolution these devices represent. Like a fault line waiting to let go, this yesteryear mindset is colliding with an engaged millennial workforce and their “always on” lifestyle. The new worker doesn’t operate in a fixed location from nine to five, but wherever he or she happens to be and whenever there’s an opportunity to connect.

Entrepreneurs of every size should take note. For the first time in history the major drivers to enable a new mobile work style on a massive scale are in place. Coming to market are new right-sized, light-weight, feature-rich and platform-rich media tablets now focusing on enterprise. These devices are supported by telecom networks like 4G that offer ubiquitous broadband. Together the tablet and 4G are enabling the development and adoption of new and powerful mobile enterprise applications (MEAs) which have the potential to eventually turn the old 20th-century corporate business model into a millennial’s dream work environment and a CEO’s competitive global player.

Consumers worldwide downloaded close to 5 billion apps in 2010 compared with 2.5 billion in 2009. Revenues exceeded $6.8 billion in 2010 even though 80 percent of consumer apps are downloaded for free. That will pale in comparison to revenues for enterprise applications. Mobile based enterprise solutions earned carrier-generated revenues of over $2.3 billion in 2008 and it is estimated this figure will reach $10.3 billion in 2013.

What might these apps do? There are those that can be used to share ideas, collaborate on documents, conduct online meetings, and direct workflow. There are rich IT dashboards, medical apps that securely connect to a hospital’s electronic health records or help with patient interaction and education. There are apps for conducting paperless auditing. There are others that enable media-rich, interactive sales presentations or map efficient pick-up and delivery of goods. You’ll find apps that provide sales and field forces access to a helpdesk of experts.

The apps that exist today and in the near future have the potential for incremental transformation of the organization. As more businesses take up these liberating applications, as technologies like the cloud mature to better manage applications and content, and as devices become even more lightweight and robust, we envision the promise of a transformational mobile world in which any and all office activities can be performed from anywhere at any time. We are creating an environment in which mobile enterprise applications are the impetus for changing business practices in a manner that reduces overhead and transaction costs wherever that employee pauses to use his portable device.

Ready for Take Off

As we begin 2011, we see a new phenomenon at its inception. Launched by Apple’s education of consumers with entertainment and even some productivity apps used on the iPhone, iTouch, and iPad, apps have taken off and millions of savvy workers are now familiar with how to use them. They’ve migrated to Androids and Blackberries. And, soon, they’ll be on a variety of other tablets that include the Samsung Galaxy, Dell’s Streak, HP’s Slate, Blackberry’s Playbook, and Cisco’s Cius.

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Tags: enterprise 2.0, enterprise collaboration, mobile, mobile apps, mobile enterprise, smartphone, tablets

No longer tied to the office desk, new mobile hardware, infrastructure and the increasing use of enterprise mobile applications offer organizations a new way to compete and win in today's global economy.