Top analyst warns over enterprise mobility

Understand your true business needs, Ovum urges businesses

A leading analyst has warned enterprise IT managers to examine carefully the motives behind their mobile enterprise projects.

Jessica Figueras, senior analyst for wireless technologies at Ovum, told delegates at this week’s Mobile Enterprise Summit in London that, “Projects that are invented by the IT department will fail if you don’t get it right.

“Have a vision, by all means, but make it practical. Know your organisation and how your employees work,” she said.

“The technology is really, really complicated [in that there are] so many components — networks, devices and infrastructure … The most reliable guide to the choice is the end user. Think about their information needs.”

The key to a successful mobile project is to tread carefully with users who may be unfamiliar with mobile devices, and to establish exactly the reason why the rollout is to take place, Figueras said.

“The business goal is not to be a mobilised enterprise,” she added. “Try to map mobile technology onto the business processes that are really needed.”

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