Participants at the IDC Enterprise Mobility Forum 2014 in Johannesburg today learnt that organizations that fail to set clear mobility strategies are in grave danger of losing out to the competition, and a complete failure to embrace this new reality will have potentially catastrophic consequences.
The event, which brought together more than 80 enterprise IT managers from leading private and public sector organizations face to face with the innovative global vendors tasked with meeting their mobility needs, was held at the city’s Michelangelo Hotel by global advisory services firm International Data Corporation (IDC), the event brought
The event heard that while the so-called 3rd Platform technologies of mobility, big data, cloud, and social are each gaining prominence in South Africa, mobility stands out as the most disruptive, with its impact being felt across all business functions and at all levels of the economy.
Featuring an eclectic mix of insightful presentations, real-life case studies, and informative panel discussions, the attendees were told in no uncertain terms that they must innovate around this transformation and make full use of the mobility concept in order to improve the client experience and thrive in this new, ultra-competitive landscape.
“The convergence of IT and telecommunications that is enabled by mobility is empowering businesses to virtualize their processes, and thereby increase productivity, stimulate employee performance, streamline business functions, and improve customer service,” said George Kalebaila, senior research manager for telecommunications and digital media at IDC Africa “It is clear that an era of pervasive mobility is imminent, and those enterprises that have adopted a ‘mobile-first’ mindset are already pulling ahead of the pack.
“They have encountered and solved various security and accessibility issues, they have mapped their processes and modified them as mobility has changed the nature of their work, and they have redone their backends to account for multiple access points. They have also connected mobility to emerging elements of the IT mix — cloud computing, data analytics, and social business. And while they are all game changers individually, together they can transform a business, making it more efficient, dynamic, and productive.”
A series of speakers at the IDC Enterprise Mobility Forum 2014 stressed the fact that enterprise IT managers have a tight line to walk with their mobility strategies, not only protecting company data, but increasingly also supporting a wide range of devices that users bring into the organization.
They also explained that organizations should not fall into the trap of believing that an effective mobility strategy is one that simply mitigates risk and minimizes support costs, arguing that every company must determine what benefits mobility can bring to the organization and act accordingly.
The event also examined the potential pitfalls and costs of embracing mobility, although the main focus was on the collaborative, efficient, and integrated organizations that mobility can help create.
To this end, various themes were discussed by the assembled experts, including mobile security, the consumerization of IT, the development of mobile applications and application platforms, and the implications of the increasingly popular bring-your-own-device (BYOD) trend.
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