Finally, LOB executives are taking on an increasingly important role in mobility decision-making.
LOB executives’ buy-in is absolutely critical to MCoE success for two key reasons. First, LOB executives, eager to leverage mobile to compete more effectively, want mobile solutions now – not quarters or years from now. Second, this urgency is driving an increasingly common trend as Lines of Business (LOBs) fund their own mobile projects. In fact, it’s LOB executives, not IT, that are now funding mobile 74% of the time. As Tyler Perry famously observed, “He who has the gold makes the rules,” which gives LOB executives growing clout in advancing their mobility priorities.
However, allowing LOB executives to dominate mobility decision-making has the potential to create a myriad of issues for the enterprise. For example, LOBs often select their own hardware, software and services, and negotiate LOB-specific contracts. Opportunities to leverage common mobility components across the enterprise and achieve economies of scale can go unrealized if LOB projects, not enterprise priorities, lead decision-making.
Best-in-class companies know that enterprise mobile has the ability to create sustainable competitive advantage. Because these companies see enterprise mobile as a fast track to improved customer service and operational efficiency, they want to pursue enterprise mobile aggressively.
This desire to stay ahead of the curve is one of the reasons they routinely place their Managed Mobile Services (MMS) providers on their MCoEs. MMS providers maintain tight relationships with OEMs, carriers, software companies and mobile evangelists which give them insights into enterprise mobile’s future and the roadmaps associated with devices and device types.
In addition, MMS providers have created more Mobile Blueprints and Implementation Roadmaps, and orchestrated more deployments than a single enterprise will see in its lifetime. That accumulated experience, along with acquired knowledge of best practices in a mix of global industries and markets, offers invaluable expertise to companies of all sizes no matter where they are in their adoption of enterprise mobile.
Companies of all sizes, especially medium- to large-sized enterprises, can establish Mobile Centers of Excellence (MCoE) to improve their chances of success when planning, implementing and managing enterprise mobile initiatives. Pulling key stakeholders into this collaborative forum offers an effective way to capture enterprise-level and department-specific mobile initiatives. Once these needs have been amassed, effective MCoEs create two critically important documents, a Mobile Blueprint and an Implementation Roadmap, to prioritize the company’s mobile initiatives in light of their value to the enterprise, ability to create sustainable competitive advantage and resource requirements.
In recognition of the intricacies and complexities involved in successfully launching mobile initiatives, MCoEs often seek assistance from third parties. Business consultants, suppliers of mobile point solutions and Managed Mobile Services (MMS) providers, the three resources offering mobile expertise, dominate the landscape of available third-party assistance. While each type has advantages and disadvantages, MMS providers that manage millions of mobile devices have considerable expertise to leverage and that is why they often sit on their customers’ MCoEs.
Sources: 3 Reasons to Create a Mobile Center of Excellence. MobileSmith, Top 5 Benefits of Mobile Center of Excellence. (2015). (x)cube LABS, 3 Reasons to Create a Mobile Center of Excellence. MobileSmith, QuickPulse: Mobility as a Service. (2017). IDG Research and CIO.com. Cited in “Planning for Scale: The Key to Mobile Success.” (2017). Stratix Corporation
