In this research we surveyed only technology decision makers already deploying mobile technologies for frontline workers in some capacity. So, in that regard the distribution of our segments are more heavily weighted toward Innovators and Early Adopters than you would typically expect to see. This gave us the advantage of being able to deeply explore the different approaches of Innovators and Early Adopters – and understand the strategies that set them apart in their tech adoption and growth.
Figure 2: Mobile Tech Adoption Maturity Curve
Innovators are among the first businesses to invest in new technologies with an understanding of the risk-reward factor of doing so. They have the highest rates of full optimization with their actively used tech, with their cybersecurity and cloud infrastructure deployments being the most optimized. They typically spearhead the usage of a given solution before others see the value of its application in their particular industry.
Notably, in terms of IT decision-making, Innovators have by far the greatest presence of dedicated IT strategy roles involved in IT strategies/initiatives compared to other segments. It is a more common approach to have individual roles to support and purchase technology, thus suggesting a greater leadership commitment to IT and mobility within these organizations.
The standout point of their digital strategies is the use of partnerships to stave off disruption and enhance organizational capabilities – they are the only segment to feature this in their top three. Further, they consistently indicated their key advantage was the use & optimization of Managed Mobility Service (MMS) providers.
Early Adopter businesses usually deploy technologies early on, but with a more judicious consideration of their proven use cases as defined by Innovators. Although Early Adopters have similar mobile tech stacks to Innovators’, their ability to fully optimize lags far behind.
Across the board for each technology/service implemented, Innovators’ level of optimization is 10 to 20 percentage points higher. Innovators have an advantage in being first to market with deployments, being the first to work out their flaws and optimize them, and/or their operational agility makes them better off in adapting to the changes of new deployments in general.
Another major difference between Early Adopters and Innovators, likely attributed to the divergent tech investment priorities and strategies, is in their operational agility – only 17% of this segment claim to be extremely agile/market leaders in responding to change compared to over 40% of Innovators.
Organizations typified in the Early Majority tend to drive the first mainstream wave of a given solution’s adoption and implementation once Innovators and Early Adopters have established the value of doing so.
The presence of dedicated IT strategy decision making roles drop heavily from Innovators and Early Adopters to the Early Majority. Not surprisingly, then, organizational decision making is the biggest barrier to responding to change for this segment; they simply lack the internal leadership to advocate for innovative technological investment as much as the leading tech adoption segments do. The following two barriers are:
Top selection criteria for both tech solutions and tech partners are primarily financial factors, followed by security matters. Cost trumps all; functionality and usability are second-rate concerns, which can lead to inadequate deployments. Furthermore, this fixation on cost is another barrier to responding to change, getting in the way of the imaginative investments that Innovators are more likely to make.
These businesses often fall behind because of their inability to effectively operationalize stable, mobile-forward technologies.
It is interesting that the Late Majority and Laggards, and even the Early Majority, select technology on factors that are not usually evident until after a deployment – such as financial benefit and business impact – while Innovators have a more imaginative tech investment approach. They consider the functionality and usability of a given solution to envision the financial/business impact it may have for them specifically rather than adopting solely based on the on-paper record of the solution’s history of benefiting other organizations.
The result of such a cautious mindset is a lessened ability to respond to change, with barriers of “lacking executive support” and “slow organizational decision making” reflecting this approach and preventing agility.
