A survey of 240 IT professionals (CIOs, CTOs) across 23 industries and 12 countries, and over 4,000 mobile application developers worldwide that explores the latest mobility challenges and efforts in enterprise IT.
1. Always On, Always Connected.
Keeping Up With Mobility
The Accenture CIO Mobility Survey 2012
Executive Summary
2. Keeping Up With Mobility
Even while CIOs target mobility as a priority, they face
competitive and development challenges. What’s the
best way to help develop a cogent strategy and stay
ahead of the curve?
If the intense popularity of and focus on not only offer data access to employees, fragmentation of the mobile device market
all things mobile−smartphones, tablets, partners, and suppliers, but also represent and widespread concerns about security,
connected devices, and mobile apps−seems an unprecedented transactional opportunity costs, and connectivity.
familiar, it’s because the 1990s Internet via e-commerce and other channels. The
mania is repeating itself. Think about latter companies thrived while the others As with the Internet, CIOs must do three
it−suddenly a new technology swept in, floundered. things: 1. Understand where in their
threatening and promising to change the organization developers are creating mobility
way people worked and lived. It became an According to two recent surveys by applications; 2. Discern how to quickly
instant priority for IT, but its multiple facets Accenture Research, history is indeed integrate them into a cohesive strategy; and
weren’t so easily nor quickly mastered. repeating itself. Mobile devices bring an then 3. Use that strategy as a foundation for
astonishing number of capabilities. But while competitive advantage.
Companies spent money creating web companies scramble to develop a mobile
sites akin to “brochureware,” while savvier strategy, it’s clear confusion still reigns over
companies realized that, with some careful how to accommodate divergent employee
back-end investment, the Internet could and customer needs, especially with the
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3. Mobility Is Both a Priority and a Challenge
To gauge the perceptions of mobility particularly difficult to manage, and both No matter what the obstacles, CIOs report a
among IT professionals, Accenture Research scored lower on their monetization potential strong commitment to mobile technology.
surveyed several hundred CIOs and several than the Apple iPhone and iPad. When asked which capabilities they were
thousand application developers in North focusing on, the trend was clear: process
America, Europe, Asia, and South America in Fragmentation complicates companies’ improvements. CIOs cited the ability to
January 2012. The results were startling. When abilities to accommodate one of streamline operations through the ability
asked to tally their priorities, 78 percent of the strongest trends in mobility: to track orders, assets or inventory from
CIOs placed mobility in their top five. “consumerization” or “bring your own anywhere; 37 percent had completed such
device” (BYOD). Helping employees to efforts, while another 37 percent were
But the survey results also revealed some run applications on any mobile device, IT already executing them. Close behind that
intriguing anomalies. When Accenture risks having its resources diluted further. was the ability to help accelerate the sales
asked CIOs about their priorities for the Concurrently, the market remains in flux cycle with improved access to back-end
coming year, the answers diverged based with BlackBerry® devices that were once systems and data quality for the sales force.
on geography. Far more CIOs in emerging highly favored now suffering from “low”
markets focus on mobility compared to or “very low” engagement scores. An even higher percentage of CIOs (43
those in established markets, in part perhaps percent) were in the middle of efforts to
of their ability to capitalize on greenfield Another potential burden on resources: empower communication and collaboration
opportunities. That means emerging markets the decision whether to focus on employee among employees no matter where they
avoid integrating with large back-end legacy or consumer applications. Companies were. More than half (53 percent) of CIOs
systems, and may not even have deployed inherently understand that offering an app reported being in the middle of projects
desktop applications. to consumers specific to help them increase to help improve field and customer
customer interactivity and intimacy. But service activities.
Other concerns complicate the rush toward the same divergent number of devices on
mobility. No matter where CIOs reside the employee side applies to the consumer
around the world, cost and security led side, complicating the issue of native versus
the list of their concerns. Among CIOs, 50 cross-platform development.
percent cited security, 43 percent cited
budgetary issues, and 26 percent identified The issue of consumer applications also
interoperability with current systems and a relates monetization, the ability to confirm
lack of understanding about the benefits of that results of mobile development relate
mobility. When application developers were to quantifiable revenue streams. Forty-two
asked to name the smartphone platform percent of all CIOs want to help improve field
with the best security, none received an service or customer service delivery with
overwhelming endorsement: A little more instant data access, capture, and processing.
than half thought Apple’s iOS operating
system had the best, while approximately On the consumer side, another 40 percent
one-quarter cited Google’s Android want to help drive revenue through
operating system. customer engagement.
The results also clearly highlighted One might think that all these obstacles
fragmentation of the mobile device market. together constitute a Gordian knot for
This manifests itself in the vast number of mobility, one that’s not easily untied or even
mobile platforms and devices, as well as the sliced. Nothing could be further from the
question of whether to focus on consumer truth. Even as companies wrangled with the
(B2C) or employee (B2B) applications. App challenges of the web fifteen years ago, they
developers rated fragmentation among grasped its inherent value. The same applies
Android™ and Blackberry® devices as to mobility.
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4. Tackling the Challenges Through a Cohesive Strategy
Given that mobility – like the Internet before It won’t be easy to establish your strategy, in Internet time, you must focus on what
it – is equally confusing and compelling, because such an effort requires identifying aspects of mobility serve your business
IT executives need to craft a strategy for future projects and identifying current requirements most, and recalibrate them
conquering it. Creating such a strategy projects and confirming they are nudged periodically. While you can easily refresh
means, first, acknowledging the shift from toward your ultimate goals. some strategies every year or two, for now
applications containing data, logic and you must reconsider your mobile strategy
presentation tiers to one in which services To hone their strategies, CIOs must embark every six to 12 months to verify that you’re
exchange information. A strategy will also on a three-step process. still placing your bets on the right trends.
help keep the obstacles from overwhelming
multiple internal, though uncoordinated, Step one: Discovery. Identify current
efforts. What goes into a mobile strategy? projects as well as future goals; remember
that business units may be tackling
Accenture sees three key elements: applications on their own.
technology, business requirements and
management. Step two: Acceleration. Having
identified projects you want to pursue
Technology. This element helps span and the underlying technologies, promote
everything from platform choice to acceleration by standardizing your efforts
development tools. Are you going to as much as possible. Use common code−aka
internally standardize on one device, or an “application factory”−for basic elements
encourage the BYOD concept? This impacts spanning people, process, and tools.
your choice of development tools, which These factories help reduce overlap and
range from native to cross-platform or increase developer efficiency. Establishing
hybrid approaches. It will also affect your common interface elements for employees
deployment choices, such as whether you may shorten training time and increase
will make applications available through productivity.
external app stores or internal downloads.
Step three: Innovation. Once you’ve created
Business Requirements. This element a strong foundation for internal success,
encompasses identifying where mobile you can start looking at other capabilities
solutions are most important within your to make your mobile applications more
company, so you can prioritize development competitively differentiated. How can you
efforts. Given the strong commitment that target those key areas and create even better
CIOs in emerging markets have toward tools for helping reduce sales cycles or
mobile solutions, it may behoove other gathering customer insights at the moment
CIOs to make mobile solutions available to they’re making purchase decisions? Those
employees in other countries, and verify that kinds of insights are closer to reality than
they are localized properly. At the same time, ever before, but only if you understand your
companies may choose to emphasize other strategic goals.
key areas highlighted by the survey results:
sales, internal collaboration, or applications To seek high performance in the mobility
serving customer service. market, the most important thing to
remember is that you’re still aiming at a
Management. Given the degree with which moving target. Remember Internet time?
the mobility market shifts, it’s important that You’re now living on mobile time. Devices
CIOs maintain strong strategic oversight to continue to evolve, as do application
tweak it when necessary as conditions shift. development tools. Just as you had to do
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