Mobile strategies at UK businesses are being handicapped by a lack of expertise and a preoccupation with ROI, according to new research by mobile systems integrator Cognito.
The survey quizzed 200 IT directors at large UK organisations and found that 86% of IT departments have been charged with the responsibility of implementing a mobile strategy to help improve employee productivity and business efficiency. However, nearly half of the respondents claimed that their team lacks the skills needed to integrate a range of business critical applications with mobile devices.
Speaking to CBR about the results, David Perry, Cognito’s head of marketing, said that the results showed a worrying gap between the current state of mobile enterprise usage and the plans companies have for mobile devices.
“It’s interesting to see plans for mobility use within an enterprise,” he said. “There is a clear disconnect between the idea and the reality of enterprise mobile use.”
He added that mobile strategies are often stymied by a preoccupation with return on investment (ROI). A third of respondents to the survey said that they were worried that their company’s lack of experience in mobile IT strategies would significantly impact the ROI from these projects in the near term and reduce long-term investment in this area.
It is the role of companies such as Cognito, Perry said, to better explain the ROI possibilities for a mobile project and to make sure that companies understand the requirements of its workforce.
Just half of the companies featured in the survey have a mobile strategy that goes beyond email.
The survey also found that a quarter of companies blame the potential failure of mobile projects on the mobile industry’s lack of experience in supporting business customers. Many business-critical desktop applications are not suitable for mobile use, meaning workers in the field can suffer from a lack of productivity.
“Users don’t want a small screen that is full of information and has too much detail on it,” Perry said. “There is a requirement for more collaboration between IT, the business process people and the users to make mobile applications work.”
