I wrote the below plan 12 years back - year 2001 to be precise-
Still relevant?
Why CXOs Need ME2 Framework?
The promise
of Mobile technologies and in turn Mobile
Business/Commerce has yet to be realized.
The hype of last 3 years has started filtering down the sieve of
reality. Yet Enterprises can ill-afford to let mobile technology go. However, converting
rapidly changing mobile technologies into a profitable opportunity is proving
to be a walk through quick sand. Many an analysts, technocrats and business
gurus have come out with the methods to embrace the mobile channel. As such no
perfect solution to all possible situations is possible. We propose the
Mobile Enabling Enterprises (ME2) Framework. This does not promise to solve all the
problems of all the enterprises in adopting wireless technologies.
However, it
gives the strategists and the CXO’s of large Enterprises to go in a systematic
manner in evaluating options, strategies, and relevant Metrics to come out with
a comprehensive blueprint of mobile enabling their enterprise. This article
describes the salient points of the framework. The 20 point adoption plan
described here is based on a comprehensive study of the wireless markets, enterprise
strategies and technologies in the global scenarios.
Mobile Technology –Hype and Reality
Internet and wireless communications coming together to
provide data services to people who are mobile is opening up a new channel for
Enterprises to not only offer their services to the customers, but also to
increase the efficiency of their employees. Despite the nascent technology, the
impact of this convergence on industry was considered to be tremendous. The
events and trends of the last 3 years however have dimmed the hype. There is
hope however, if you look at the innovative and focused ways some of the
enterprises in Europe have made wireless
profitable. This coupled with mass consumer adoption in Japan and other
Asian countries provides a ray of light to service providers, mobile technology
investors and mobile product vendors.
Mobile Access to Internet is increasing rapidly, in
general. Enterprises have been making plans to invest in mobile technologies
for mobile enabling their employees and customers for business purposes.
Rather than waiting for conceptualizing a Killer Application, it would
be better to adapt to wireless within the constraints of the technology.
Besides the first mover advantage, this offers an experience with a technology
that is continuously happening. It will be improving in future as new
evolving networks comes up based on increasingly powerful industry standards of
GPRS, EDGE and UMTS. These are leading to next generation of wireless networks
called 3G, which can provide up to 2 Mbps bandwidth. Instead of waiting for
technologies to stabilize and then giving mobile delight to customers and
employees, it makes sense to deploy mobile applications now.
The MEE Framework – 20 Steps
We propose a 20
step framework to lead to a comprehensive framework for Mobile
adoption in the Enterprise.
This is based on a detailed study of literature, client interactions, software
development and consulting experience, and vendor talks.
(1)
Identify the type of Organization –
First step is to identify the
type of Enterprise.
We consider two distinct types of enterprises.
a. Enterprises
that have No Direct Consumers (N)
b. Enterprises
which are Consumers Facing (C)
First type does not have any
direct consumers. In this class come organizations such as Large Power
Generation Plants, Chemical plants, Manufacturing units, etc. In second type,
we consider large Newspapers/Magazines Publishers, Banks, Retail stores,
Hospitals, Hotels, Airports, etc. It can be seen that consumer facing
enterprises have one major non-controllable parameter, i.e., the mobile devices
that their consumers will use. The first type of enterprises can control the
mobile devices to their employees and organize their wireless infrastructure to
support the specified devices only. In Consumers facing enterprises the
customer devices is an uncertain and sometimes unknown factor.
(2)
Evaluate hi-priority targets for wireless
adoption-
Any Large enterprise need to
evaluate what are the primary targets for the wireless. Are the employees of
the enterprise the main target for mobile adoption or the consumers/customers
of the enterprise are the target. In many cases, tendency is to initiate
projects for both these type of targets simultaneously. We believe that unless
there are significant benefits, it makes sense to start with either consumer or
employees as targets. However, in the long run both employees and customers
have to be supported. Hence there are three possibilities – only one has to be
chosen.
a. Consumers
(C)
b. Employees
(E)
c. Both
(B)
(3) Choose
and Evaluate Strategy –
The Enterprise has to choose one of the following
or a mix of following strategies depending upon the type of organization and
type of wireless embracer targeted. We categorize various strategies as:
a. Channel
Creation (S1)
b. Revenue
Transformation (S2)
c. Toolkit
adoption (S3)
d. Improving
Tele-worker Ratio (S4)
e. Empowering
Mobile Employees (S5)
f. True
Wireless Office – WLAN and Wireless WAN (S6)
Table 1: Probability of choosing a
particular Mobile Strategy for the specific
organization and type of Wireless Targets
Strategy
|
Type of Organization and Type of Wireless
Target
|
|||||
CC
|
CE
|
CB
|
NC
|
NE
|
NB
|
|
S1
|
High
|
High
|
High
|
Low
|
High
|
High
|
S2
|
High
|
Low
|
High
|
Low
|
Low
|
Low
|
S3
|
High
|
High
|
High
|
Low
|
High
|
Medium
|
S4
|
Low
|
High
|
High
|
Medium
|
High
|
High
|
S5
|
Low
|
Medium
|
Medium
|
Medium
|
High
|
High
|
S6
|
Low
|
Medium
|
Low
|
Medium
|
High
|
High
|
Legend: CC – Consumer
Facing Organization targeting Consumers
CE – Consumer
Facing Organization targeting Employees
CB – Consumer
Facing Organization targeting Both
NC – No Direct Consumers
Organization targeting Consumers
NE - No
Direct Consumers Organization targeting Employees
NB – No
Direct Consumers Organization targeting Both
(4) Articulate Strategy
Once the main strategy or a mix
of strategies depending upon the requirements is identified, it has to be
sufficiently articulated in terms of Mission, Organization of Strategy
Implementation Team, Skill sets needed or to be acquired, Metrics of measuring
the success or otherwise of the strategy and how the Risks in implementing the
strategy will be taken care of.
(5) Identify Candidate Processes to be mobile
enabled
The candidate processes for
mobile enabling need to be identified based on the requirements/strategy and likely
Returns on Investment metrics
(6) Identify candidate Mobile
Embracers/Teleworkers/Mobile workers
(7) Choose specific devices/networks/content
(8) Compute Investment Cost
(9) Identify hi level Architecture
a. Transcoding
b. Divergent
c. Convergent
d. Native
Solution
(10)
Compute
Benefits and Risks of adoption
(11)
Evaluate ROI
(12)
Choose
Vendors/Products/System Integrators
(13)
Continuous
Look ahead and Tracking team
(14)
Mobile
Policy Usage guidelines
(15)
Continuous
strategy Update – Realignment of strategy with the changes
(16)
Phased
Projects – 6 months roll out projects
(17)
Applications
Migration Plans
(18)
Continuous
User/Consumer feedback
(19)
Plan to
mitigate/manage crisis arising out of Mobile
technology usage
(20)
Applications
– identifying new and innovative usage
*****
No comments:
Post a Comment