Welcome to the latest edition of Inside Looking Out. This past week, I spoke with Suhas Uliyar. Suhas, who was most recently CTO of Dexterra is now the Chief Solutions Architect of Spring Wireless.
I've known Suhas for some time now and have always been impressed by his intelect, acumen and his broad understanding of the enterprise mobility market. Suhas just came back from vacation, so his mind was fresh and eager to get back "in the game."
Enterprise Mobility Matters: Hi Suhas. Thanks for taking the time to speak with me today - and welcome back from your vacation. Enterprise Mobility has changed a lot in the last few years. What would you say is the greatest recent advancement?
Suhas Uliyar: Context aware applications & device capabilities with integrated peripherals. The introduction of the some very capable devices like the iPhone and Android along with advances in applications using location based services (GPS) and the general buzz with application stores (Apple AppStore, BB App Store) have contributed immensely in transforming the way enterprises have been looking at mobility. While a lot of these advances have been targeted at consumers, the enterprises have benefitted as these consumers end up impacting enterprise decisions. Enterprises are now beginning to look at how context aware applications can benefit a real time enterprise.
EMM: Are companies looking at mobility differently today as compared to a few years ago?
SU: Indeed they are. A few years ago mobility was initiated by certain groups within the enterprise and was very silo’d – no different to the early days of CRM / ERP. The applications were primarily data driven i.e. Screens designed for the specific device type but primarily driven from the enterprise system, inside out. Today enterprises are looking at mobility as a strategic platform across the board of their constituents not only internally within the organization but also externally. This is what we at Spring Wireless describe as the integrated B2E / B2C value chain where the mobile applications are not only targeted at the operational side of the business but also the marketing side of the business directly impacting the customer channel with brand awareness and loyalty programs. There is a shift in paradigm from simple screens on a mobile device driven by business data to more of a intelligent mobile enterprise that is context driven with analytical data.
EMM: How do you see the economy impacting mobility in the enterprise? When are we going to see an upturn in the (our) market?
SU: As we were entering into the recession, all IT projects were put on additional review and scrutiny. To my knowledge no mobile projects were cancelled and the emphasis was in evaluating the relative business merits of all projects. Spring Wireless has not seen much of an impact due to our market focus and business model. Spring Wireless has been focusing on emerging markets where the impact of the recession has been minimal to mobile projects. In addition with a full Solution as a service offering we have made mobile projects easy to consume for the enterprise enabling fast paybacks and seeing real tangible ROI. We have begin to see an upturn in the emerged markets with a lot of RFPs on the street.
EMM: What do you think is the greatest current opportunity for enterprise mobility?
SU: The greatest opportunity for enterprise mobility is the impact it can bring to the business as a whole. A simple mobile process can trigger and impact several events within the enterprise which in turn will impact other mobile processes. An example of this in the CPG space – sales order taking impacting supply chain and delivery. Merchandising impacting consumer facing mobile marketing. The opportunity today is to stitch together all these disparate and silo’d processes resulting in the effective supply chain that enterprises have had as their vision since the time they have been implementing CRM & ERP solutions. Mobility is the glue that finally brings all these together delivering the complete ROI that was expected with the enterprise back office solutions.
EMM: What do you think is the greatest risk for organizations right now?
SU: Doing nothing. While cost cutting has been on top of minds for a lot of organizations, the current economic climate has seen declining revenues which has put a lot of pressure on sales and marketing to stop the bleeding. Mobility has become an offensive tool to stem this tide and get ahead of the game with creative mobile marketing initiatives to target their loyal customers. The risk is if organizations do not recognize the value of mobility and the impact to cost savings, efficiencies or increasing revenues, it will be very difficult for them to compete in this market.
EMM: What steps should executives take to ensure the success of their mobility implementations?
SU:
- Get the end user involved from the beginning to define the key business functions
- Pick the right device for the right role and the right process
- Think end to end – the enterprise back office systems do not have all the data that mobile users need
- Think about TCO – it may be easy to deliver phase – I but think about change and the overall cost of change.
- Think about Solution as a Service – Not just Software as a Service.
- Think about all the different moving parts in a solution and the impact to the end user when one of these parts fail. From the device to the network to the software solution to the integration.
Thank you Suhas for taking the time to chat with me today. If interested, you can connect with Suhas on LinkedIn here. Do you know anyone who should be a guest here on Inside Looking Out? Drop me a line.
