Keeping Up With Mobility - ISF NEWS notizie dal mondo dell

22 marzo 2013
Ecco come smartphone e tablet cambiano le aziende
di Gianni Rusconi
http://www.ilsole24ore.com/art/tecnologie/2013-03-22/ecco-come-smartphone-tablet090710.shtml?uuid=AbZ5HXgH
Uno degli elementi che in futuro potrà produrre significativi profitti per l'azienda: questo pensano,
parlando di mobility, il 79 per cento dei Chief information officer oggetto di un'indagine di
Accenture svolta in 14 Paesi (tra cui l'Italia) e in altrettanti settori di mercato. Oltre l'80 per cento
la vede inoltre come un canale che può migliorare in modo significativo le interazioni tra i clienti
ed esercitare un impatto rilevante sul business.
L'importanza che le diverse figure (413 i professionisti intervistati) che gestiscono le risorse
tecnologiche all'interno delle grandi e medie organizzazioni attribuiscono all'utilizzo di strumenti
mobili (device, applicazioni, servizi) è quindi evidente. Ed a rafforzare il concetto c'è il fatto che
molti dei Cio investiranno tra il 31 e il 40 per cento dei loro budget di spesa per raggiungere
l'obiettivo di cui sopra.
Italia e Cina i Paesi più attivi
Le aziende italiane, spesso tacciate (non sempre a ragione) di scarsa propensione all'innovazione si
dimostrano fra le più sensibili al tema: per il 53 per cento dei Cio nostrani, infatti, la mobility è una
delle due maggiori priorità di sviluppo in agenda ed identica percentuale la esibiscono i colleghi
cinesi e indiani. La media complessiva si ferma invece al 34 per cento. Il Belpaese, a sorpresa, è
anche fra i pionieri nell'implementazione di avanzate strategie di mobilità che comprendono in
particolare soluzioni per la gestione dei dispositivi, la collaborazione e la condivisione di
conoscenze. Più precisamente, come spiega al Sole24ore.com Michele Marrone, responsabile
Accenture Mobility Services Eala, «c'è un trend in continua crescita che si articola anche in attività
di sviluppo vero e proprio quali ad esempio soluzioni di mobile sales force o mobile field force e in
attività di gestione di tipo end to end del parco terminali». Ma rispetto a quali finalità i Cio
intendono in linea generale mettere a frutto le tecnologie mobili? Lo studio dice che, secondo il 43
del campione, il principale obiettivo da raggiungere è quello di migliorare il servizio al cliente
grazie all'acquisizione e all'elaborazione immediata dei dati. Nel mirino ci sono quindi la necessità
di coinvolgere i clienti attraverso computer portatili, smartphone e tablet e l'idea di adottare (e
sviluppare) dispositivi sempre connessi a Internet per supportare applicazioni di tipo B2B.
Una rivoluzione superiore a quella di Internet
Le buone intenzioni dei responsabili informatici trovano ulteriore dimostrazione nel fatto che
quasi la metà (il 46 per cento) delle figure censite prevede di apportare nei prossimi dodici mesi
modifiche ai flussi di lavoro esistenti per facilitare l'integrazione delle soluzioni mobili nelle diverse
attività. Tre quarti del campione, il 73 per cento, è addiritttura dell'idea che la mobility
rivoluzionerà il modo di fare business, tanto quanto (se non di più) abbia fatto Internet alla fine
degli anni ‘90.
Resta però il fatto che, fanno notare da Accenture, le aziende devono andare oltre ed individuare
le aree principali in cui sviluppare le applicazioni mobili, puntando in particolare sulle aree con il
maggior potenziale di crescita (i dispositivi) e reperire competenze adeguate. Se, infatti, oltre la
della metà delle società campionate (il 58 per cento) ha definito una strategia specifica per il
mobile, meno di un quarto (il 23 per cento) vanta l'adozione di una policy molto sviluppata.
Il telefonino anello di congiunzione con il consumatore
Smartphone e tablet (citati rispettivamente nell'85 per cento e nel 78 dei casi) sono gli strumenti
su cui i Cio puntano maggiormente per attuare una strategia mobile in relazione all'aumento
dell'uso professionale da parte dei dipendenti dei propri device personali e al crescente impiego di
questi stessi dispositivi da parte delle società come terminali per svolgere attività aziendali.
«I Cio – amplia il concetto l'analista di Accenture - cercano una soluzione che possa svincolarli
dalle differenze tra le diverse piattaforme disponibili, abilitandoli ad una gestione sicura dei
telefonini ad uso aziendale per ciò che concerne configurazione, distribuzione dei software e back
up dei dati».
E c'è inoltre un'altra faccia della questione. «Se abbinato a strumenti di analytics e Crm, il nuovo
canale di relazione abilitato da smartphone sempre più evoluti permette di capire i bisogni ed i
comportamenti del consumatore, basandosi anche su informazioni contestuali come la sua
posizione ed i suoi acquisti precedenti. Gli smartphone – chiude il concetto Marrone - hanno
creato un nuovo canale di commerce che prende il meglio dai tradizionali "brick and mortar" e dal
Web».
Il Byod una sfida ancora da superare
Dallo studio si evinche che il Byod (Bring your own device) - così come la gestione delle risorse
umane in orbita mobile (il 37 per cento delle aziende assumerà dall'esterno risorse full-time con
competenze specifiche in materia) e i limiti di budget - rimane però una delle sfide ancora da
superare.
E questo perchè, nonostante il fenomeno viva una fase di forte crescita, il 59 per cento delle
aziende offre un supporto limitato ai dipendenti che utilizzano dispositivi propri e solo il 28 per
cento garantisce tutto il supporto necessario. «Troppo poco – dice Marrone - se si considera che
già nel 2010 la spesa per dispositivi smart nel mondo consumer ha raggiunto quella del mondo
business».
Quanto a sicurezza e interoperabilità a livello applicativo con i sistemi esistenti, altri due fattori di
criticità, «oggi non costituiscono più – a detta del manager di Accenture - una barriera all'adozione
massiva all'interno dell'azienda delle tecnologie in mobilità ma per superare questi vincoli occorre
definire e sviluppare in anticipo un'architettura It che sia mobile centrica e che assicuri una piena
governance dei processi, delle applicazioni e della disponibilità sicura dei dati aziendali sui
differenti dispositivi».
L'automotive fra i settori più sensibili alla mobility
Di ostacoli, per parlare di una piena adozione del paradigma della mobility, dunque non ne
mancano. Discorso che vale anche per quei settori - automobilistico, assicurativo e sanitario – che
prevedono di raggiungere i loro obiettivi in chiave mobile entro il prossimo anno. Le priorità sul
tavolo dei Cio delle case automobilistiche sono i pagamenti e il commerce, quelle per i responsabili
It del mondo insurance e dell'health i servizi di geolocalizzazione.
Due terzi delle società che operano nelle comunicazioni hanno invece dichiarato che intendono
implementare soluzioni "machine-to-machine" entro i prossimi dodici mesi mentre la metà delle
organizzazioni del comparto elettronico e tecnologico hanno assunto la mobility tra le prime due
priorità.
Always On. Always Connected.
Keeping Up With Mobility
The Accenture CIO Mobility Survey 2013
Enter u
Accenture Mobility CIO Survey 2013 Executive Summary
Small devices have become very, very big. The last time CIOs saw a groundswell
this huge, it was back in the late 90s and called “the web.” Indeed, according to
a recently completed Accenture survey of more than 400 global IT executives,
73 percent said that mobility will impact their business as much as
or more so than the web did.
That’s not necessarily news.
The idea of giving employees
the ability to exchange data
with corporate servers no
matter where they are, using
a device that fits in their
hand, stopped being the stuff
of science fiction long ago.
Only slightly newer is the idea
of being able to interact with
customers and prospects no
matter where they are, along
with the ability to enhance
customer intimacy and
revenues.
Accenture CIO Mobility Survey 2013
What’s really compelling,
though: the speed at which
the mobility market is
maturing.
heavily in mobility in 2011
decreased their investment
in 2012. That may seem
counterintuitive—a lack of
support, perhaps—but it
One-third of the IT executives actually indicates a willingness
surveyed cited mobility as one to invest as a way to quickly
determine what works and
of their top-two priorities,
what doesn’t. With that early
but 75 percent put it among
experience, those enterprises
their top five. That’s a big
commitment for a technology are more knowledgeable
about how to target their
that only became viable less
mobility investment.
than five years ago. At the
same time, overall investment Conversely, companies that
spent little on mobility in 2011
in mobility is increasing.
increased their investment
Companies that invested
in 2012. They’re playing
catch-up because its become
inescapably clear that mobility
is not only crucial to their
business, but it’s aiding their
competitors. Furthermore,
50 percent of companies have
done work to implement their
mobile strategy within the
next year, up from 41percent
last year.
There has also been a marked
shift in the way companies
think about mobility within
their corporate strategies.
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They can use it to optimize
business processes. By
deploying tablets to
field workers in place of
clipboards, paper, and pen,
they can gather information
faster and avoid transcription
errors. They can use it to
improve user engagement.
By developing applications
Another part of the maturity focused on specific, targeted
tasks, they can give workers
trend: now enterprises
the simplicity they need to
recognize they can use
be more productive. They
mobility for so much more.
can create new revenue
Mobility simply used to be
another forum for enterprises streams for their businesses.
By creating applications that
to deliver information—that
aggregate customer location
is, develop an application
and preferences, they can
that would let employees
drive promotions and
(and later, customers) use a
browser to navigate through coupons to likely prospects
in appropriate purchasing
company data on a mobile
situations. On a variety of
device.
fronts, the value is clear and
compelling.
Fully 59 percent say they have
implemented a centralized,
company-wide strategy for
mobility, while 58 percent say
that their mobile strategy is
“moderately” developed (as
opposed to minimally); that
compares to 53 percent
in 2012.
Accenture CIO Mobility Survey 2013
That’s not to say that CIOs
can wave a magic wand and
be successful at mobility, for
a variety of reasons. Part of it
is that need for user interface
simplicity. It’s a significant
shift to move from featurerich enterprise applications,
stuffed with drop-down
windows and options, to a
user experience akin to what
consumer applications offer.
At the same time, delivering
simplicity on the surface
usually means high levels
of complexity underneath.
Mobility is at the center of
a major transformation to
a “digital enterprise,” which
means that CIOs cannot look
at it as a separate entity but
rather as part of a wider
strategy that encompasses
cloud computing, social
media, and analytics. All
of these come together
through the use of APIs and
integration techniques—
issues that have always been
challenging to IT.
What do these challenges
mean? CIOs need a cohesive
mobility strategy to unlock
the full potential for their
business and embrace this
new maturing era of the
digital enterprise. Enterprises
already have a strong
foundation in mobility, as the
survey results show, but there
are also key tactics they can
use to move forward faster
and more effectively.
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How—and Why—Companies Are Embracing Mobility
Certainly mobility is at the forefront of CIOs’ minds, with far deeper insight of
how it can help productivity beyond basic voice and data communication. This
insight, in fact, extends across companies, geographies, and industries. For instance,
46 percent of respondents plan to make changes in their business processes,
workflow, and employee roles to better incorporate mobility during the next year.
Geographically, too,
commitment is high. IT
executives in emerging
markets gauged mobility
as a higher priority than
mature markets. This may be
because, when they expand
their businesses, they can
leapfrog the installation of
traditional desktop systems,
which can be both expensive
and complex. With evercheaper and more-powerful
smartphones, even countries
in emerging markets are
experiencing an uptake in
Accenture CIO Mobility Survey 2013
smartphone usage. Whereas
34 percent of all respondents
put mobility among their top
two priorities, 53 percent of
respondents in China and
50 percent of respondents
in India ranked mobility that
high. Similarly, emerging
markets appear to be more
re focused on extensively
developing their mobility
strategy: 50 percent of
respondents in China and 37
percent of respondents in
Brazil report an extensively
developed mobile strategy.
new customers; they can
now establish relationships
with them outside of the
traditional retail environment.
The utility industry also
has a highly mobile sales
The same commitment
force, along with numerous
applies within specific
industries, the survey results efforts afoot to deploy
mobile applications to
showed. Not surprisingly
customers who want to
for two industries with high
levels of mobile opportunities, better manage their home
utility usage. That’s why 30
retailing and utilities lead
percent of respondents in
the results. Retailers, of
the utilities industry reported
course, tend to have mobile
having the most extensively
sales forces, logistics issues,
developed mobile strategy;
and the desire to entice
For more on both global
issues, click on Mobile Goes
Global and China and India
Rule.
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the only industry higher was multiple fronts. When asked
transportation, at 35 percent. to choose from 19 options in
three categories (consumer,
enterprise, and machine-toFor more on industry issues,
machine), several items stood
click on Industrial-Strength
out, relating to both revenue
Mobility.
and engagement.
Mobility ranked in the top
two priorities for 44 percent On the consumer side, 36
percent of IT executives
of respondents in the retail
cited “drive revenue through
industry and 34 percent of
customer engagement” and
respondents in the utility
another 34 percent cited “drive
industry; an almost equal
revenue through transactions
percentage of respondents
in those industries said they on mobile devices.” That
indicates their understanding
have a dedicated mobile
budget. Two other industries’ of mobility not just as a way
to manage transactions,
IT executives reported
but also as a way to better
dedicated mobile budgets:
manage the relationship with
electronics (60 percent) and
customers—that is, to better
automotive (42 percent).
understand their needs through
Why such a high commitment analytics and deliver on those
needs based on contextual
to mobility? Enterprises
information, such as location or
have high expectations for
what mobility will deliver, on previous purchases. As a result,
Accenture CIO Mobility Survey 2013
smartphones have created a
new channel for commerce
beyond brick-and-mortar stores
and the Web.
On the enterprise side, 43
percent of IT executives cited
the need to “improve field
service/customer service
delivery with instant data,”
while another 33 percent
cited the desire to “accelerate
the sales cycle with improved
access to backend systems.”
That indicates a strong
emphasis on improving
business processes both
pre- and post-sales. The
upshot? Every segment of the
sales cycle can be improved
through mobile technology,
from initial customer
engagement to post-sales
service.
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Challenges and Opportunities
As companies make the move to integrate their mobility strategy into their
business, they understand that—especially for a new, and in some areas, immature,
technology—some common challenges remain. When asked to name the barriers
that kept them from addressing or implementing their mobile priorities, IT
executives cited several concerns. Data security, especially with data on devices
that have not been issued by corporate IT, i.e.; Bring Your Own Device (BYOD),
topped the list, cited by 45 percent of respondents.
Cost and budget concerns
were cited by 41percent
of respondents. It’s not
that mobile devices aren’t
reasonably priced, but most
CIOs are still focusing on
maintenance rather than
innovation, leaving little
budget to invest in cuttingedge technologies like
mobility. At the same time,
employees don’t need laptops
and tablets and smartphones,
Accenture CIO Mobility Survey 2013
and neither does IT want
to support nor does the
business want to pay for
them. But, barring the use
of a single mobile device,
which represents the best
combination for deployment?
Even so, the confusion over
the best device isn’t stopping
progress toward a mobilecentric IT architecture.
Enterprises view tablets
almost as important as
smartphones, with 85 percent
of respondents saying they
support smartphones and
78 percent saying they
support tablets (talk about a
technology that has become
part of mainstream usage
quickly). That means concerns
about letting employees use
their own devices (aka BYOD)
may not be as prevalent as
previously thought.
Finally, 31 percent reported
lack of interoperability with
current systems as an issue.
There’s a wealth of corporate
data locked into legacy
systems that may not be
accessible to mobile devices.
One way of exposing data in
existing systems is through
transforming existing services
with modern APIs and
gateway services. That’s why
54 percent of respondents are
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developing an API strategy to
go hand in hand with their
mobility strategy. With an
evolution to API platforms,
enterprises can build mobile
applications to access legacy
systems.
Accenture CIO Mobility Survey 2013
But opportunities outnumber
the challenges. IT executives
can already map the link
between social networking
and collaboration tools
through mobility—that is,
finding the right person
or information quickly
either through social
communication tools for the
enterprise or shared data
repositories in the cloud.
When asked to rank their
top three mobile features,
45 percent of respondents
cited knowledge sharing
and 40 percent cited
collaboration.
More than most new
technologies, the ability
to drive revenue through
mobility is clear for IT
executives too. Payment
and commerce services
are becoming a top priority
across industry verticals, cited
by 38 percent of respondents.
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The Way Forward
What about companies that may not be as far along as their competitors—how
should they invest in mobility? Interestingly, their path need not be that much
different from companies already investing in mobility. According to the survey
results, key areas of investment include allocating budget for mobile initiatives,
such as hardware and application development; retraining staff to handle
management of mobile devices and applications; and hiring more mobile
expertise within their ranks. Given the demand for mobile skills, it’s also not
surprising that many companies plan to leverage external experts to develop
or implement those strategies.
At the same time, companies
need to identify where within
their own organizations or
industries they can get the
most benefit from mobile
deployment. From there, they
should conduct gap analysis
to identify what they need
to do to catch up to peers or
competitors and ideally get
ahead.
Accenture CIO Mobility Survey 2013
While enterprises’ mobile
strategies are maturing,
there are still many potential
opportunities for taking
advantage of the technology,
especially as the boundaries
of what constitutes mobile
computing expands. It’s telling
that among the three areas
the survey covered, machineto-machine capabilities were
among the least cited. The
idea of adding connected
products to the arsenal of
tablets and smartphones
for better communications
and analytics is nascent but
growing—some logistics
companies are adding sensors
to packaging to better report
where packages are along
their journey.
Perhaps less prosaic but just
as important is the effort
to ensure a complete and
viable solution from the
user experience with the
mobile hardware to the
backend systems themselves;
improving the efficacy of
the combination of visual
simplicity and underlying
complexity.
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Finally, there’s the potential of
analytics—processing massive
amounts of real-time data
captured by mobile devices
to improve not just business
but the overall customer
experience. Only 25 percent
of respondents consider
analytics an important mobile
feature, but the chances are
high for that percentage to
increase as enterprises realize
the value of aggregated realtime data and responses.
Accenture CIO Mobility Survey 2013
As mature as mobile
strategies have become, there
is still sufficient headroom
and potential for enterprises
to do more, just as they
are still finding ways to
make web technology more
efficient. Without a doubt,
moving forward with mobility
will help companies derive
great benefits, but it is only
the beginning of a new way
of serving customers, making
employees more productive,
and increasing revenues.
Mobility is one component
on the way to the digital
enterprise.
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Mobile Goes Global
IT executives in emerging markets believe that mobility is even more of a
game-changer in two different areas. First, the percentages of those who
“agree or strongly agree” that mobility will have a bigger effect than the Web
did a generation ago are considerably higher in emerging than in mature
markets. Similarly, the number of respondents who believe that mobility will
provide new revenues is much higher in emerging than in mature markets.
Accenture CIO Mobility Survey 2013
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Industrial-Strength Mobility
Which industries are leading the charge on generating revenues from mobility?
Retail leads all industries in the importance of using mobility to drive customer
engagement (59 percent of retail respondents consider it a top priority), while
financial services leads all industries in the importance of using mobility to drive
revenues via transactions (48 percent).
Accenture CIO Mobility Survey 2013
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China and India Rule
The two biggest emerging markets, China and India, have no qualms about
committing to mobility. IT executives in India reported great optimism, with
consistently high scores across a variety of categories. For instance, they believe
they can use mobility to drive revenue both through customer engagement and
through transactions on mobile devices. They have plans to develop new mobilespecific products or services, and to use the results derived from analytics gathered
from those services to understand their consumers better.
IT executives in China, on the
other hand, score high on
their budget commitments
and their execution plans.
They’re more likely to have
dedicated mobile budgets and
to have prioritized their list
of mobile initiatives. They are
more likely to have employees
dedicated to mobility in their
IT departments, and those
employees are working to
incorporate mobility into
business processes, workflow,
Accenture CIO Mobility Survey 2013
and other employee roles.
They’re also improving their
personnel on multiple fronts.
They’re not only bringing
in new full-time employees
with mobile expertise into
their organizations and
investing in the re-training
of existing staff, but they’re
also more likely to leverage
external mobile experts to
help develop, implement, and
refine their mobile strategy.
The result: a higher level of
investment in both mobile
experiments and proofs-ofconcepts.
In a way, China, India, and
other emerging markets have
a built-in advantage when it
comes to mobility: the ability
to start with a clean slate.
Think about it: no desktop
or laptop infrastructure to
support or accommodate
in terms of application
development and security.
Add to that the ability to
deploy computing devices
that are both inexpensive
and easy to use, and at a
time when more consumers
are able to increase their
economic power through
—guess what—better
communication capabilities
and access to information.
It’s a virtuous circle for the
developing world.
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For more information
on Accenture Mobility
please scan the
2D barcode
Copyright © 2013 Accenture
All rights reserved.
Accenture, its Logo, and
High Performance Delivered
are trademarks of Accenture.
Methodology
From Dec. 2012 through Jan. 2013,
Accenture conducted an online survey
with 413 IT professionals (CIOs, CTOs,
Directors of Technology or IT, and Chief
Mobility Officers) across 14 industries
in 14 countries: Australia, Brazil, China,
Finland, France, Germany, India, Italy,
Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, Spain,
United Kingdom, and United States.
53 percent of those surveyed work
for companies that generate between
US$1 billion and US$5 billion in annual
revenues; 42 percent for companies
that generate between US$500 million
and US$1 billion; and six percent for
companies between US$250 million
and US$500 million.
About Accenture Mobility
Accenture is focused on enabling its
clients to achieve breakthrough growth
throughout the rapidly changing
mobile ecosystem. The Accenture
Mobility group offers five mobility
services including consulting, software
services—applications, software
services—devices and platforms,
managed services, and business
integration services. These are designed
to help organizations embrace business
to employee (B2E),business to consumer
(B2C), business to business (B2B) and
machine to machine (M2M) business
opportunities. Accenture offers mobility
and embedded software services
across a wide range of industries
and platforms, including Android™,
Apple® iOS, Blackberry®, Linux,
Meego™, Symbian, Windows® Phone
and Windows 8.
About Accenture
Accenture is a global management
consulting, technology services
and outsourcing company, with
approximately 259,000 people serving
clients in more than 120 countries. Combining unparalleled experience,
comprehensive capabilities across all
industries and business functions,
and extensive research on the
world’s most successful companies,
Accenture collaborates with clients to
help them become high-performance
businesses and governments. The
company generated net revenues of
US$27.9 billion for the fiscal year
ended Aug. 31, 2012. Its home page is
www.accenture.com.
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