Introduction 2Strategize or Fall Behind 3-4Building a Strategy 4-8App that Responds to the Users’ Needs 9-11A Strategic Approach 12Further Guidance 13

Whitepaper

Planning an Effective Mobile Strategy

Introduction

Few technologies have become so ubiquitous as quickly as the mobile phone. The following chart shows how

much the penetration of cellphone use in the global population has rocketed in twenty years – from a single

percent of humanity based mainly in North America and Europe, to a near universal technology.

In developed countries, mobile phone use is even more deeply embedded. It is now the norm for 21st century

businesses to accommodate mobile access to, at a minimum, company email and calendar. Many businesses provide

employees access to far more of their online collaboration environments, and this trend is set to continue.

For those who have not yet adopted a coherent, company-wide mobile device policy, the range of considerations

involved can be daunting. This white paper is intended to provide clear and comprehensive guidance of the steps

required to developing a mobile enterprise strategy.

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80%

2014

1995

Graph 1. Mobile phone users - global population penetration

1 Source: KPCB, 2015

Planning an Effective Mobile Strategy shareplusapp.com 2

1 KPCB. 2015. Internet Trends. Available online: http://www.kpcb.com/internet-trends

Strategize or fall behind

It is clear that many organizations are failing their employees – and in

the long run, their customers – by not providing comprehensive mobile

solutions. Despite the ever expanding growth in mobile devices among

the workforce in general, a majority of companies are lagging behind in

2016 when it comes to mobility.

However, those companies that do implement a mobility strategy reap

the rewards. For example 3, British Gas, an energy company, supplied

its field workers with tablets as they installed new meters in customers’

homes. This avoided the need to carry around large (and often

outdated) manuals. It also helped employees contact customers more

easily while on the road and track the process of every job. This led to

a remarkable boost in productivity, simplified installations, increased

employee satisfaction and enhanced customer service.

The benefits of introducing mobile devices to the workforce are clear.

However, organizations must ensure their deployment is secure, widely

adopted, and effective.

To quote the findings:

“Employees are mobile-savvy and are empowering themselves with personal mobile tools at an accelerating rate, frustrated by IT strategies that they perceive as slow, unreceptive, tactical and not focused on their needs. This frustration is compounded as customers, colleagues and partners expect employees to be ever-more responsive”.

In a 2015 survey 2 of 1200 knowledge workers, employees revealed a series of insights into the real state of mobile in the workforce today. Findings showed that:

• Mobility is critical to getting their jobs done; 80% depended on mobile, and 60% revealed their

customers expect them to be contactable outside of work hours.

• Only one third of employees feel their company is providing sufficient mobile technology support.

• Because IT departments are currently failing to respond to their mobile needs, 34% of respondents

regularly found ‘workarounds’ to overcome company limitations.

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2 CCS Insight. 2015. Survey Finds Irrevocable Shirt for Personal Computing in Businesses. Available online: http://www.ccsinsight.com/blog/survey-finds-irrevocable-shift-to-personal-computing-in-businesses

3 Field Service News. 2015. Case Study: British Gas upgrade their mobile workforce solution with help from Computacenter. Available online: http://fieldservicenews.com/case-study-british-gas-computacenter/

Success involves more than simply providing employees with a device and some apps. This approach would almost certainly be a waste of money and resources. Instead, companies need a comprehensive, well planned strategy for mobile device deployment.

The following sections of this white paper outline the key steps required for you to implement a successful and durable mobile strategy and choose the apps and tools which your employees will value most. We have drawn on years of experience at the cutting edge of mobile enterprise app development to produce a comprehensive guide for decision makers.

Building a strategy

There are a wide range of factors to consider when developing an enterprise mobility strategy. Certain choices will be more important for some companies than others; an accountancy firm will have very different use cases to field workers at an energy company, who in turn will have very different requirements to a sales team. However, while the kinds of apps and devices these different teams will require are distinct, many of the following considerations will be shared by all.

As with any strategy, the plan should always be a means to an end – not an end in itself. It is essential that the company has a clear vision regarding what it wants from the mobile strategy, who will actually be using the device(s) and what the use case will be. The various options available to companies are outlined in Figure 1, below.

In some industries – such as contracting or construction, it will make the most sense for your company to provide workers with a company supplied device. They will be carrying out a range of tasks and will need a dedicated tool to help with all of these. In other industries however – such as healthcare – it may make more sense to allow employees to download a company supplied app to their own personal device. A visiting doctor might value being able to use her company’s drug prescription app and be able to access this from her own smartphone.

Planning an Effective Mobile Strategy infragistics.com/busi-

Specific Activity

CompanySupplied

Device

OwnDevice

A Range of Activities

Figure 1. The range of mobile options available to companies

Service Roles(Equipment

Maintenance)

Marketing(Campaign Reporting)

Healthcare Providers

(Remote Patient Monitoring)

Contracting(ConstructionContractors)

With a clear vision of where you want your company to be in terms of mobility, the next step is planning how to get there. Incorporating the following factors will ensure you have all your bases covered.

1. Evaluate currently-used mobile platforms

The first step in your strategy should be to evaluate your current IT scenario. Many companies use a range of tools, apps, devices and systems. It is not unusual for certain teams to be using Apple’s operating system, while others are using Windows. Your employees are likely to be using a range of hardware – not only in terms of OS, but also in terms of portable devices, laptops, tablets and mobiles.

Besides hardware it is also crucial to consider the software your employees use. Do you have a SharePoint environment for file sharing? Which kind of CRM are you running? Do you use a cloud-based environment and do your employees use specialized tools they need to use on the road?

You may find it valuable to produce a checklist which helps you understand better how employees are using IT, as in the example below:

What hardware do we use?

How do we currently manage it?

Which team uses it? Is it mobile accessible?

Do we need it to be mobile accessible?

Dell PCs

We have a BYODpolicy, soemployees useiPhones,Samsung, HTC,Windows Phoneand Blackberry

Handheldbarcode scanners

SharePoint

Salesforce

Microsoft Office

Firewall and physi-cal security

Employees need to register them with use and login via VPN

From a central console

Company wide

Sales team

Company wide

All on-premises staff

A variety of teams, mainly for check-ing emails

Our delivery teams

Installed in on-premises servers

Installed on-premises

Installed locally

No

Yes

Yes

No

No

No

No

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Which software do we use?

Team or company- wide?

Is it online or in-stalled locally?

Is it currently mobile accessible?

Do we need it to be mobile accessible?

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Figure 2. Example of a current IT evaluation checklist

Data-at-Res

Once you have drawn up a list of your organization’s existing software and hardware, you will be better armed to analyze the solutions out there. This kind of list can provide you with an idea of your needs and wants, and help you narrow down which mobile solution is most appropriate for your company.

2. Mobile device ownership: Company-owned, or Bring Your Own Device (BYOD)?

The second issue to consider is the ownership of mobile devices. The two options here are BYOD or COPE (company owned, personally enabled).

BYOD involves allowing employees to connect to your company’s systems via their own personal devices. As explained in Fig 1. above, certain industries and roles will make this a more appealing option.

For many companies, the choice of BYOD or Company Supplied will be obvious as it will depend on your budget and specific requirements. Once you have selected one or the other, your next step to consider is security.

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The advantages of BYOD include:

• Cost savings• Employee convenience (don’t have to carry a second device• Saves the complications involved

in managing them

BYOD is growing in popularity. However, there are definite advantages of company supplied devices too:

• Easy to maintain and control• Potentially more secure• Can choose devices with the exact

specifications you want

Challenges of BYOD include:

• More complicated to manage and update• Higher risk of hacking• Higher risk of inappropriate use

As with BYOD, there are challenges in providing employees with company-owned devices:

• Significant upfront cost on hardware and software

• Hardware will go out of date relatively quickly

3. Choose your Mobile Device Management (MDM) provider

As employees are accessing company data from a mobile device which they also may use for accessing personal information or any other content online, that device is vulnerable to online threats. These threats may include accessing the data stored on this device, or logging network traffic to access any data in transit. These threats are effectively minimized by the use of a Mobile Device Management solution which allows you to configure the mobile device remotely and restrict its use accordingly to ensure its safe use.

As with all data security, the most important practice here should be to implement defense in depth. Imagine your company information as a house with locked doors on the outside, but also with doors to each room in the house locked. If a thief managed to break into the kitchen, they could steal anything is stored there. However, they wouldn’t be able to get into the living room or study or bedrooms because all the other doors are locked internally, so the damage is limited.

The same applies to company data. Even if a mobile device is corrupted, data in depth would mean that most malicious attackers could only do limited damage.

Beyond basic data protection, you should also consider one of a range of MDM suppliers such as MobileIron, XenMobile or BitzerMobile. These products provide tools for controlling devices from a central console, as well as remote data wipe and encryption at rest and in transit.

Selecting a tool which corresponds with the specific needs of your organization is essential and will depend on your vision, support by vendors of your existing security infrastructure, and how your employees use your tools. Factors to bear in mind include:

• Some MDMs integrate better with different environments - be that SharePoint,

Office 365 or Google Docs

• Some MDMs let users separate their personal mobile apps from those covered by their company, favoring

a BYOD policy

• If you currently run Office 365, the platform’s built-in MDM capabilities may already cover many of your

needs

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4. Training and adoption success

The next step in your mobile strategy is to plan for user adoption. The hardware and software you choose will, hopefully, be user friendly. Nonetheless, achieving long term ROI requires absolute user adoption of the solution you choose. While an intuitive User Interface (UI) and the versatility of mobile will certainly encourage adoption, training is likely to be beneficial too.

Prior to introducing your strategy, carry out research with users about their preferred solutions asking the following kinds of questions:

• Which OS/device types do they currently use, and what do they want to use in future?• What corporate apps do they want on their phones and tablets?• Would they actually prefer BYOD or company supplied?

If you have chosen a specific application or a new kind of tablet or mobile, training may well be necessary, especially for less technologically minded staff.

5. Measure success

Before you actually deploy your chosen solution, it is wise to define the metrics you will use to gauge success. Again, the measurement you use will depend largely on your use cases, and can be achieved by considering pure monetary ROI or by carrying out opinion surveys with employees, 3, 6 and 12 months into the deployment.

Metrics might include:

• Are employees more engaged and productive when working remotely?

• What have the additional support costs been (and is this more or less than what you would have had to pay

with no mobile strategy)?

• Do employees feel the company is meeting their mobile needs?

In the next section we will turn our focus from hardware to software, to help you decide which apps you need to run on your systems.

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Apps that respond to the user’s needs

Having prepared your general mobile strategy, the next phase of deployment is to select the apps that you plan to use. Apps should correspond closely to user needs and facilitate their tasks. When choosing apps, there are a number of key considerations to bear in mind and questions which you should always ask when selecting tools.

1. Choose the right experience

The first consideration when choosing an app is to decide whether you will use a native app or a web app. What are these, and what is the difference between them?

Web apps are accessed through the

mobile device’s web browser. The

user simply goes to a website which

has been specifically designed for

the mobile screen and interacts with

company data there

What is it?

Advantages

Web apps: Native apps:

Drawbacks

Native apps are downloaded

from an app store (or are built

in-house) to the user’s device

and are designed to work

perfectly with their specific

device type and/or operating

system.

• Much easier to update centrally

• Do not need to be device specific

• Takes advantage of the

device’s features, such as

camera, GPS etc.

• Can allow offline access

• Can provide a smoother UX

• Faster and more efficient

• Needs an Internet connection

• More expensive to keep a web

app responsive for lots of

different devices

• Expensive if built in-house

• Requires regular downloads

to be kept updated

• Not available on all devices

Generally speaking, native apps are preferable for enterprise use cases. Your employees will be using the tool for specific work-related tasks and will appreciate the advantages of offline access to content. While both approaches have their strengths, the strengths of native apps are particularly compelling in the enterprise environment.

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Native app or web app?An architect visiting a construction site might want to take a photo on her iPhone to upload it directly to

the company’s SharePoint. It would be perfectly possible to do this with either native apps or web apps.

However, using a native app is more advantageous.

Completing this action on a web app would require taking the photo, storing it in the phone’s memory

then connecting to the web app and uploading the picture. By contrast, using a native app would mean

people could simply open their SharePoint app, take a photo and add it directly to the folder. Even if they

didn’t have an Internet connection, this approach would still allow them to store the photo in the app and

automatically synchronize it to the server later, once a connection had been reestablished.

2. Continuous updates

As with any investment in technology, it is highly advisable to select an app from an established provider. If your

provider collapses 18 months into your contract, you will lose all support and the app will no longer receive updates,

meaning it will soon become redundant and open to the risk of hacking.

A good app needs to maintain quality with regular, rolling updates so as to ensure security and improvements are

constantly available, together with support for the latest version of the mobile device operating system. Your users

will also value a tool which is regularly improved.

When selecting apps for the workplace you therefore need to ask the following questions of the vendor:

• How regularly do they provide updates?

• What updates are currently in development?

• What kind of support can they offer?

• What are their plans for expansion?

• Which devices do they support; can they offer cross-platform development?

With a clear idea of the future of the app you select, you will feel more confident investing in one provider or another.

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3. Can you work offline?

The major appeal of mobile working is that you can be productive wherever you are – be that on the subway, the

plane or in remote locations. As highlighted above in the comparison of native and web apps, a major advantage of

native apps is that they allow your users to work with or without an Internet connection.

For example, if your company uses SharePoint, employees will really value being able to access documents in offline

mode, edit them and save them whenever and wherever they want. Selecting an app that allows your users to achieve

maximum productivity in this way is extremely important.

4. Cross-platform functionality

There is an enormous range of smartphones and tablets on the market today. Whether you choose a BYOD or

company supplied policy, ensuring your app will actually work on all those different screen sizes and Operating

Systems is extremely important.

Can your app be seamlessly updated to a later version to support a new operating system, or a new capability

without intervention by the user?

While you may not be able to provide an app that works on every single device, you should be able to reach the

majority if you can offer access to iOS and Android devices – as these are the most popular systems by a large

margin. Many apps are still only really available on one device type. Using a checklist as described in Fig. 2 of this

white paper will show you which kinds of devices are most common at your company and indicate the app

you should select.

5. Can it be configured?Finally, take into account how configurable the app is, and how closely it can be made to model the your work

scenario, so you can achieve your goal quickly. This has important implications for reducing the needed training,

reducing the load on your support staff, improving solution adoption, and boosting user efficiency.

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A strategic approach

Careful planning and preparation are essential to a successful enterprise mobile solution deployment. Simply

providing users with apps and devices and expecting them to ‘get on with it’ is a very risky approach which is likely to

lead to failure and confusion. Planning for both the deployment of the solution itself, as well as thinking forward – in

terms of updates, support and adoption – is key.

This white paper has aimed to outline the key steps involved in developing your company’s mobile strategy. This is

summarized in the following checklist, with a suggested timeframe.

Gather requirements, understand end goals, aims and use cases.

Interview colleagues and meet with key players to make overarching

decisions and project plan.

1-2

Weeks Activity

Decide between BYOD and company supplied devices. Decide

whether you will build an app in-house, outsource it to a development

company or buy a prebuilt, customizable app from a trusted supplier.

2-3

Choose your MDM supplier based on the apps and devices you have

selected3

If you decide to buy a prebuilt app, you should download a free version

of the tool and use it with a test group of employees to decide if it

corresponds with their needs

If you decide to commission an app either in-house or outsource it to

a development company, ensure adequate testing is carried out and

prototypes are produced from the beginning

General deployment and training

4-6 (Option A)

4 - 26 (Option B)

7-10 (Option A)

26- 29 (Option B)

10 + (Option A)

30 + (Option B)

General deployment and training and returning to the development

team if major errors are discovered

Ensure you keep all apps regularly updated

As above

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SharePlus Enterprise: Mobile Collaboration Simplified

SharePlus Enterprise makes it possible for your mobile team to be productive anywhere, anytime with online and

offline content discovery and sharing.

• One place to find: Drive mobile workforce performance with universal content access, aggregation, and

organization. Search and access files on all popular cloud and on-premise content sources.

• One place to work: Support mobile collaboration with secure workspaces where teams can create and share

content, including PDFs, photos, and data visualizations.

• One app to manage: Use workspace templates and a single administration tool to quickly configure, customize,

and deploy your mobile collaboration solution. Leverage pre-integration with MDM providers to enforce security

policies.

Whether your mobile workers are in field sales, field services, or job site project management—or even if you are

trying to standardize on paperless meetings—SharePlus Enterprise mobile collaboration can transform your organization. To learn how, visit www.infragistics.com/products/shareplus-enterprise. From there, you can set up a free team trial of SharePlus Enterprise.

Or simply email sales@infragistics.com for information on how you can get a mobility solution proof of concept for your business created within 24 hours.

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