According to a recent survey, 35% of mobile phone owners use apps such as Facebook before they get out of bed in the morning.Pause a moment and let that sink in.
These are the same people that buy your products, view your ads, work in your offices and lead your departments, and over one-third of them use an app before they even get out of bed in the morning!
This is the reality of Connected Mobility. It represents a fundamental change to your business and your consumers, suppliers, employees and competitors are already tapping into this shift. A winning mobile strategy isn’t a nice-to-have anymore; it’s a necessity.
Take a look at a simple One Page Mobile Strategy Planning Tool that can help guide your business in the creation of a mobile strategy.
Underlying this tool are five critical insights driving success…
1. Define Your Mobile Center-of-Gravity
The foundation of a winning mobile strategy is a strong Mobile Center-of-Gravity. In a previous post, we identified the elements that must be addressed in defining your Mobile Center-of-Gravity.
2. The Right Solution Matters
Native vs Mobile Browser; hybrid or pure-play; how to handle device proliferation; Cloud ready or self-hosted; performance & scalability… these are some of the critical design drivers for a mobile app – and getting them right is critical. So how does an organization ensure their mobile strategy drives towards the right solution?
Ask the right questions.
10 Questions Driving Mobile Solutions
Will you be supporting one target device or multiple devices?
Native app or web (or both)?
Self-contained or will the apps have a backend component?
Is the backend self-hosted or CloudSmart?
Standard devices or BYOD?
Device constraints?
Able to function without internet connectivity?
Apps need to scale?
High availability and/or DR?
What are the key app KPIs for success?
3. It’s All About the UX
An app with a lousy user experience (UX) is worse than no app at all. There’s nothing worse than building an app that no one uses. The best way to ensure your organization doesn’t make the same mistakes is to address the key UX drivers in your mobile strategy. Many of the UX details are app-specific, but several elements span an organization. As a minimum, your mobile strategy should address the following areas:
Purpose. What’s the driving purpose (or purposes) behind your mobile strategy? How will these be addressed as part of the UX?
Target Audience. What types of users will your apps target? How will their needs be addressed in the UX?
Context. How will your apps be used across broad scenarios? How will this drive the UX?
Customer Experience (CX). What type of CX are you looking for? How will this drive customer intimacy?
Branding. How will the UX enforce a consistent brand and image across all apps?
Design Language. Will there be a common Design Language defining a consistent UX across devices and apps?
UX Design Process. What is your organization’s process for creating world-class user experiences?
Constraints. Are there any constraints impacting UX design?
4. Talent Drives Success
When it comes time to execute on a mobile strategy, talented people make all the difference. But the mobile strategy itself needs to identify the type of talent needed – and where to find this talent. The last thing you want is a budget that doesn’t include the cost of the talent you need.
5. Don’t Forget Security and Privacy
Mobile devices come with all sorts of interesting features that tend to drive IT departments crazy: cameras, microphones, geo-location, bluetooth, etc. And then there are the apps themselves – wonderful little nuggets of uncontrolled mayhem downloaded directly from some app store without direct IT department oversight.
Complicating everything are the users themselves. There may be information we’d like to use, but how do we ensure we protect a user’s privacy?
The mobile strategy must address both of these areas. Detailed solutions aren’t required, but the strategy needs to identify the Critical Security Concerns all apps must address and the Key Privacy Policies they will support.
-Stix
@mleetwo