Identify, Empower Your Mobile Workforce - New Report

Today marks the publication of my second Altimeter Group research report. My collaborator and editor Jeremiah Owyang and I began with a hypothesis that, as the age of mobile = email has come to a close, are mobile employees being served with the proper applications to make them be more productive? Our guess was that they weren’t, and largely, rollouts are just getting started but there are already some lessons to be learned. The most important is that different roles have different needs from mobility, and determining who is using mobile today, and what their needs are from mobile is the first step to a defensible mobility plan.

Companies that choose to embrace mobility are finding that certain tools lend themselves to certain types of users, and companies that refuse to act? They’re being pushed toward adopting tools as users bring consumer technology into the workplace on the devices they themselves own.

Our findings included the following: 

• Sales and field service personnel still top the list.  Who are the most important employees to get mobile? Those who live in the field, naturally, this has not changed. Not surprisingly,  workers in the field are the first candidates to be given mobile tools. Quickly on their heels, however, come executives, technical works and last but not least, the large group of information workers.
• Consume, collaborate or compute? We grouped the tools enterprises are using into three groups, apps to consume static information, apps to foster collaboration and exchange of information and apps that allowed users to take their applications and even their desktops on the the go with them via their mobile device. Each group of applications has its own strength, and those strengths correspond to the way various groups work.
• To each (role) their own (apps.) We find that information workers are most likely to benefit from applications that allow for consuming information while the field and sales pros gravitate toward collaborative apps. What about those executives and technical workers? They’re looking to replace the clunky laptop they’ve been issued with a tablet, while not giving up functionality and, therefore, are seeking solutions to compute.

The report outlines the steps to take in order to take stock of mobile workers, evaluate their needs and choose a partner that will best serve the needs of workers and drive productivity. We’re in the early days of mobile, and the market will continue to gain players before it consolidates and constricts which is why the action plan outlined in this research is designed to help in the shortlisting of solutions that will bes serve your company’s roles.

Altimeter’s Research Shows That The Mobility Market Is Still Nascent In Its Maturity, The Number Of New Entrants Growing

The full report is available below, embedded in this post. On June 14th, 2012, we’ll be hosting a webinar outlining the research and focusing on how companies are empowering their people and how you can empower yours. Register here today.

External Coverage of This Research

The Smart Van

CMSWire

Web Strategy

PandoDaily (via @@BrianSolis on Twitter)

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