Enterprise Mobility: Where to Start?

I’m very slow when it comes to buying big-ticket items. I get overwhelmed with all the choices, and I’m always looking for the right-est (not best-est) thing to buy. (I’m a bit like Sheldon Cooper trying to decide between Xbox One and PS4 where tablets are concerned, even though when it comes to consoles, I eventally ended up with all of the previous generation.)

Take my tablet. Well you can’t take it, as I’ve still not bought one! When the iPad was announced back in 2010, I thought ‘Right, I’ll have one of those’. But almost immediately I doubted my decision, and went into research mode. Then I realised I’d be in New York City in May, so I could combine visiting the new Apple Store (I know, tragic!) and getting the device into one epic outing. But it was sold out, so I couldn’t buy one. And by then, we were months in to the lifecycle, so best wait for the new one.

I then went through that same process for next two iPads: wait for a trip, iPad sold out, wait for next one.

Then the mini came out, and now I have no idea. And perhaps I should go Nexus? I don’t know.

Good thing I’m not in change of any company’s enterprise mobility strategy where I might need to buy 100s of devices, mobilise email, apps and docs. I’d never get started.

And it seems I’m not the only one.

In a recent survey by Lopez Research, over two-thirds of companies said only their email, contact, and calendar applications are mobile-enabled. One of the great things about research: it reminds industry insiders where the real-world bar actually is.

So, where to start?

SAP (disclosure: my employer) worked with Lopez Research, to put together an interactive website and guide to Finding the Direction for your Enterprise Mobile Journey.

You’ll find guides, videos and more background information to help you get started, or pick up where you left off, including 19 steps from Lopez Research:

• 10 Steps to Extend Existing Processes to Mobile The best way to mobilise is to extend the systems you already have into the mobile world.
  
• 5 Steps To Accelerate Your Decisions and Responses Create strategies to improve how you deploy mobile is deployed and how to enhance strategies and processes with new contextual data, including temperature, GPS coordinates, motion, etc.
  
• 4 Steps To Transform The Way You Do Business Once you’ve embraced mobility, it’s time to put it to use—along with the Internet of Things, big data, and analytics—to gain new insights and use them to really transform your business.

Now, if someone could just create 10 Steps to Choose the Right Tablet for me, I’d be all set.