Altimeter Report: Power to the People, Your Mobile Workforce

The term “mobile” is an amorphous term that can be applied to nearly every digital and technology strategy. So where should companies start? This report outlines a pragmatic approach based on: 1) Conducting a mobility audit 2) Examining Roles 3) Then choosing technology and partners choices.

It’s important you understand that one size doesn’t fit all needs; know that a different strategy is needed for each persona needs –don’t choose technology partners first, then force it into the org. While this seems common sense for most, many are not approaching with this needs based approach first.

Altimeter’s latest research report on how corporations should systematically develop a mobile strategy for their workforce is now published by Analyst Chris Silva. As the editor of this report, it was exciting to see from Chris and Jessica Groopman (researcher) how there were clear use cases surfacing, but also learning how corporations struggle on where to start.

Role-Based Mobile Use Cases
Above: Understand the roles of each worker persona require different mobile strategies

Technology Provider Showcase
Above: Once you’ve gone through steps 1 and 2 to first do internal research, you can choose from some of these potential technology providers.

Related Resources

16 Replies to “Altimeter Report: Power to the People, Your Mobile Workforce”

  1. I don’t agree with this. Specifically I don’t feel individuals in a large org should have such free reign. The problem the IT group has is with too many platforms and technologies keeping them updated, secure, and virus free is a huge effort. While discussions deciding what over all will fit best with some folks having to make concessions is fine, to allow each person their own choice is a really bad business decision.

  2. Myself and a coworker wrote a business case on this earlier this year and I was quite amazed how much money we would save by moving only 400 associates to this program (roughly 1/5 our corporate workforce in the Bay Area). I have been mobile and without the need for a desk for several months now but I am in the office pretty much every day. My computer set-up is different than the standard build that is normally provided which was development in partnership with our IT team. This was also a very large change for our People and Facility teams.

  3. There’s also a presumption here that the IT department will get their Mobile Control house in order before allowing in a lot of employee liable devices, something we’ll be building out in detail as a strategy on a follow on piece to follow shortly. 

  4. Thanks for sharing this paper, Jeremy. I have to think more and more companies are going to adopt this kind of strategy. When it’s explained with this level of clarity, it all seems like common sense (which shows the authors have done their job!) 

    The most crucial recommendation is the middle step in the action plan: working with different groups of users to pinpoint their specific mobile needs and help them find solutions that may even be better than the ones they are using now. Not only will this maximize the productivity gains from mobile, but users are also more likely to cooperate with strategies that they see as aimed at helping them get their work done, rather than making life easier for IT. And that, paradoxically, will help make life easier for IT.

  5. I definitely agree with you on
    this.  The first step to take is really
    to understand the needs of each role in the organization, and then choose the
    right technology.  That should be the natural
    flow of things.  And not buy technology
    and make your people adapt.  Doing that
    can actually make it harder for the whole organization to adjust to technology.

     

  6. I think it’s an important thing to us is mobile.Otherwise, we would have been interrupted in many mobile.Because of IT, we can easily .communicate with each other.Many platforms and technologies are updated.

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