In a recent study by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), titled “PwC’s NextGen: A Global Generational Study”, they highlighted a number of learnings that organisations can take from the study.
Among a number of useful and interesting insights, one of the key learnin
gs was that in order to meet the needs of a younger working generation, organisations need to accelerate their mobile efforts. The study was conducted worldwide and took into consideration differences across culture and region, and this key business learning still shines through.
It speaks of organisations needing to mature in their mobile strategies. It speaks to the value of a mobile workforce able to access systems, communicate effectively, and deliver services through mobile technology. To have an app is no longer enough to prove we have a mobile strategy. We need to look into each aspect of our business to highlight area’s of focus that can benefit from mobile solutions.
Maturing your organisation’s mobile strategy should involve four steps and mindset shifts:
1) Explore
Mobile apps delivering information is where most organisations start. They create applications that take existing information and data sources and deliver them to their clients. It is a wonderful connection point with a customer and definitely goes a long way to creating a closer connection with customers and employees.
2) Accelerate
Mobile apps delivering transactional value are not necessarily the second step in maturing as a business, but definitely an important aspect of mobile strategy. In developed economies many businesses are already offering transaction capability through mobile devices. The smartphone has created a good foundation of technology to work from when delivering these services. The race is on to provide mobile transactional services in emerging markets. Although there are a few services available to offer the value, adoption becomes difficult to promote due to legislative concerns and application adoption.
An industry in a massive state of flux is retail, as they compete against online stores which have offered mobile transactional capability to their customer. Purchasing is no longer geographically dependent and consumers can often be sold something in one store but the purchase is made from another. Essentially many retailers have inadvertently become showrooms for products sold on amazon and other popular online stores.
3) Transform
After a while, the impact of mobile will dawn on a maturing business and open the strategic thinking towards developing new mobile specialised applications that are central to the business process instead of an “add on” to existing processes. An interesting case study is how the social media network, Instagram, started their offering on mobile. Realising the consumer and technology shift of smartphones allowed users to easily interact, socialise, and use the application. In other words they met new markets successfully by only using the mobile channel. Other examples could be the adoption of mobile only sales kiosks and POS or internal processes running primarily on mobile devices.
4) Mobile first
The final stage of mobile maturity is to begin asking strategic business questions with mobile in mind. To design product delivery, customer connection, employee systems and engagement around mobile. It is a mindset shift to seeing mobile as the key enabler of business strategy in local and international business.
Understanding these stages of maturity. should help your business identify its stage in the mobile process, and empower you to make decisions towards mobile maturity. This understanding will assist in gearing your business for the influx of Generation Y employees and customers.
To download the PwC study, click here.