Almost 90pc of CIOs surveyed are failing to embrace a mobile strategy that will transform their business or open up new revenue streams.
The Mobile Helix study of 300 CIOs and IT decision-makers found that 78pc of the enterprises involved actually have a mobile strategy.
The study found that 87pc of CIOs believe that a majority of their employees would benefit from increased access to enterprise applications, like CRM, ERP and SharePoint on mobile devices.
However, complexity concerns play a role in contributing to the reluctance of CIOs to invest more into mobility: 66pc of CIOs say that they think that it’s too complex, and 72pc say it’s too costly to integrate mobile innovations into legacy applications.
Security concerns
Development, support and security concerns are also factors in limiting mobile initiatives. Yet, if these issues can be overcome, 70pc of CIOs stated that there is support from their business to use mobility to drive strategic business value.
CIOs are most likely to use mobility as an extension of the office today. Less than half of enterprises are adding mobile-specific functionality to add value to specific enterprise applications.
“Cost concerns are understandable, given that widespread enterprise mobility is still in its infancy, yet if CIOs make the right long-term choices today, they can generate significant returns for their business,” said Mobile Helix’s President Matt Bancroft.
“Mobility has the potential to disrupt business in much the same way as the internet, but at the moment, cost and complexity challenges lead people to frequently ignore the enormous possibilities available.
“Take an industry where physical signatures are still needed: why not look at ways to use fingerprint scanning and location awareness on mobile devices as a way to completely change the way the industry works.
“Ultimately, we see the strategic value of mobility delivered in three phases: mobilising existing enterprise applications, then adding mobile-specific capabilities to existing applications, and then creating totally new mobile apps where need and business case dictate,” Bancroft said.
Potential value
Bancroft said that to date people are focusing on doing what they have always done – but from a mobile device sthere is so much more potential value.
“Perceived complexity is hindering adoption, but a key challenge to mobility is companies’ lack of vision, and that is a much bigger hurdle to overcome. With the introduction and broad adoption of HTML5, enterprises today can develop and deliver apps using their existing infrastructure and in-house skills.
“This means that the development of mobility solutions and mobile innovations can be both simple and cost effective.”
