New Research from IBF: Enterprise Mobility
For more than a decade, intranet applications have focused on providing employees working at their desks with access to corporate information. Many organisations have reported that the corporate intranet has made a significant impact on business performance. However, in most organisations there are many employees who spend some or all of their working day outside the office working with customers and suppliers and on business development. Although these employees have a very direct impact on revenue generation and on profit margins, they have until now had very limited access to corporate information.
With the advent of broadband mobile technologies, intranet managers now have the possibility of delivering a range of content and functionality to these employees. However, implementing these applications can be a significant challenge for intranet teams using current content management systems (CMSs) and search applications, because of the very different design parameters for mobile applications. These may require substantial changes to be made to the information architecture of the intranet. Security issues also have to be taken into account.
New research by Martin White investigates the significant amount of development and market research that has emerged in late 2010 and early 2011, so that intranet managers are better placed to make decisions about if, how and when they need to take action to support mobile workers with access to sections of the corporate intranet. The report sets out factors driving the intense current interest in enterprise mobility, looks at case studies from Sprint, Sanofi Aventis and a leading global mobile telecommunications company, and makes 10 recommendations.
‘Enterprise Mobility – An Intranet Perspective’ is available for purchase from our online shop. Cost: £295, or early bird discounted price of £195 if you buy it by 31 May 2011 (use discount coupon ‘EARLY-ENTMOB’ at the checkout). DWG members can download the report free from the Research Library on the member extranet.
In the Executive Summary, Martin writes “In the current business environment companies are looking to gain, or at least maintain, competitive advantage, which often depends on the ability to react quickly and decisively to new business opportunities. It is here that enterprise mobile applications have a very important role to play, for example by providing direct access to business intelligence and customer information databases… It is likely that the intranet team will not be in the forefront of making a decision on supporting a mobile workforce, but once the decision has been made the intranet team will have to move very rapidly to play its part in application development. ”
About the author: Martin White is managing director of Intranet Focus Ltd, which he established in 1999. Martin consults on the design and management of intranets, enterprise information management strategy, and the specification, selection and implementation of content management and enterprise search software. He has 35 years experience in information management, electronic publishing, market research and management consulting, and has worked in more than 30 countries. He has also been visiting professor at the iSchool, University of Sheffield since 2002. His books include ‘The Content Management Handbook’, ‘Successful Enterprise Search Management’ (with Stephen Arnold) and ‘The Intranet Management Handbook’.
Categorised in: Digital workplace, Intranets, Mobile sites & apps, Research reports
