Mobile application development platforms (MADP) and mobile backend as a service (MBaaS) offerings revolutionized the landscape, consolidating tools and services to simplify cross-platform development. Time-to-launch for enterprise mobile applications decreased significantly, as did related development costs. However, companies were still required to hire specialized employees with the skills needed to develop and maintain mobile applications.

Now, coding-free configuration solutions can eliminate development entirely by providing device-native pathways to key backend systems — solutions that are aimed at business analysts and line-of-business personnel, not developers. This report reviews mobile-application configuration (MAC) tools and their business value. It will help IT decision makers and line-of-business executives understand the conditions under which MAC tools may be a good choice for an organization.

Key findings in this report:

• Traditional enterprise mobile-application development approaches are relatively costly and time consuming because they require developers with specialized skills and training to write, test, and modify significant amounts of code.
• Mobile-application configuration offers an alternative that IT or business employees can use to create working mobile versions of existing enterprise applications in less time and at a lower cost.
• Enterprises should explore deploying MAC tools in place of, or in addition to, MADPs, native SDKs, or HTML5 when they need to create and launch mobile versions of existing enterprise applications quickly.

Thumbnail image courtesy: iStock/Thinkstock

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This report examines potential strategies and tactics in the MCM market. It provides a snapshot of three current approaches to managing mobile content, highlighting the pros and cons of each. It also examines three potential go-to-market and deployment strategies for MCM. We conclude the report with a look at the future of MCM and the market for related technologies.

Key takeaways include:

• Multiple market research surveys have found that, while enterprise mobility is very important to around 75 percent of IT leaders, less than half of those leaders have deployed supporting technologies, including those for MCM.
• The enterprise mobility management (EMM) suite and enterprise file storage, sync and sharing application and service segments will see significant near-term consolidation because there are currently too many vendors with little differentiation in their technical capabilities and market strategies.
• In the longer term, vendors that can enable unified management of content across all computing devices and deployment options will be especially attractive to deploying organizations and larger competitors that already have the capabilities necessary to execute on their nascent adaptive case management strategies.

Thumbnail image courtesy of shironosov/Thinkstock.

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Using publicly available information and new research commissioned for this report, we detail the Dropbox problem and characterize the reaction of many IT departments, which is decidedly negative. Most organizations react to the problem by attempting to block access to unsanctioned file-sharing services, but this invariably is ineffective or backfires. Without a viable alternative, employees become less productive or use different consumer file-sharing services under the radar of corporate IT.

Managers are natural and indispensable mediators of the conflicting views on file sharing held by various levels of individuals and groups in large organizations. They manage the trade-offs between information freedom and control on a daily basis. This report introduces two simple frameworks that managers can use to lead on this issue by arbitrating conflicts and ensuring that the file-sharing requirements of both camps are considered and met.

Key observations include:

• The very characteristics that make consumer file-sharing services attractive to employees trying to get work done spawn nightmares for the senior executives, IT departments, and the risk, security and compliance officers of their organization.
• Managers must support their employees and help them be productive, but they are also required to enforce corporate information policies. To succeed, managers need to find a file-sharing solution that is accepted and used by both line-of-business employees and those charged with ensuring information security, privacy, and compliance in the organization.
• Every organization occupies a unique position on the file-sharing freedom/control continuum. Using the frameworks presented in this report, managers can help their employees, IT staff, and senior executives to first determine where their organization lies on this continuum and then to choose an appropriate file-sharing solution that enables achievement of individual, group, and corporate objectives.
• Most companies, particularly those in regulated industries, should endeavor to increase control over their file-sharing policies, practices, and technologies, but should do so in ways that do not impede employee productivity or satisfaction.

Thumbnail image courtesy of Ingram Publishing/Thinkstock.

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Importance of mobile-content access and collaboration

Source: AIIM 

How does an enterprise manage content when it goes mobile? This GigaOM Research report examines that question, first by defining mobile content management (MCM) and then comparing it to other technologies that enable lesser levels of content use on mobile computing devices. We’ll also look at MCM’s potential benefits and challenges, the value MCM adds to activities that directly support operational process execution, and the future of MCM.

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Section 2 investigated the actual and potential impacts of these trends on IT departments and their managers. We concluded that IT departments are losing direct control over how IT is purchased and used by the businesses they support. The IT professional’s job is also becoming more challenging because of the rapidly increasing complexity of the IT environment in most businesses. These two changes — decreasing control and increasing complexity — demand changes in how IT professionals think and act.

This final section of the report presents actionable strategies and tactics that IT managers may use to respond to the new realities of corporate computing they face. The primary recommendations are to redesign the IT organization for the loss of control, accelerate the IT department’s shift to a service provider model, become more aware of external and internal current realities and emerging trends, and become a proactive leader in developing and implementing IT and corporate strategy.

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Part 1 of this three-part report described and quantified the cloud, mobile and consumerization trends, demonstrating that they are now real, growing rapidly and perilous to ignore. This second part investigates the actual and potential impacts of these trends on IT departments and their managers. Part 3 presents actionable strategic options for IT managers to deploy in response to the new reality of corporate computing they face.

The impacts of cloud, mobile and consumerization are combining to create another force that is overwhelming many IT departments: complexity. In this report, we will examine several types of complexity in the business IT environment, including:

• Complexity of devices and applications as well as physical and virtual computing environments.
• We will discuss the related challenges for IT staff of managing, monitoring and supporting computing assets in an increasingly complex environment.
• Finally, we will add the ultimate level of complexity — the unknown — to the discussion as we look at the growing use of shadow IT in businesses and how that is making IT workers’ jobs seem impossible.

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The New IT Manager is a three-part report meant to educate and advise IT managers on the latest developments within IT management for business.

• Section 1 of this three-part report describes and quantifies each of these trends, demonstrating that they are real now, growing rapidly and perilous to ignore.
• Section 2 investigates the actual and potential impacts of these trends on IT departments and their managers.
• Section 3 presents actionable strategic options with which IT managers may respond to the new reality of corporate computing that they face.

Cloud, mobile and consumerization are not the only trends changing the business landscape, but they are among the most pronounced in terms of visibility and impact on business computing. In the following pages, we present research data that shows currently high and growing future levels of adoption for each trend. We also articulate why each trend is important, from the perspectives of businesspeople and IT staff. The benefits gained by businesses that have already embraced the cloud, mobile and consumerization trends — increased productivity, agility, scalability and reliability, as well as reduced operating costs — are fueling their rapid adoption. It is important to remember that while each trend is powerful in its own right, the confluence of the three is responsible for the overwhelming effect they are having on IT departments and their managers (which we will examine in section 2 of the report).

The post The new IT manager, part 1: trends affecting IT in business appeared first on Gigaom.

Nearly every aspect of work has been disrupted by powerful, macro forces, including technology, globalization, demographics, economic abundance and environmental sustainability. These shifts are affecting how work is designed, assigned and completed. Key to that are the roles of the organizations, managers and individual workers. This research note examines how those groups are evolving and what they should do to better align with the new realities of work.

Companies mentioned in this research note include Eli Lilly, Li & Fung, LinkedIn and Zappos.

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The current norms and practices are increasingly coming under direct assault by a myriad of social and technological forces that are rapidly eroding business as usual. To be competitive and successful in the future business world, individual workers and entire organizations and firms will have to master new skills in the data sciences and the ability to work in a cooperative or collaborative fashion (in contrast to competition’s being the primary driving force). These same tools may ultimately transform not only how work is accomplished but also the form of the organizations themselves.

Further, at the heart of the future of work and the future firm will be the role of information and how we collect it, manage it, share it and ultimately move from data to information and knowledge to the wisdom that will drive the next generation of innovative products and services.

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