Let’s face it – the process of selecting the right technology to address next-generation solutions like enterprise mobility, BYOD or big data, is exciting for sure but also implies undertaking a massive research project. Researching the optimum solution needs to be strategic to one’s organizational requirements as well as very tactical to ensure faster adoption right from the beginning. It is required, by design, that the technology stack of choice not only solves the current pain point but can also be scalable.
It is not uncommon in this research project for the core team members to sweat the small stuff and find themselves as victims of what we call “the whiteboard effect.
It essentially means that the team spends a vast amount of time, going in spirals and over-analyzing the problem, before drawing that first line on a clean board. Interestingly, there are boatloads of vendors, and counting, in the market today. There is also an immense amount of marketing data and statistics of the few that ventured down this path and how their sales and savings skyrocketed.
After having established the numerous distractions that exist today in hindering the optimum technology selection process, here is a suggested framework that can guide you to achieve the desired goal of enterprise mobility and beyond.
We typically, begin this exercise by deconstructing the problem and then build a solution framework in a broader sense that could apply to multiple situations.
Problem Deconstruct
The first step to attain the right solution is to identify and document a well-defined problem statement. The definition of a problem statement in an emerging technology should, in our opinion, always include in a succinct paragraph:
- Business problem
- Ideal success criteria
For example, here is a problem statement from an organization we worked with and that we shall use in this article:
“We are a retail business, and our sales reps are on the field making decisions out of few months’ old sales data and gut feel. For deal specific data, our reps have to be at their desk for secure access. There is no real-time data to support a decision on the field. Our reports are generated every few weeks and are at the mercy of our reporting software speed. Ideally, we would like our sales team to be mobile and selling products and not tied to their desks. We want our workforce to be able to access data that is closer to real time and drill down as needed and make a data-driven decision.”
These statements are not very far from a typical enterprise mobility problem in the global market. On further analysis, this business requirement can be broken down into:
- Right device for the right situation
- Secure access to corporate data
- Visualization application
- Fast reporting system
These result in a list of technology bullets for the CIO/ CTO:
- Device platform strategy
- Enterprise connectivity
- Wireless strategy
- Carrier-based strategy
- Enterprise boundary
- Asset management
- Process support
- Expense management
- Mobile work for cloud strategy
They are all valid concerns. However, it is interesting to note how we block ourselves from moving towards the next steps and end-up creating a laundry list of action items before even addressing the real problem at hand.
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