By Eleanor Reader
CIOs worldwide believe mobility will generate significant sources of new revenue for business and as a result are expected to invest heavily in mobile technologies, according to Accenture.
In its 2013 CIO Mobility Survey, Accenture interviewed 413 IT professionals across 14 industries in 14 countries, including Australia and New Zealand, to understand if companies are embracing ‘the importance of mobility’.
The survey revealed 79 per cent of CIOs and other C-suite professionals cited mobility as a revenue generator, while 84 per cent said it would significantly improve customer interactions.
The top reasons CIOs need mobility include improving field and customer service with instant data access, capture and processing at 43 per cent, followed by engaging customers via mobile devices at 36 per cent.
Nearly half of the CIOs surveyed said they plan to make workflow changes to better incorporate mobility into the business over the next year.
“It’s encouraging that companies are embracing the importance of mobility but they need to go further by identifying the top areas for mobile deployment,” said Jin Lee, senior managing director, Accenture Mobility.
“In particular they should look at areas that will grow, such as connected devices, and conduct a ‘gap analysis’ to determine how to catch up, or even better, get ahead of the curve. Other critical considerations include investments, budget allocation, re-training staff, hiring mobile expertise, and leveraging external experts to help develop or implement mobility strategies.”
In terms of mobile strategies, China, Italy and Brazil lead the pack globally with extensively developed mobile strategies.
Mobile device management, collaboration and knowledge sharing were found to be the three most important features to a developed mobile strategy.
The study found that security (45 per cent), budget concerns (41 per cent) and lack of interoperability with legacy systems (31 per cent) are still the main barriers cited by companies as impacting their mobile priorities.
BYOD is yet to take off, with over half the enterprises surveyed providing limited support to their employees, as opposed to a quarter that provide full support.
“CIOs must find ways to support the myriad of mobile devices entering the work environment,” Lee said. “They should also address the need to focus intensely on people and expertise. Almost twice as many companies – 40 per cent in 2013, versus 27 per cent in 2012 – plan to leverage external experts to develop and refine their strategy, indicating that mobile usage is growing faster than the market can provide in terms of skilled and available talent.”
The automotive, insurance and health care sectors are proven to be the biggest embracers of mobility, with all respondents saying they plan to reach their top mobile priorities within the next year.
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