Succeeding with enterprise mobility

It has been proclaimed that today’s connected world demands relationships, not just eyeballs, at the Mobile World Congress 2012. There have been messages such as 'If you pepper consumers with stuff they are not interested in, you will get vigilante consumers who will shut you out'. And, the 'connected consumer value proposition is not being fully developed'.

Also, another report has stated that the average volume of video traffic on the mobile networks has risen by 10 percentage points since this time last year – up to 50 percent. Android devices are said to be generating more advertising transactions and corresponding data volume on mobile networks than the Apple iOS devices.

The oncoming rise in data-hungry devices is set to be the most disruptive force. However, driving revenues will present the biggest challenge. Next, consider this: Compared to smartphones, tablets seem to generate much more traffic – this is also set to increase as tablets evolve, more applications become available, and those tablets increasingly use cellular networks instead of Wi-Fi for access.

Already, there are several challenges, if you have noticed, right? Also, where does it leave the poor CIO? Does the CIO rejoice at these news, or does he ponder?

Now, I was reading the CIO Guide: Making a Business Case for Deploying a High-Performance Networking Infrastructure by Sufian Dweik, Regional Manager - Middle East and North Africa (MENA) at Brocade Communications. He clearly says that a modern enterprise network should meet four basic requirements:

* non-stop networking to maximize business uptime;
* unmatched simplicity to overcome today's complexity;
* optimized applications to increase business agility; and
* investment protection to provide a smooth transition to new technologies while leveraging existing infrastructure.

CIOs would need to make watertight arguments about how their proposals will deliver a justifiable return on investment (RoI) within the ever shorter time frames, while flexibly supporting anticipated demands over the next five to seven years. According to the author, there are four key guidelines to help CIOs frame such a proposal.

* Demonstrate the future-proofing with a high-performance network.
* Demonstrate the fast and ongoing cost control in a high-performance network.
* Investment protection by leveraging existing infrastructure in a high-performance network.
* Demonstrate the value of greater network expertise.

For CIOs, upgrading the network infrastructure provides a great opportunity to bring these parties to the same table. The business benefits are many -- from having a more comprehensively skilled IT staff, along with more efficient service, greater business continuity, and lower management costs that free up money for investment in other areas of the enterprise.

IT leaders must emphasize throughout their business cases: A highly optimized, always-on network that offers strategic advantage to an enterprise and can be leveraged as a competitive tool. It is time that the businesses recognized this and gave the network its due importance.

In future, organizations that succeed with enterprise mobility will establish a competitive edge in sales performance, operational efficiency, and employee productivity. For those that fail, they risk obsolescence in a world of always-on, always-on-the-move business functions.