The term “consumerization of enterprise IT” entered the tech vocabulary in the early aughts and the main gist at the time was that the UX of enterprise applications should be easier to use (like consumer apps).  This review from 2006 of the new Ketara SaaS procurement solution is a good example.  Later with the success of iOS and the App Store, the term expanded to include the idea of adopting the infrastructure supporting consumer application within the enterprise and, in fact, many companies launched “enterprise app stores.”  Of course, recently, the term morphed yet again to include social media features.

But it seems like there is an even bigger opportunity which is to adopt the business model of consumer products and tailor/integrate them into enterprise applications.  What does that mean?  Here are a couple of things off the top of my head:

• Enterprise “GroupOns”.  No, I don’t mean employee discounts, this is something entire different.  What if an enterprise created a tool that enabled managers (or any employee) to create a “deal” that other employees could “sign-up” for?  Many companies have a “10% rule” that allows employees to spend 10% of their time working on projects of their own liking.  Perhaps a tool like this could provide another way of managing that time?  Imagine a manager creating a “deal” providing a $100K prize for any team that developed a system/procedure which solved a very specific customer problem?  Or how about a sales manager that creates a contest that his or her sales team could opt into?  Performance is all about incentives and providing a tool to adjust/manage these could be powerful.
• Hunch meets Quora for the enterprise.  Companies have vast pools of talent little about which they are aware.  Most companies provide some sort of directory that provides snippets of employee’s resumes but that is the tip of the proverbial iceberg.  How about an application for the enterprise that is a “talent discovery / matching” tool?  Couple this with location and calendar functionality and this could be used to accelerate innovation.
• Couponing for the enterprise.  To understand a coupon, you have to understand marginal cost.  The idea with a coupon is that once you get a customer in your store you can upsell them other items or services at zero or little marginal cost.  Obviously the marketing department at companies understands this, but what if this were used systematically with employees (as well as customers)?  Imagine a field service repairman out on a call that finishes at 3:30 and there is another call nearby that will take 3 hours (going over shift hours).  The marginal cost of this time/location sensitive opportunity is low, but without the right “coupon” it won’t be exploited.

So is this the next phase of the consumerization of enterprise IT? Time will tell, but I’d be surprised if we don’t start seeing consumer business models adopted within the enterprise.

Yesterday I finally received and read iPad in the Enterprise that I had pre-ordered a while ago.

If you’re involved in enterprise mobile whether it’s C-level strategy or implementation for a business unit, this book is worth a read. In truth, this book is really two books in one. The first seven or eight chapters are written for the CIO. The author, Nathan Clevenger, writes about the evolution of iOS and how enterprise IT has influenced it, the “consumerization” of IT, developing an enterprise mobile strategy, build vs. buy, etc. You can tell Clevenger interviewed a lot of people for the book and covers a lot of ground in these first chapters without diving too deep.

One of my favorite bits in the first chapters is Clevenger recounting an interview with Geoffrey Moore (of Crossing the Chasm fame) about how the technology adoption curve he theorized is affected by the consumerization of IT generally and the the iPad specifically. The response (which I think could be expounded into an entire book itself) was that it blows up the curve. The whole idea of early adopter and mainstream and laggards goes away with things like the iPad because it is so intuitive and easy to use. Grandmothers (traditional laggards) and nerds (early adopters) are adopting the iPad at the same time.

Not surprisingly, the biggest take-away of the strategy chapters of iPad in the Enterprise is defining and understanding the business metric(s) you want to improve and then working to build a team and plan to achieve that. Technology for the sake of technology is to be avoided.

On the topic of build versus buy, Clevenger offers a strategy of see-if-you-can-buy-before-you-build. There are probably 50 pages of the book dedicated to a review of dozens of applications that address various enterprise problems (from content management, to communication, to sales automation). With hundreds of thousands of apps in the app store, it’s hard to find fault with the advice of buy before you build. On the flip side, Clevenger points out that the apps themselves can be a small fraction of the overall cost (if you integrate with internal enterprise systems). This is not a warning, but rather a reminder to consider the total costs…a topic that I want to address in more detail in a future post.

In the second half of the book, Clevenger and his co-authors dive into the details of iPad application design and deployment. He touches on the entire development process from initial UI design through build, test and deploy. Probably the most important bit is the focus on what Apple has already defined in their Human Interface Guidelines. To understand design for iOS you really need to start with Apple’s HIG. Clevenger spills much ink on this topic, all of it warranted.

Then this is where the book gets into the weeds…to the point where there are pages with sample code. While it might be worth a CIO skimming these latter chapters, they’re really written for the IT professional and product managers implementing or considering implementing iPad applications in their company. There are many real design nuggets…one of my favorite is on the topic of data security and how to avoid users “capturing” data using the native screen capture functionality (hint: you can’t turn it off, but you can thwart it).

So all-in-all, iPad in the Enterprise is a well written, timely and informational book which we recommend.

In the past, we used to distinguish between Technology Companies, and Technology Enabled Companies. The difference was pretty clear – the former developed technology products, while the latter used technology to enable the product or service delivery.

In the technology space, mobile companies used to be a distinct type of companies, which usually developed products or services specifically to be used on mobile devices and on-the-go. In the last few years, this has changed. Since Apple created the mobile apps market, and mobile devices with 3G and GPS became widely used, mobile became more than just a distinct technology arena. It is now the enabler of new products, services, and business models. Here are some examples for products and services that are not directly related to mobile, but would not be what they are without it:

1. Pandora – The internet radio service was launched in 2000, with a unique technology to match songs their user’s music taste. Despite of their cool offering, the service never really picked up, but with the release of their iPhone app 2008, they immediately reported an unbelievable boost in the rate of new user registration. The ability to steam music on the go, which was not available in first 8 years of the service, was eventually what enabled its success.
2. Zipcar – I’m one of the many fans of this popular car rental service, which allows you to rent a car by the hour from accessible locations across big cities. Their website works very well as a way to access the service and book cars, but the idea of a mobile application simply upgrades this completely. Regardless of where I am, if I need a car, the app locates the available cars near me and books one for me (and if I can’t find the car I booked, I can honk the horn from the app).
3. Facebook – It can be interesting (or not) to read that my fried “Had a great time at the U2 concert today”, but it’s much more exciting to read “I’m at the U2 concert now!” and see a picture of Bono which was taken 2 seconds ago. That’s “live” social networking.
4. Yelp – I don’t always know where I’m going to eat when I’m going out, especially as a tourist in a place I don’t know. There aren’t many things more intuitive than having your mobile device find you top rated restaurants around you, at a certain price range and that are currently opened. It’s one of the things that just make sense. And if it did not exist, someone would have had to invent it.

The common attribute of the above companies is that even though mobile presence is a key contributor to their success, they are not mobile companies. There are complex and unique processes involved in creating their service, product, or content (which is often user generated). These happen in the non-mobile side, but the mobile platform is the one that delivers a compelling value to the users. It’s the Enabler.

If you are reading this post, you might be in one of the following situations:

1. “I need to sit down and analyze my business requirements”
2. “I think I know what I need, but I need to document it and define the product specifications”
3. “I pretty much know what I want to develop, and need some extra programming hands to code the thing”
4. “I’ve already written the software, now I need to test it and make sure it’s doing what it needs to do”

Whatever your status may be, extensionEngine can tailor the service that will fit you most.

The first step in every project we do is to understand our clients’ business and the problem they are trying to solve.  This will generally require 1-2 meetings or calls. Once we have enough data, we will prepare a project proposal that will include the services we can offer you, milestones and deliverables.

Most likely, the project will be divided into several iterations that will help us scope the work, measure our success, and improve over time.

If you choose to use our services, we will be able to start working from within a few days to 2 weeks, depending on the type of services and our staff’s availability.

If you have any questions, feel free to contact me ofri.markus@extensionengine.com