The document discusses social business and how leading organizations are applying social technologies and principles to fundamentally change how their companies operate and serve markets. It provides examples of how companies like Gatorade and Tesco are using social media monitoring, command centers, and social commerce to improve marketing, product development, and business operations. The document also describes how one high-tech firm broke down research silos by shifting to more open collaboration using social platforms.
Using Social Media to Manage your Brand and Organization
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1. Tech Trends 2012
Elevate IT
for digital business
2012 Technology Trends
2. Preface
Welcome to Deloitte’s annual report examining trends in technology put to practical business use. Each year we begin
with a wide range of potential topics, and then work with clients, vendors, academics, analysts and Deloitte practitioners
to refine the list. We select as trends those topics that have the most potential to impact businesses over the next 18 to 24
months. This year’s theme, Elevate IT for Digital Business, examines the broad impacts of five technology forces that have
influenced our reports over the past several years – analytics, mobility, social, cloud and cyber security.
It’s an uncommon, and perhaps even unique, time to have so many emerging forces – all rapidly evolving, technology-
centric and each already impacting business so strongly. Whether or not you have previously thought of your business as
inherently digital, the convergence of these forces offers a new set of tools, opening the door to a new set of rules for
operations, performance and competition. This is an opportunity for IT to truly help elevate business performance.
Our 2012 report shares ten trends grouped into two categories. Disruptors are technologies that can create sustainable
positive disruption in IT capabilities, business operations and sometimes even business models. Enablers are technolo-
gies in which many CIOs have already invested time and effort, but which warrant another look this year because of new
developments. Enablers may be more evolutionary than revolutionary, but the potential is there to elevate the business
game with technology.
Each trend is presented with at least two examples of adoption to help show the trend at work. This year, you’ll also find
a new section called My Takes, which provide commentary and examples from CIOs, academics and other luminaries
about the utility of the trend in business.
Each of these 2012 trends is relevant today. Each has significant momentum and potential to make an impact. Each war-
rants timely consideration. Forward-thinking organizations should consider developing an explicit strategy in each area –
even if that strategy is to wait and see. But whatever you do, step up. Use the digital forces to your advantage. Don’t get
caught unaware or unprepared.
Thank you for reading this year’s report. We welcome your feedback and questions. To the many executives who have
provided input into Tech Trends 2012, thank you for your time and insight. We look forward to having more of the es-
sential dialog between business and IT.
Mark E. White Bill Briggs
Principal and CTO Director, Deputy CTO
Deloitte Consulting LLP Deloitte Consulting LLP
3. Contents
Disruptors
Social Business............................................................... 1
Gamification.................................................................. 8
Enterprise Mobility Unleashed......................................15
User Empowerment..................................................... 22
Hyper-hybrid Cloud..................................................... 29
Enablers
Big Data Goes to Work................................................ 36
Geospatial Visualization............................................... 43
Digital Identities.......................................................... 50
Measured Innovation................................................... 57
Outside-in Architecture............................................... 64
Conclusion...................................................................71
Authors....................................................................... 72
Contributors................................................................ 73
5. 1 Social Business
Reimagining business with a social mindset approach to social. Beyond social monitoring and listening
Even today, business leaders may dismiss the potential of posts, leading organizations are establishing command
social business, either relegating it to the realm of Internet centers to interact with consumers and the marketplace via
marketing or ignoring the buzz as a passing fad. But that’s the social sphere. Some interactions are transactional, such
changing as boomers evolve into digital natives, millennials as customer relationship management, servicing or order
permeate the workforce and social media becomes a part management, while others seek to drive loyalty and brand
of daily life. The doors are now open for social business. activation. Functional areas such as Human Resources and
recruiting are following sales and marketing’s lead, with
Leading enterprises today are applying social technologies customer service, product development and operations
like collaboration, communication and content close behind.
management to social networks – the connected web of
people and assets that impact on a given business goal or Enterprise solutions are moving from communication tools
outcome – amplified by social media from blogs to social to collaboration suites, white pages, yellow pages and
networking sites to content communities. Yet it’s more than expertise finders, where specialized knowledge can be
tools and technology. Businesses are being fundamentally found regardless of individual connections. Distributed
changed as leaders rethink their core processes and teams can work together on deliverables without worrying
capabilities with a social mindset to find new ways to create about versioning or “over-the-wall engineering.”
more value, faster. Communities can form and engage around topics based on
individuals’ common interests – personal or professional,
Forays into social business typically start with an long-running or perishable.
organization’s external-facing concerns. Sales and
marketing organizations, looking to understand customer Behind it is a simple truth: people are the core of business.
sentiment and product positioning, listen carefully to The balance of power has shifted from the corporation to
opinions expressed in the social sphere. Similarly, the individual. Technology has made it easier to discover
organizations roll out internal micro-blogs that allow and participate in social networks, but it has not changed
employees to broadcast and push interests, ideas and their currency: content, authenticity, integrity, reputation,
expertise to the enterprise. These types of efforts are commitment and follow-through. Social business allows
excellent entry points, but not the only points of impact in organizations that share these values to fundamentally
the enterprise. Think across the full value chain. Compose reshape how their companies run and serve their markets.
“social” with a key business function such as Social CRM, A flattened world – allowing direct contact between
Social PLM or Social Supply Chain. customers and product developers, between divisional VPs
and front-line workers, between salespeople and suppliers
Social business can shift an organization’s dynamic from – could be inherently more effective and efficient.
isolation to engagement by providing vehicles for Companies that align the passions of their people with the
discovering, growing and propagating ideas and expertise. interests of their customers hold the potential to capture
This shift requires organizations to take a more active the marketplace.
2012 Technology Trends – Disruptors 1
6. Social Business
History repeating itself?
Social business inherits its associations – and perhaps misconceptions – from previous efforts in collaboration, knowledge
management and content management. Similar-sounding terminology – social networking, social media, social
computing and social business – only adds to the confusion.
What were the challenges? What’s different in 2012?
Social media (e.g. LinkedIn, • Non-digital natives were slow to adopt public • The enterprise market for social collaboration,
Twitter, Facebook) social media services, which made business content and communication tools has exploded
leaders skeptical about their usefulness in a over the past 12 months; on-premise or cloud
business setting. versions of social media tools can help balance
• Security, privacy and compliance risks were real. openness with acceptable risk.
Intellectual property could be compromised, • Public social media sites are viewed as only one
competitive plans could be shared, and brands part of an overall social business strategy, used
could be harmed by individuals’ behaviors. primarily as sources for social sentiment signals,
• Companies have invested in technology-centric vehicles for brand management and external
pilots and systems that mimic the successful use communication, and channels for customer
cases of the consumer social sphere. Sometimes management and sales.
a “build it and they will come” approach, they • Millennials joining the workforce are wired to use
didn’t follow the successful pattern: articulate social and mobile channels to bond, socialize and
a business objective; map the related social solve problems1. Organizations that lack internal,
network or graph; implement targeted social governed social media and computing channels
technology and media; evaluate results, tune may find their younger employees using public
and refine the focus. The most frequently missed tools as a well-intentioned, but risky, alternative.
step being mapping the right social network in • Businesses large and small are now making
which to act. focused investments in deploying social tech-
nology and media into well-mapped social
networks for specific business objectives across
the enterprise value chain.
Collaboration and knowledge • Many organizations confronted the inefficiencies • Social business inside the enterprise can facilitate
management (KM) tools of how work gets done and shared in their shops discovery and connections among employees,
by implementing collaboration solutions for static real-time collaboration on tasks and documents,
or ill-defined groups. These solutions were mainly and a systematic view of who knows who, who
ERP workflow, or limited to content sharing or knows what, and how work actually gets done.
messaging. They don’t embrace the necessity • New social computing tools can support both
of allowing communication to evolve into collaboration and task execution, so contributors
community. They may be limited to one function, are motivated to use them in executing daily
geography or job role and unable to tap the tasks. Context is preserved alongside the content
breadth and depth of the enterprise. to aid in both discovery and use.
• Previous versions of content and knowledge • The categorization of knowledge, work steps and
management tools majored on collecting and relationships can be used to document, mine and
managing the content without successfully find information. Taxonomy discovery can bridge
capturing the context and workflows that across structured, unstructured and semi-struc-
transform that intellectual property into business tured sources, finding new relationships between
value. KM systems became static repositories or content and offering a way to both discover and
libraries without curation or circulation. create business intelligence. This can be especially
important for organizations with aging work-
forces, where leaders are looking to ease the pain
of large-scale knowledge transfer.
• The Curator and Moderator join the Librarian in
harnessing content, communication and conver-
sation into both long-and short-lived communi-
ties around key business issues and opportunities.
2
7. Social Business
Technology implications
Social business taps into the shared interests of individuals to guide communal value. Technology can help make these
interactions effective – aiding in discovering new information, sharing content, collaborating on ideas and work products,
and potentially allowing parts of transactional systems and data to be used through social channels.
Topic Description
Social computing tools Implementation of internal collaboration suites, wikis, ideagoras, expertise finders, enterprise search
and prediction markets are not trivial undertakings. Naming conventions, hierarchies, entitlement
and privacy rights and archiving can inform the scope and usefulness of each solution. The value of
social computing investments can be enhanced by integrating email for traditional correspondence,
instant messaging and other converged communication tools, and content repositories for easy
access to information that transcends geographies.
Sentiment analysis tools Social media monitoring tools such as Radian 6, Mantis or Lithium reflect the broader shift in
analytics where the mechanics of software configuration are not complex, but still require in-depth
industry and modeling experience to help define and fine-tune models to obtain reliable, insightful
results. Also, intelligent oversight is needed, because automated systems have trouble interpreting
nuance, subtlety or sarcasm. Advances in contextual mining and artificial intelligence sense-making
will likely lead to continuous product improvements, but today’s offerings require specialized
knowledge to set-up, monitor and maintain.
Digital content Product information, brand collateral, store/employee data and other content should be consistent
management across channels: brick-and-mortar locations, web, call centers, mobile, social, kiosks and tomorrow’s
innovation. This omni-channel world increases the importance of traditional digital asset
management (DAM), content governance and stewardship, as well as the need to manage content
and communities simultaneously across channels.
Digital identities2 Social business amplifies the potential value of individual personas and relationships, whether they
are employee, customer, prospect or partner. Correlation of discrete identities across enterprises
(both private and public) requires a federated or brokered digital identity service that should also
have the ability to render individual, authenticated, non-repudiated assertions on who an individual
is and what they have access to. Within the enterprise, a uniform approach to identity, access and
credential management should be a must.
2012 Technology Trends – Disruptors 3
8. Social Business
Lessons from the frontlines Breaking down the research and development silos
Quenching customer insight A leading high-tech firm took a hard look at its software
Gatorade’s mission-control center for social media can development process. Like many other companies in the
demonstrate the potential of social business3. A hub in the industry, departmental stove-pipes and over-the-wall
company’s marketing department tracks tweets, Facebook engineering approaches were the rule. The design and
activity and blog postings that mention the brand, its engineering teams worked on separate paths, even though
endorsers, competitors and broader sports-nutrition topics. their efforts were highly dependent on one another. In a
Detailed sentiment analysis tracks products, campaigns and typical scenario, engineering would create technical
customers across their lifecycles. Brand attributes are specifications for weeks and hand it off to design, who
watched, correlated with media performance, and used to would go away and work on treatments and design
reach out proactively to influencers and customers. The concepts. They would then come together for two weeks
results drive strategic marketing plans and product of joint sessions, poking holes in each other’s thinking
development, as well as tactical activities, such as while moving slowly toward consensus. This process would
improving landing pages and content delivery4. Initial repeat, with the hope that next time would bring shorter
results are impressive, with claims of a 250% increase in cycles and fewer gaps at the end of each round. It was the
engagement and 65% reduction in early page exits. Social epitome of sequential collaboration driven by a
activities likely contributed to Gatorade’s U.S. volume sales manufacturing mentality.
growth of 10% in the second quarter of 2010, after three
consecutive years of slumped sales5. To break through business as usual, the firm shifted to an
open collaboration platform across project teams, with
Forging the future of social commerce progress documents openly shared using discussion boards
Tesco, the United Kingdom’s largest retailer, has been a and micro-blogs instead of deliverable review templates
leading proponent of social business. From early entries and email. Social business started to flourish. Cultural
into social monitoring and command centers, to ambitious resistance existed at first, driven by fears that interim
social commerce campaigns, to the acquisition of social deliverables would be reviewed using the same criteria as
marketing firm BzzAgent6, Tesco is embedding social finished products. But team members quickly came to
sensibilities into virtually all aspects of its business, from understand the value of the new process, and finished
loyalty programs to stocking and procurement decisions7. products saw a quality boost and got to market faster. In
this competitive sector, shorter product development cycles
Another large retailer also has ambitious plans for social can have heart-of-the-business impact and, in this case, it
business. In 2011, it acquired an organization that uses was driven by open, collaborative, social business.
social-sphere signals to deliver relevant ads based on an
individual’s interests; and acquired a platform for real-time
sentiment and social stream analysis. Beyond brand
awareness, engagement and loyalty, its goal is to develop
intent-based inventory and logistics driven by the buying
patterns and signals of local residents.
4
9. Social Business
My take
Sandy Pentland
Director, Media Lab Entrepreneurship Program
MIT Media Labs
For years I’ve been working in the field of “connection Like any emerging technology trend, social business can
science” – studying how relationships and personal seem perpetually just out of reach. Let’s wait a year, the
interactions shape society and business. Social business is a thinking goes. It’s not quite real, not quite ready for prime
manifestation of that thinking, with companies time. If that’s your approach to social business, you may be
transforming how they organize and operate based on overestimating the amount of effort it takes to start putting
individual roles, social networks and the power of this trend to work for your organization today.
connections. Social business can have huge potential inside
and outside the enterprise, across employees, customers, Here’s what I mean: Social business is built on top of social
prospects and business partners. networks, which most organizations already have in place.
I’m not talking about social networking technology. I’m
It’s exciting to see the convergence of new social channels talking about the social networks themselves – the webs of
and traditional communication channels, where the whole formal and informal groups reaching across and beyond
can be greater than the sum of the parts. When social your organization every day. That’s a huge existing asset –
computing tools such as Yammer, Chatter or Jive are but likely it is only informally mined for the greater good.
combined with established communication channels such You should explore explicitly connecting your people and
as face-to-face interactions, email, phone calls, intranets your customers in ways that could be driving performance
and even advertising media, we’re seeing rapid adoption improvements and growth.
and elevated impact. There’s a halo effect when the
passions of stakeholders can be harnessed and aligned Fortunately, moving ahead is pretty straightforward. Start
with the goals of an organization. Social business amplifies by finding out which channels are already most important
this phenomenon, bypassing tactical constraints of to, and most used by, the people in your organization.
traditional communication: discoverability, scalability, From there, the path to rollout should become a lot clearer.
responsiveness and adoption. Once you begin, the value of social business can spread
like a wildfire. The key is to simply get started.
2012 Technology Trends – Disruptors 5
10. Social Business
Where do you start? • Break boundaries. The chief marketing officer, chief
Social business requires broader thinking than currently talent officer and head of sales are typically early
found in many organizations, and institutional biases can adopters of social business. But it doesn’t have to stop
prevent it from receiving the priority status it deserves. there. What about a social chief financial officer? How
Fortunately, there are some simple ways to help break could reporting, classification and audit be transformed
through dated perceptions and cultural inertia and start the by linking finance and control to knowledge streams and
social journey. Pursue an incremental path that builds on trails of how, where and (here’s the kicker) why work
experiments that may demonstrate potential. got done? How would a social plant manager run a
shop floor differently? With social business, the
• Start at the beginning. Social business is about individual once again matters in performance
achieving specific business outcomes. Start with improvement. At many levels, organizations that align
reasonable scope in early efforts. Map the individuals in the passions of their people with the interests of their
your potential social networks, and know what behaviors markets can have a strong competitive advantage.
you are trying to affect and how you might meaningfully
engage these into persistent communities. Use this • Authenticity matters. Social business is about the
information to guide the development of tools, individual. An anonymous corporate presence using
roadmaps and roll-out plans – not the other way around. social channels as a bully pulpit will not likely yield
Focus on results that can be measurable and attributable. results. In recent decades, marketing or HR has
sometimes evolved to mean what we do to people, a
• Deploy the basics. Certain aspects of social business are far cry from the original intent. Social business can bring
nearly universally relevant, such as social monitoring and us back full circle, thriving on personal voice and
listening posts for customer sentiment and brand genuine interaction. Building those authentic
positioning, as well as corporate yellow pages and social relationships requires time and investment.
networking tools for experience-finding and leverage of
intellectual property. These should be on each business’
radar – and they can provide an excellent entrée to social
business in R&D, PLM, HR, IT and even Finance. After all,
“close the books” is an inherently collaborative and
repeatable activity with clear business goals, a well-
understood network of players and both structured and
unstructured content use.
• Move from sensing to actuating. With basic
monitoring tools in place, social business can move from
passive to active. Instead of just listening, establish a
command center for social customer relationship
management (CRM), social sales and social product
lifecycle management (PLM). Move from experience-
finding to insight management by using micro-blogging
and content management tools to promote sharing and
re-use of knowledge and assets.
6
11. Social Business
Bottom line
Social business is still in its early days. These initial waves are about unlocking insights based on people’s
behavior and relationships, and on supplementing the enterprise’s traditional view of markets and
employees8. Even more value can be gained as companies restructure how work gets done through social
engagement – and by customizing messaging, promotions and even products, based on individual and
community desires. Social awareness can give way to social empowerment – once again placing people at
the heart of business.
Endnotes
1
Ramde, D. Beloit College Mindset List: The Internet Is Older Than Incoming College Freshmen. Retrieved January 15, 2012, from http://www.
huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/23/beloit-mindset-list_n_933847.html
2
Additional information is available in Deloitte Consulting LLP (2012), “Tech Trends 2012: Elevate IT for digital business”, www.deloitte.com/us/
techtrends2012, Chapter 8.
3
Ostrow, Adam. Inside Gatorade’s Social Media Command Center. Retrieved January 15, 2012, from http://mashable.com/2010/06/15/
gatorade-social-media-mission-control/
4
PepsiCo Video: Gatorade Mission Control. Retrieved January 15, 2012, from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=InrOvEE2v38
5
“Research and Markets: Gatorade Case Study: Using Consumer Segmentation and Social Media to Drive Market Growth,” Research and Markets
press release, February 4, 2011, on the Business Wire web site, http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20110204005653/en/Research-
Markets-Gatorade-Case-Study-Consumer-Segmentation, accessed January 15, 2012.
6
Edmund Lee, Tesco Acquires Social-Marketing Firm BzzAgent for $60 Million, http://adage.com/article/digital/tesco-buys-social-marketing-firm-
bzzagent-60-million/227695/ (May 23, 2011).
7
“Sharp, Sony and Tesco First to Gain New Insight into Their Social Commerce Strategies Using Reevoo’s New Analytics Tool,” Reevoo press release,
September 6, 2011, on the Business Wire web site, http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20110906005638/en/Sharp-Sony-Tesco-Gain-
Insight-Social-Commerce, accessed January 15, 2012.
8
Weigend, A. The Social Data Revolution(s).Retrieved January 15, 2012, from http://blogs.hbr.org/now-new-next/2009/05/the-social-data-
revolution.html
2012 Technology Trends – Disruptors 7
12. 2 Gamification
Gaming gets serious Gamification can also enhance transparency and
Gamification is about taking the essence of games – fun, compliance, since games almost always operate within
play and passion – and applying it to real-world, non-game a well-defined set of rules. When aligned with desired
situations. In a business setting, that means designing behavior, gamification can help guide awareness and
solutions using gaming principles in everything from adoption of standard policies and processes, often
back-office tasks and training to sales management and operating in the background without the user’s conscious
career counseling. Game mechanics lie at the heart of effort. Gartner predicts that one quarter of day-to-day
gamification. For example, achievement levels, point- business processes are likely to take advantage of some
tracking and bonuses are ways for desired activities to aspect of gamification by 20151. That number jumps to
be recognized and rewarded. Leaderboards and 50% for organizations with formal innovation
progression indicators can steer individuals to reach the management process2.
next tier of performance. Quests and countdowns can
help shape behavior – the former as a way to structure For businesses working to manage generational workforce
long combinations of tasks for a larger goal; the shifts, gamification can be especially helpful. Millennials
latter to motivate a flurry of activity within a finite, already show a proclivity toward using gaming, social tools
specified timeframe. and emerging technologies in their day-to-day lives3.
Educational systems – particularly elementary and high
The “so what” for business is not any single one of these schools – are also pursuing gamification in learning4. But
items. Instead, the value lies in finding the right gaming is not just for digital natives. The average game
combination of game mechanics that will resonate with player today is 37 years old, and 42% of game players
stakeholders to drive performance. are women5.
One desired outcome of gamification is engagement – The potential of gamification for the enterprise is likely
getting stakeholders passionately and deliberately involved to grow with time. Organizations that embrace the trend
with your organization. Interaction, collaboration, have the opportunity to gain loyal customers and find a
awareness and learning are related effects, where competitive edge in recruiting, retention, talent
individuals are encouraged to make new connections development and business performance.
and share information. The key is defining a powerful
“win” condition that can work across a range of
personality types, align with business objectives and
foster sustained engagement.
8
13. Gamification
History repeating itself?
Games have been a mainstay of culture throughout history. Indeed, academic disciplines, simulations and even virtual
worlds have been launched to understand and harness the power of games. In 2012, gamification moves beyond
entertainment to business performance, using intuitive design, intrinsic motivation and the sense of accomplishment
that comes from completing activities with clear – and personal – value.
What were the challenges? What’s different in 2012?
Serious gaming • Simulations, table-top exercises and war gaming • Gamification applies game mechanics and
have long used sophisticated models to emulate dynamics to produce results that go far beyond
complex behavior, delivered through a game-like simple entertainment. It embeds these principles
interface. These tools are good for testing into how people work, collaborate and transact
potential strategies against predicted market business – a systemic change. This is distin-
conditions, driving situational awareness for guished from serious gaming, where a walled
executives and field personnel, and shaping garden with a compelling gaming hook is
behavior through interactive training. But there used to educate, motivate or achieve a
has been an inherent disconnect between the secondary outcome.
boundaries of the game and real-world opera-
tions, behaviors and business outcomes. They are • A number of serious gaming companies have
studies, not systemic implementations. created statistical studies and industry/function-
specific repositories of rules and models, along
• Heavy business simulations and war-gaming with underlying technology platforms that can be
applications have had a high barrier to entry reused across scenarios. This has led to moderate
in that serious games are only as good as their growth in the areas in which serious gaming is
underlying rules and models. Social, economic, applied. It has also fostered effective approaches
cultural and interpersonal factors should not only to help maintain the integrity of, and ongoing
reflect the actual business environment, but also interest in, the game.
be presented in an engaging manner that drives
participation, learning and action.
• If the rules are transparent or discoverable, the
player experience can be dominated by the micro
incentives of the game itself, not the macro
implications to the enterprise.
Cognitive psychology/ • Well-established fields in science study how • Effective design of game mechanics and dynamics
behavioral economics/ people acquire, process and store informa- are often predicated on models and research
game theory tion – and how these concepts apply to classic from these fields. In a sense, gamification is the
economic theory (e.g., rationality of markets industrialization of these academic concepts
and players) to model real-world conditions6. – shifting from research and theory to tactical
However, most real-world situations have too business processes and front-line employees.
many variables, players and extenuating factors
to be analyzed. Outside of political science,
economic theory and social psychology, the
concepts have been difficult to apply, especially in
day-to-day business scenarios.
2012 Technology Trends – Disruptors 9
14. Gamification
Technology implications
Future generations of enterprise systems are likely to have game mechanics embedded in their design. For now, however,
most organizations are likely to layer their gamification strategies into established packages and custom solutions. A
number of technical building blocks should be considered to realize gamification’s potential.
Topic Description
Enterprise systems Almost every game mechanic is fueled by activities or events, such as knowing what a player
is doing, being able to change the state of the game, or providing appropriate rewards or
acknowledgements. The lack of openness of underlying packages and custom systems can be a
constraint against driving external gamification elements (e.g., making activities visible, timely and
with enough context for the game dynamics) or embedding gamification into the current platform.
Game mechanics A number of solutions have emerged in the past 12 months that provide plug-ins or third-party
platforms services for leaderboards, achievements and virtual currencies and rewards to help motivate and
monitor employee engagement, compliance and performance – especially in areas such as education
and learning, health and wellness, call center/customer care, and sales and marketing. These same
mechanics can also be applied to customer-facing offerings to drive retention, loyalty and advocacy.
Social business Connectivity, collaboration and knowledge-sharing are key dimensions of gamification.
Understanding how communities are connected in a social graph and how games can be linked to
social computing and social media tools can affect the ability to meet the goals of the effort.
Mobility Location-based services fueled by mobile devices allow advanced techniques known as appointment
dynamics, where specific actions or rewards are available only if a user is in a predetermined
physical place at a specific time7. More broadly, mobile channels can be natural candidates for the
gamification of business processes, especially when anytime/anywhere, short-lived, meaningful
touch-points are desirable.
10
15. Gamification
Lessons from the frontlines Cubicle gaming
Health and wellness is not a game (unless it is) Several productivity software vendors are using
Encouraging members to live healthier lives has long been gamification to help train users on overlooked features of
a Holy Grail for health plans – not only because of the civic their tools. Many are built around cascading information
good, but also because of the bottom-line impact. Five theory, where complicated functions are hidden until
hundred billion dollars in annual spending goes to treating needed. Level progression, achievements and points
largely preventable conditions such as hypertension, tracking are present (e.g., “+50 points for not using a
diabetes and heart disease – representing 70 to 80% of US hint”), guiding users to discover useful new features and
health care costs8. One provider rolled out Mindbloom’s build proficiency. The gaming layer can also provide
Life Game, an interactive platform for users to establish incentives to follow standards – from corporate templates
health goals, which uses game mechanics to monitor their in word processors to coding standards in integrated
progress, and can tap into social channels for extra development environments (IDEs) – helping spur learning,
motivation. In Life Game, users can cultivate a virtual tree compliance and engagement.
representing their physical, emotional, financial and
spiritual well-being – earning “water” and “seeds” by Restaurant service gets gamified
completing tasks such as taking a walk, eating more On the surface, Not Your Average Joe’s resembles a typical
healthy foods or putting savings into an emergency fund. restaurant chain, offering creative, casual cuisine within
In a beta trial, users visited the site an average of 35 times their 17 locations. Behind the scenes, though, certain
per week, spending about 15 minutes during each visit. restaurants are using gamification to link point-of-sale data
These users set out to perform 13 million actions – and and scheduling software – where employee behavior such
performed about three-quarters of them. This represents a as up-selling, cross-selling and timely returns from breaks
50% increase over prior attempts without gamification. are used to drive achievements and awards. For example,
employees with the most sales and tips can earn their
desired shifts. The early results include a 1.8% increase
in sales and an 11% increase in gratuities throughout the
Not Your Average Joe’s chain9.
2012 Technology Trends – Disruptors 11
16. Gamification
My take
Gilman Louie
Partner
Alsop Louie Partners
I love snow skiing. And the last time I hit the slopes, I was Having spent much of my career in the gaming industry,
thrilled to find that through the magic of RFID, I was able there are a few principles of game design that, if followed,
to keep track of my accomplishments on my smartphone could make a big difference. For example, when I first
– everything from how many black diamonds I had skied helped license Tetris, I learned the 80/20 rule: 80% of a
to the vertical feet I had traversed over the course of the player’s experience in a game should be positive. The rest
day. Even more exciting, I was able to share this data with of the time, players should be barely missing their goals.
family and friends, and see how well they were doing, too. Basically, everybody wins – at least for part of the time.
And, not surprisingly, how I stacked up. Ultimately, we And when they lose, they understand why – and feel that
were in a friendly competition to rack up awards and win overcoming whatever obstacle ahead is within their grasp.
badges based on our accomplishments and scores. This should be coupled with constant positive
reinforcement and incremental, attainable rewards. That
We were modifying our behavior in direct response to a potent combination can make a game addictive.
lighthearted, fun little game. We were taking on slopes
that we wouldn’t have considered before. Squeezing in a And yet in the business world, many games only have a
couple more runs before calling it a day. Pushing ourselves handful of winners, and lots of losers. Gamification should
to go a little faster and harder. And that’s also why not simply be another spotlight on your top performers. If
gamification is catching the attention of so many business a “player” is dominating the game, the rest of the
leaders. The ability to change behavior by encouraging population is likely to either try to derail the winner, or
personal growth via game-like engagement could be a sabotage the game. Hyper-competition rarely leads to
management bonanza, for obvious reasons. sustained improvements performance – or positive
behavior change.
The concept itself is not new. In fact, my venture capital
firm saw a serious gaming/gamification pitch over a In some ways, gamification isn’t really a new trend. It’s just
decade ago. But the idea didn’t take off. I think the one of the latest manifestations of the foundation of
renewed interest today has a lot to do with the rise of business: the desire to compete. The desire to keep score.
social business. Before social media tools, one of the But don’t forget to start with clearly defined business
biggest hurdles was creating and sustaining a network of objectives, and align gaming mechanics with metrics and
players. Without that, there’s little hope of a game taking incentives. And remember the importance of fundamental
off. By tapping into public social media channels and social gaming principles. Gamification done well tells an
computing platforms being adopted in the workplace, employee: you are doing better than you did yesterday,
serious games can take advantage of existing social you are contributing to the goals of the enterprise, and the
networks – inside and outside of the business. This is a tools for growth and personal development are in your
natural environment for successful gaming, as the swift rise hands. Game on.
of social gaming companies has demonstrated. Applying
the principles to day-to-day business processes can have
great potential.
12
12
17. Gamification
Where do you start? • Ride the wave. Social and mobile players have been
Gamification is about influencing behavior. At its roots are early adopters of gamification techniques as means to
simple psychological constructs of ability, motivation and stand-out and gain traction (e.g., Foursquare, Twitter,
triggering10. “Ability” reflects the individual’s skill, time, Getglue). Businesses that are rethinking their processes
attention and mental capacity to perform a task. to take advantage of mobile and social dynamics can
“Motivation” describes desire to engage – personal find many opportunities for gamification. From strategy
interests, the perceived value of potential outcomes and to creative to user experience to engineering, consider
their willingness to participate. A “trigger” is something to the potential of game mechanics to improve
prompt targeted behavior. Triggers can be either explicit engagement and performance. Ride the coat-tails of
(directing the user to take action) or experiential (providing mobile and social initiatives that the business already
a sandbox where possibilities can be explored). All three understands – and likely has already funded – to
factors must converge at the same time to achieve desired start layering in gamification concepts for enhanced
results. This basic framing will help inform you where business outcomes.
to start:
• Knock down the fourth wall. Look for ways to use
• Pick your target. Establish clear, simple objectives that gamification to engage with business partners,
are well-suited for gamification. Not all business customers and the general public. A mobile service
scenarios have obvious triggers where behavior can be provider in the United Kingdom with no retail
influenced. Tasks that are very complex are hard to distribution, no call center, no advertising, and only
gamify. Tasks that are very mundane may be immune to 16 full-time employees uses social customers and
motivational influences. Early adopters of gamification gamification principles to operate their business. They
have targeted training, back-office processes, sales, use points and rewards to source service referrals, help
marketing and promotions to consumers. to solve customer service issues and even create
promotional material for the company. Gamification
• Know your audience. Not every individual will react the can help organizations leap-frog into broader social
same way to game dynamics. Different personality types business12, user empowerment13 and measured
have different motivations. To this end, Richard Bartle innovation14, tapping into external constituents in
identified four types of game players: socializers, new and exciting ways.
achievers, explorers and killers11. Having a balance of
game mechanics – collaborative, collect-and-curate,
discovery and competitive – will be necessary. The
balance should match the needs of your specific
community and desired results.
2012 Technology Trends – Disruptors 13
18. Gamification
Bottom line
Gamification is riding three waves. The first is the growing base of workers and customers raised under the
influence of video games and consumer technology. The second is the meteoric expansion of mobile, social
and cloud technologies across the business. The third is the ongoing efforts to improve business process
execution and performance through technology. Gamification looks to embed game attributes into
day-to-day business activities – interacting with the next generation in their native language, and tapping
into an enthusiastic older generation that has embraced gaming. As the bridge to the postdigital era is
being built, organizations are making big bets to take advantage of this transformation.
Endnotes
1
Gartner, Inc. “Predicts 2012: Organizational Politics Hampers, Gamification Motivates BPM Adoption (Research Note G00223822)”, November 15,
2011.
2
Gartner, Inc. “Innovation Insight: Gamification Adds Fun and Innovation to Inspire Engagement (ID Number: G00226393)”, December 20, 2011.
Beloit College Video: The Mindset List for the Class of 2015. Retrieved January 24, 2012 from http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_
3
embedded&v=J4HJ6EHb3CI
Donahoo, D. Gamification in Education: Should We Play? Retrieved January 24, 2012, from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/daniel-donahoo/
4
gamification-in-education_b_927842.html
“Industry Facts,” on the ESA Entertainment Software Association web site, http://www.theesa.com/facts/index.asp, accessed January 14, 2012.
5
Richard H. Thaler and Sendhil Mullainathan, How Behavioral Economics Differs from Traditional Economics, http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/
6
BehavioralEconomics.html (2008).
“Gamification,” on the Gamification Wiki web site, http://gamification.org/, accessed January 14, 2012.
7
Milken Institute, “An Unhealthy America: The Economic Burden of Chronic Disease -- Charting a New Course to Save Lives and Increase
8
Productivity and Economic Growth,” October 2007, http://www.milkeninstitute.org/publications/publications.taf?function=detail&ID=38801018&c
at=ResRep, accessed January 14, 2012.
Sarah Kessler, Can Gamifying a Restaurant Get You Better Service?, http://mashable.com/2011/11/30/objective_logistics/ (November 30, 2011).
9
10
Wu, Michael. Gamification from a Company of Pro Gamers. Retrieved January 14, 2012, from http://lithosphere.lithium.com/t5/Building-
Community-the-Platform/Gamification-from-a-Company-of-Pro-Gamers/ba-p/19258
11
Richard Bartle, Hearts, Clubs, Diamonds, Spades: Players who suit MUDs, http://mud.co.uk/richard/hcds.htm
12
Additional information is available in Deloitte Consulting LLP (2012), “Tech Trends 2012: Elevate IT for digital business”, www.deloitte.com/us/
techtrends2012, Chapter 1.
13
Additional information is available in Deloitte Consulting LLP (2012), “Tech Trends 2012: Elevate IT for digital business”, www.deloitte.com/us/
techtrends2012, Chapter 4.
14
Additional information is available in Deloitte Consulting LLP (2012), “Tech Trends 2012: Elevate IT for digital business”, www.deloitte.com/us/
techtrends2012, Chapter 9.
14
19. 3 Enterprise Mobility
Unleashed
Businesses are embracing mobility. Now type. Leonardo da Vinci’s description of simplicity as the
comes the hard part. ultimate form of sophistication might be a foreign concept
Rapid technology developments in wireless connectivity to many central IT departments today, but it is also a prime
and mobile devices marked the beginning of the mobility directive. As mobile becomes increasingly important in
revolution. Next came the apps renaissance, when intuitive, customer and employee interactions, the complexity of
engaging pieces of software, tailored for smartphones and applications, or apps, will naturally grow with heightened
tablets, began to change our day-to-day lives. The integration, security and maintenance needs.
revolution has now reached business. Many organizations
today find mobile initiatives popping up in every business The second challenge for CIOs is to help the business
unit, in every region and in every department. The deliver innovative applications with significant potential for
floodgates have opened. Now what? positive disruption. Experimentation can be a good way to
show progress and help crystalize opportunities, but many
For some, the path forward might begin by pushing use cases remain uncharted. Until users interact with an
existing solutions and processes to mobile channels, early prototype, they may not know what they want, much
without blue-sky thinking of how business might change less what they need. CIOs can become beacons of
if location constraints disappeared. For others, disciplined big-picture thinking and tactical adjudication by embracing
experimentation can reveal compelling scenarios, which the proliferation of mobile initiatives, and accelerating the
can lead to doing traditional things differently, as well as mobile adoption learning curve across the organization.
doing fundamentally different things. When left to its
own devices, each faction – individual, department or The third challenge is that mobility introduces yet another
organization – will struggle through the learning process level of complexity that CIOs must manage and support at
towards its own vision of mobile enlightenment. an enterprise scale. What’s an effective way to deal with
pressure to get behind each “next big thing”? Should
In this chaotic environment, CIOs face three challenges. employee-owned devices be allowed on enterprise
First, they need to build capabilities to deliver intuitive, networks? And if so, what data, applications and services
user-friendly mobile applications that can meet or exceed should they be permitted to access? How should IT
expectations set by consumer technologies. Mobile delivery practices change to support mobile applications? True
requires new skills, new mindsets, new application enterprise-class mobility requires governance, security,
architectures, new methodologies and new approaches privacy and compliance policies – with effective
to problem-solving. Above all, solutions must focus on management of mobile devices, enterprise app stores,
usability – design-led thinking with mobile mentalities. mobile middleware and more. The trick is to build a solid
Scope should be reined in to create well-defined, elegant foundational infrastructure without throttling the business.
solutions that address explicit problems, not broad As you likely know, the business can’t – and won’t – wait
collections of functionality. User experiences should be for a fully formed mobile enablement roadmap to be
mobile-centric, based on touch/swipe/talk, not point/click/ defined and put into place.
2012 Technology Trends – Disruptors 15
20. Enterprise Mobility Unleashed
History repeating itself?
Mobility has evolved from an issue within a few niche industries and functions (think oil & gas and logistics services) to a
potential source of innovation across wide-ranging vertical industries, processes and business models. And while many of
the underlying components have been evolving for decades, the break-out potential is only now being realized.
What were the challenges? What’s different in 2012?
“App for that” backlash • With the explosion of interest in mobile applica- • Many organizations now understand the impor-
tions came the inevitable wave of ill-conceived, tance of design-led mobile solutions that focus on
underwhelming releases – confirming skeptics’ usability and how work should get done.
beliefs that mobile is, at best, a distribution tool • Early experiments in business-to-consumer and
and, at worst, a distraction. early business-to-business scenarios are leading
• Early developers ported existing systems and to more compelling, complex applications across
reports designed for desktops to mobile. The the enterprise value chain, making integration,
resulting multi-purpose apps proved unwieldy security and manageability more critical.
on the small screen, and replicating point/click/ • Cross-platform, multi-environment application
type functionality using a touch/swipe interface suites and HTML5 implementations have evolved
proved painful. to more credibly offer “develop once, deploy
• Developers had a losing choice: deal with the many” approaches to mobile.
complexity of designing multiple native apps or • As mobility reaches critical mass, the need for
endure the sub-par user experience of simpler device management, product management,
web-based apps. application management, security and privacy
• Most organizations only had a handful of mobile management, and other enterprise capabilities
solutions in production, making the required shifts from “good to have” to “must have,” and
infrastructure and enterprise enablement support the vendors are responding.
seem like overhead.
Specialized mobile • Ruggedized, hardened and other fit-to-purpose • Consumer-grade device prices have fallen,
equipment and devices were too expensive to allow mobile use causing some previous buyers of high-end
network/carrier cases to propagate. specialized gear to consider switching to lower-
infrastructure • Splintered ecosystems across manufacturers and cost, easily replaceable devices.
operating environments stymied marketplace • As standards emerge in the mobile ecosystem,
innovation. device manufacturers are beginning to adopt
• Devices lacked the horsepower and flexibility open platforms (e.g., Android).
to handle divergent tasks, which limited their • Advances in memory, display, computing and
potential usage. peripherals allow portability between personas
• Advanced mobile solutions had architectural and use cases moving freely between PC, tablet
dependencies on carrier infrastructure (e.g., and handheld.
wireless access protocol (WAP) gateways/proxies, • Mobile networks now enable true endpoint-to-
authentication, authorization and accounting endpoint connectivity, agnostic of infrastructural
(AAA)-driven session management.) details.
Asset intelligence1 • Embedded sensors expand enterprise mobility’s • Machine-to-machine middleware and application
potential, but compatibility between machinery logic are improving compatibility in hardware/
and sensors was limited. manufacturer protocols and communication
• Sensor prices have been too high for commodity channels.
adoption. • Prices have decreased dramatically for embedded
• Visibility without sense-making led to data prolif- sensors, communications and onboard compute/
eration, not insights. memory.
• Cost-efficient solutions are emerging for business
rules engines to perform edge-based logic,
allowing signals to be processed that can initiate
actuation, not just data broadcast.
16
21. Enterprise Mobility Unleashed
Technology implications
Enterprise mobility can unleash business transformation from the top down, but it is inherently a technology-driven
advance with potential consequences that the CIO should be prepared to manage.
Topic Description
Bring your own device Whether or not to allow employees to bring their own devices to work is top-of-mind for many CIOs.
(BYOD) It’s not clear that mobile device policies and management controls are enforceable, especially across
international borders. Country regulations regarding e-discovery and the legality of remotely wiping
personal devices with a corporate footprint vary. If BYOD is pursued, data and application containers
should be considered to partition user and corporate assets.
Mobile device Organizations will need an arsenal of tools, policies and back-end scripting to monitor, manage
management (MDM) and control devices. MDM can protect applications, patches and security agents that are properly
provisioned and can allow data to be automatically backed-up and protected while at rest and in
transit. It can also allow devices to be triaged, disabled or wiped clean if compromised. The vendor
landscape is crowded. There is the potential for consolidation over the course of 2012.
Security and privacy Organizations need policies and tools to authenticate users; control devices, applications and data;
provide end-to-end encryption while at rest, in flight and in use; run content filtering and malware
protection; and allow security event monitoring, logging and response. Security policies and profiles
should be tied to specific users and scenarios, focusing remedies on likely incidents, not the infinite
range of risk possibilities.
Mobile application Deployment of in-house and third-party mobile applications is not a trivial matter; nor is the
management management of provisioning profiles, entitlements, licensing, compliance and user-access
termination. In-house enterprise app stores have emerged, as have tools for administering access lists
across internal and external application portfolios.
Mobile middleware Organizations will need to manage mobile solution integration to on-premise and cloud-based
enterprise systems and data, as well as improve data transmission to mobile devices based on layout
and bandwidth consumption. This includes management of variability in network connectivity and
performance – including tools for enabling off-line mode and ways to deal with frequent air-interface
switching between 4G (LTE/WiMax), 3G (EVDO/HSPA), 2.5G (1xRTT/Edge) and Wi-Fi networks of
varying signal strengths.
Desktop virtualization Some organizations may opt for a data-centric approach to mobile enablement, choosing to limit the
data actually resident on the mobile device. Relying on virtualized environments allows organizations
to provide access without relinquishing control.
Mobile application Debate continues over the preferred approach to application development. Native application coding
architecture allows greater control over operating systems and device features. Cross-platform development
allows a “build once, deploy many times” delivery. And new browser-based or web standards like
HTML5 hold the potential for easier porting with better functionality.
Mobility testing suites Emerging services can automate the testing of solutions across devices and operating systems,
simulating varying levels of connectivity and network performance – including diagnostic tools to
identify data and system dependencies to shrink time-to-deployment while increasing multiple
device support.
2012 Technology Trends – Disruptors 17
22. Enterprise Mobility Unleashed
Lessons from the frontlines Faster than a speeding bullet
Innovation on the rails Disaster recovery and continuity planning are rarely the
Amtrak is investing in mobility in a big way – targeting source of innovation. This has an unfortunate side effect:
conductors and customers – to build on record-high disaster-response knowledge is often trapped within bulky
ridership and revenue performance in 2011. Historically, printed materials sitting inside the very office buildings
conductors have been saddled with paper-based, manual most likely to be affected during an emergency. Plus, with
processes for dealing with everything from ticket collection increasingly mobile workforces, the challenge of tracking
to service maintenance, but mobility is changing that. A and helping your people during a crisis is virtually
solution combining a mobile app with a magnetic stripe impossible without technology’s help. Bamboo is a service
reader is modernizing railway operations – and the to address these needs by providing a mobile vehicle for
industry. Conductors use the app to process tickets, reporting incidents, facilitating communication between
perform prompt fraud validation, prove customer team members and potential first responders, and allowing
notification of potential scheduling issues, and feed into a individuals to understand what they should do during and
sophisticated model that tracks customers and their after an event. Continuity plans are stored locally, allowing
location on the train. This improves the conductor’s teams to mobilize even if connectivity is lost.
efficiency by identifying which doors to open during stops,
arranging for the right number of wheelchairs at the right The future of retail
place upon an individual’s departure, and providing a A large retail organization has embraced mobility – not as
sense for the capacity and likely needs for each car. In the a siloed commerce channel, but as a means to empower
past, faulty toilets, damaged seats or broken kitchen customers and drive loyalty through new services and
equipment would be serviced only at the end of an offerings. Smartphone, tablet and mobile web offerings
extended route. With the new mobile app, incidents can provide mailings, product browsing, inventory searches,
be reported in real-time, allowing maintenance to be coupons, gift registries and shopping lists. Emerging mobile
scheduled at intermediate stops along the way. This and e-commerce platforms have generated innovations in
functionality led to enthusiastic adoption by conductors in interactive advertisements, individualized coupons that can
a matter of minutes after deployment, versus weeks of be scanned at the point-of-sale, and integration to their
training for IT services that have historically led to poor brick and mortar stores. The organization marries digital
traction, usage and results. content with inventory, price and in-store location – down
to the aisle and shelf detail – showcasing an omni-channel
For passengers, there’s a complementary app available strategy bigger than the web, mobile, social or storefront
that offers scheduling, ticketing and check-in capabilities individually.
as standard features – presented with a highly usable
interface. The concept has been extended to include
gamification principles: customers earn stamps while
traveling, link achievements to social networks and see
visualizations of their personal travels compared to peer
groups or frequent travelers. This information is linked
to Amtrak’s reward and loyalty program, encouraging
customers to pursue new methods of engagement
beyond traditional channels.
18
23. Enterprise Mobility Unleashed
My take
Shehryar Khan
Founder and former CEO
Übermind, Inc.
The mobile revolution is underway. Companies big and Unleashing mobile has tremendous potential. But to fully
small, across virtually every industry, are clamoring to realize this, it is important to acknowledge how mobile can
unlock the potential of mobility in their business. At impact many aspects of your business – from how your
Übermind, we have helped some of the largest and most customers can engage with you in new and interesting
recognizable brands define and execute their mobile ways, but also in how you can make a difference in the
strategy2. Our goal is not just to create killer, intuitive lives of your employees by equipping them with tools that
mobile apps that are breathtakingly beautiful as they are help enable them to do their jobs more effectively. Keeping
functional (though we love to do that); it is to help an enterprise frame-of-mind is also important, factoring in
companies transform their business through the use of the special considerations and gotchas that come with
new generation of smartphone and tablet devices. And to enabling mission-critical aspects of the business through
rethink operating and business models – constrained only mobile innovation. Security. Scalability. Reliability.
by our imagination of how a digitally advanced, always- Maintainability. Flexibility. Integrated into back-office
connected customer base, coupled with a truly untethered systems, data and workflows.
workforce, can transform an industry. How business is
conducted. How markets are shaped. Developing, deploying and supporting mobile solutions is
quite a bit different than traditional IT. Doing it well
Surely in some cases the most effective answer is to build requires a special blend of business insight, deep technical
from today’s reality – to do what you’ve historically done, chops and strong design. Companies that recognize this
but to take advantage of mobile capabilities to do it better. required mix of business, art and science can set
But what really excites me is when we can help define a themselves apart from their competition and help to
new tomorrow – not just doing things differently, but reshape entire industries.
doing different things. And when you are using mobile
coupled with other technology-based innovations like
analytics, social, gamification, cloud computing and
visualization as a Trojan horse for transformative thinking.
But this time, realizing how a very sophisticated “always
on, always connected, in your pocket” computing device
(which some people call a phone) can help empower
everybody that engages with your business – be they
customers, employees or business partners.
2012 Technology Trends – Disruptors 19
24. Enterprise Mobility Unleashed
Where do you start? • Centralize. Given the freedom to run, each pocket
For many organizations, the mobility opportunity is clear. within an organization is likely to either build skills in
But understanding where to begin isn’t as straightforward. mobile app design and development, or outsource it.
CIOs are in the middle of the mix, facing their own Even worse, they could establish competing policies
concerns about the strategy, infrastructure and delivery with varying levels of enterprise-class features (security,
capabilities required to meet mobility demand with privacy, integration, data management). This could
enterprise-class solutions. To position IT as a driver of confuse users and jeopardize your brand. Plus, each silo
business innovation and agility, consider these next steps: will go through its own learning curve. Having a core
group or center of excellence that shares experiences
• Fuel the arms race. Move mobile toward the top of the among functions and business areas can accelerate the
CIO agenda. Put together a three-person swat team – move from the mobile veneering of existing operations
designer, architect and developer – and have them to true innovation.
rapidly train on a platform of choice. Find the early seeds
of mobile opportunities in the business, and zero in on • Think differently. Mobile is a different beast than
one that has clear business value. traditional IT. To achieve your goals, you’ll need a unique
mix of creativity and design talent that might not be a
• Build a foundational strategy. The mobility landscape core discipline within the CIO’s shop. Take cues from
is moving at warp speed. CIOs need a mobile strategy leading consumer applications, and improve scope,
limited to a six-month horizon. Decide on an initial usability and back-end performance to leverage the
mobile app architecture. Establish foundational unique characteristics of mobile.
recommendations for management, deployment and
support. Create a roadmap of prioritized use-cases and
apps. And establish a plan for how to meet demand.
The strategy doesn’t need to be exclusionary of any
specific technology options: choose where to develop
natively, where to use a cross-platform enablement tool,
and where to build a mobile-tailored web app. Do them
all at once, or in rapid succession, and you are likely to
buy yourself strategic flexibility for the medium-term.
20
25. Enterprise Mobility Unleashed
Bottom line
Mobility is quickly becoming one of the most important battlegrounds for business innovation. Operating
models are being redrawn for consumers, employees and business partners alike. This puts enormous
pressure on CIOs to determine whether mobile solutions are ready for the enterprise. In the push for
usability, however, ideas like reliability, security, performance and maintainability should not be forgotten.
Regardless, there’s no excuse for not pursuing mobile. The revolution is well underway. Every business
should be exploring how it will operate when location constraints are obliterated. Every CIO should have a
clear vision of a world in which every customer, worker and supplier is hyper-productive, hyper-available
and hyper-engaged.
Endnotes
1
Additional information is available in Deloitte Consulting LLP (2010), “Depth Perception: A dozen technology trends shaping business and IT in
2010”, http://www.deloitte.com/us/2010technologytrends, Chapter 11.
“Deloitte Acquires Übermind; Establishes Lead in the Mobile Revolution,” Deloitte LLP press release, January 4, 2012, on the Deloitte LLP web
2
site, http://www.deloitte.com/view/en_US/us/press/Press-Releases/5fa2480b618a4310VgnVCM1000001a56f00aRCRD.htm, accessed January
25, 2012.
2012 Technology Trends – Disruptors 21
26. 4 User Empowerment
The end-user renaissance forces a sourcing apps. BYOA (bring your own application) will likely
disruptive shift in IT become part of many organizations’ solution footprints.
In their personal lives, business users are enjoying a
technology renaissance that continues to deliver simple, These changes should not be chalked up to nefarious
elegant and often innovative technology products. Then motivations among empowered users. They simply
they come to work expecting the same experience. To represent market dynamics at play. Users expect intuitive,
meet those expectations, IT leaders should understand and dynamic solutions now, and corporate IT has historically
deliver capabilities that engage each key persona of their focused on underlying architecture and completeness of
users, enabling a given role in the way they actually solutions – the foundation and the plumbing, not the
perform their job. But it shouldn’t stop there. The real trick decor. IT’s success in this area is part of the challenge:
is envisioning how emerging technologies and new form while process automation has been generally satisfied, end
factors can improve how work actually gets done. users have begun to expect something more. In general,
Enterprise users are clamoring for mobile and social they want more than utility, they want elegance – and they
enablement – collaboration, information and insight are typically not afraid to tap into any channel at their
wherever, whenever. They’re looking to leave behind the disposal to get it.
legacy “point, click, type” world for one of “touch, swipe,
talk and gesture,” and they won’t hesitate to go around CIOs can use this movement to their advantage, but it may
central IT to get the capabilities they need. The CIO require some uncomfortable change. For starters, creative
must envision the digital future and deliver the and user experience (UX) talent with a deep understanding
empowered present. of human behavior will likely be required as a core
competency. Agile and Scrum delivery capabilities will
User empowerment builds on this reality, embodying the complement heavier methodologies, supporting rapid
tenets of user engagement and embracing free-market prototyping and a design-led iterative approach. Broad
principles that are becoming a central feature of today’s integration, security and data management services should
IT environment1. Said another way, it reflects the be developed – and marketed – along with proactive
democratization of corporate technology. guidance for business users on how central IT can help in
this new user-empowered world. Think service-oriented
End users have plenty of opportunities to bypass IT and architecture – not only in the technology stack, but also in
procure off-the-shelf or low/no-code solutions that are just how business capabilities are described2.
good enough to meet their needs. Through mobile and
desktop application (app) stores, cloud-based marketplaces Without succeeding in this shift, a CIO may be treated as
and rapid development and deployment platforms, an obstacle or viewed as irrelevant to the business vision.
business stakeholders are one swipe of the corporate credit That’s why it’s important for CIOs to guide the business
card away from procuring rogue “almost-enterprise” through the inevitable disruption of technology
applications to fulfill their unmet needs. As a result, CIOs innovations, and to be seen as co-conspirators by their
should consider adopting a design-led, user-centric empowered users, enabling – and accelerating – the
approach to new application development, while also upward journey.
accepting the inevitability of business users directly
22
27. User Empowerment
History repeating itself?
User empowerment in 2012 is the culmination of a journey evolving from the industrial revolution and advancing through
the information age. It is heavily influenced by technology and trends that have been guiding consumer product design
and branding for decades. It also reflects the disintermediation of central IT – something foreshadowed during prior
evolutionary leaps from mainframe to client server to the onset of the Internet.
What were the challenges? What’s different in 2012?
User experience (UX) • UX is meant to be broad in scope – affecting • User empowerment requires UX to be raised
how a product is discovered, learned and used. beyond ergonomics, color palettes and the
It could be applied to any system: physical or placement of web elements. The principles
logical, informational or transaction. UX saw a of user engagement require creative and UX
resurgence with the web explosion in the early disciplines – but there is a more ambitious, trans-
2000s, but unfortunately became tightly associ- formative agenda at stake. Creating a design-led,
ated with site design and page look/feel, layout creative-infused approach to solutions requires
and flow. building from a vision of how users could do
their jobs. This effort should not be limited by
• UX has not been embraced by many IT depart- underlying systems, data or constraints of how
ments. Some organizations that attempted to jobs are done today.
develop creative or UX competencies found
it difficult to attract and retain the talent they • The scope of user empowerment reaches across
needed. As such, the influence of UX has employee- and customer-facing functions,
been limited. business processes and channels.
• Users expect intuitive interfaces that require
minimal training to get up and running – func-
tional simplicity on top of elegant designs.
• Composite application frameworks allow a
combination of highly usable, engaging
form factors hiding the complexity of
underlying back-end systems – be they legacy
or emerging solutions.
Human factor science • A multi-disciplinary approach was taken to • User empowerment looks to build from the
understand and improve how individuals interact breakthroughs of human factor sciences – but
with the world. Volumes of research existed, but tailors the findings to practical IT solutions.
they were largely theoretical and abstract, so the
impact on information systems and enterprise IT • Advances in big data and analytics lowers the
was limited. entry barriers for some flavors of insights – with
lightweight tools now available to analyze volu-
• User engagement employed exacting research minous, granular data describing user behavior
with influences from psychology, statistics, and preferences.
industrial design, operations and various
branches of engineering. This required a highly
specialized skill-set, making it difficult and costly
to cultivate talent.
Desktop-ware/macros/ • Democratization of IT occurred in several waves: • Unlike past incarnations, user empowerment is
almost-enterprise macros in the early mainframe days; desktop- not about enacting control or punishing innova-
applications3 ware in the early client/server days; departmental tion. It is about reinventing IT as a compelling set
web solutions as the Internet went mainstream; of service-based capabilities in line with consumer
and now line-of-business investments in cloud sensibilities, fluent in emerging technologies and
and mobile apps. The delivery model and under- able to guide and accelerate almost-enterprise
lying technology changed, but the pursuit is the application adoption.
same – agility and control.
2012 Technology Trends – Disruptors 23