No matter where you go, there your business is
/“No matter where you go, there you are,” explained Buckaroo Banzai. Or maybe it was Confucius. I get the two of them mixed up all the time. And one thing that businesses are understandably getting mixed up about these days is where their business is because mobile devices have changed where we work. Thanks (or not, depending on your perspective) to mobile devices, we no longer work only while at the office. And a growing number of green mobile apps are helping us achieve a paperless office as we perform office-less work on the go with our smartphones, tablets, and other mobile devices.
While this newfound mobility has enabled our businesses to be innovative and more efficient, it has also given us an almost disabling security headache. Securing mobile devices in the workplace is complicated by the fact that the workplace is no longer just one place. And businesses are not just facing the implications of employees using mobile devices, but customers as well.
“Like many shoppers these days,” Craig Hayman recently blogged, “I use my mobile device to get a comprehensive view of what’s available at my favorite stores. In fact, I was one of the millions of holiday shoppers that used a smartphone as a digital concierge to help find the best deals, even when I was standing in the store. Our ability to use smartphones and tablets in cool, new ways is the primary reason we saw mobile traffic grow by 40 percent over last year’s peak holiday rush.”
We weren’t just using our mobile devices during the holiday season. J.P. Morgan reported that 2013 was the first year that we used the Internet more through mobile devices than desktop computers. Forbes projects mobile commerce (aka m-commerce) will exceed $40 billion in 2014. Without question the age of the mobile device has arrived.
Nowadays, no matter where you go, there you are with a mobile device. And since you may be an employee, customer, or both, more business leaders are adopting a mobile first strategy because no matter where you go, there your business is.
This post was written as part of the IBM for Midsize Business program, which provides midsize businesses with the tools, expertise and solutions they need to become engines of a smarter planet. I’ve been compensated to contribute to this program, but the opinions expressed in this post are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies, or opinions.
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