Mobile strategies are the talk of the C-suite. But is the talk leading to success? Are your employees working better, faster, and more collaboratively? Or are they dismissing the apps you put out there for them?
According to a recent survey by Vanson Bourne, less than 20% of 1,000 C-level IT and business decision makers interviewed said their mobile initiatives have been adopted by a majority of their employees.
That’s a huge failure rate—and certainly the issue isn’t a lack of funding, as U.S. companies are poised to spend millions on mobility this year to move office functions to the field, reinvent critical business processes, and drive productivity.
So why are employees not engaging with company-supplied mobile apps? We believe too many decision makers are focusing solely on technology—forgetting that technology isn’t the solution, it’s an enabler of a solution.
Want to publish your own articles on DistilINFO Publications?
Send us an email, we will get in touch with you.
What businesses need to focus on first is the experience of the potential users and what they want to do in a mobile context. After all, your employees already are mobile app experts. If your apps are confusing, don’t work well with their device, or don’t deliver clear work value, your employees will reject them.
For example, consider the challenge faced by a hospital whose nursing staff was frustrated by the inconvenience of having to use a variety of paper forms to manually collect data during treatment processes. A technology-led approach to the challenge resulted in a smartphone app to automate the process. But since the app simply ported the data collection process from paper to a smartphone, it didn’t transform the task to make the nurses’ work more efficient.
Thinking was refocused around how to transform data collection using tablets. Instead of making assumptions about what the nurses needed, significant time was spent with them to understand how their work processes could be improved. The result was a tablet app that merged multiple paper forms and separate workflows, reduced data collection time, and improved the quality of data via built-in safeguards against incorrect and missing information. Moreover, the involvement of the nurses in the design process meant the app felt familiar and was easy to use—transforming their work experience.
What you need now—before you invest any more money—is a three-pronged approach to delivering the perfect set of apps that improve employee performance and productivity.
Here’s what you need to do:
Collect user insights. Do you understand the employee needs you want to address with mobility? Uncovering that information means spending significant time with potential users—your employees—before even considering what to create. You want to walk in their shoes and understand the challenges and frustrations they have with their current mobile and wired experience, and what positive things can happen if they’re truly untethered from the office. The truth is they may not even know it themselves if you were to ask. It takes observation through immersion to glean their need.
Develop an App Delivery Plan. Think of your employees as customers and launch your distribution plan in phases. Start by creating an app library with some level of categorization, such as scheduling, task improvement, and contact management. Later on, you’ll want to adopt recommendation engines similar to iTunes or Amazon that will learn your employees’ preferences based on download patterns and usage. Your goal is to help employees find the exact right app for their specific needs.
Adopt a Change-and-Adapt Methodology. Mobility is fast and dynamic—an ongoing process rather than a static, multi-year plan. Your mobile strategy will need to continuously change and adapt to new technologies and device capabilities. You’ll gather insights, develop an app, deliver, get feedback, learn, iterate, and repeat. It’s a cycle that requires patience and perseverance so your app developers can determine which apps work, which should be tweaked, and which should be retired.
This three-pronged approach requires collaboration between your technology, user experience, and change management resources. Silo the effort or take one set of resources out of the equation and it can all crumble.
Enterprise mobility is the disruptive technology of our time. But success requires a strategy that matches what your employees need against what technology offers. It takes immersion in the user experience to create apps your employees can’t work without. And it takes a strategic approach to delivery that gets the right apps to the right employees and helps developers know when it’s time to tweak or retire them.
With so much at stake, your mobility plan needs to start off on the right foot. Picking the correct technology is crucial, but there’s a lot to do before technology comes into play. Following the three-pronged approach will help ensure your apps will be fully adopted by employees and give you the return on investment you’re counting on.