Getting Your Mobility Game on Track

2 Dec 2013

While they have not been widely recognized as a force in enterprise mobile networking, HP has quietly been assembling the pieces of an extensive mobility portfolio. While many companies focus on one or two areas in mobile, HP supports the entire breadth of the mobility spectrum from mobile devices to applications development/testing tools, wireless network infrastructure and back-end systems. One key component of the HP mobility value add is their Mobility Transformation Experience Workshops.

According to Craig Partridge, Worldwide Strategist for HP Technology Services Networking, the Mobility Transformation Workshop is a key planning tool that HP has developed to bring key stakeholders within an enterprise together to understand where they are in mobility, where they would like to get to, and begin putting together the steps they will need to affect that transition.

The management technique of bringing diverse groups together to map out an overall set of goals is not new, however HP has developed an organized program geared toward that objective. It is not a "pitch" for HP products but rather an opportunity to explore key developments in mobility including consumerization, BYOD, and how those trends are impacting end user productivity.

The workshop focuses people on all of the drivers that are impacting mobility. From an external perspective, there is the explosion of devices and consumer apps, and clearly those consumer experiences are shaping enterprise expectations. Internally we have concerns regarding security, innovation, and ensuring organizations are making these choices for the right business reasons. The reality is that we are emerging from a legacy environment characterized by control, into an environment that is governed by a more consumer-oriented experience that is now driving the conversation.

The goal of this session is to develop an environment that responds to that pressure and delivers on the promise of universal access to people, productivity generating applications, and the data required to perform the work. The idea is to come up with an enterprise solution that measures up to the consumer benchmark for performance and ease of use. That new environment will be driven by the cloud, and by increased self-service, both inside the corporate boundary and to the outside world.

The data and applications must still be delivered with a view towards the fundamental concepts of security and compliance, but we must now do so without the deadening effect of legacy architectures and concepts. With this vision in place, the empowered end user can leverage any device to access the people, data and applications they need to do their jobs. The transformation is focused on the idea of enhancing productivity, and looks to empower the IT department to respond much the same way as we see in the consumer environment.

As Jordan Whitmarsh, Worldwide Mobility Lead for HP Services Network Consulting, explains, the workshop looks to unlock productivity, accelerate productivity, enable communities, and deliver a redefined connectivity experience. In terms of productivity, enterprises need to evolve beyond the sole reliance of a keyboard-centric universe to embrace the net-new productivity promised by a touch sensitive one, in effect moving from a world dominated by desktops and laptops to one that is just as dependent on smartphones and tablets. The objective is to mobilize the productivity currently locked away on the Windows desktop experience as well as taking advantage of the net-new productivity afforded by new mobile platforms.

Very often IT is focused on the threats and the security exposures created, but it is also important to consider the opportunities. A mobility initiative can create scenarios that haven't existed before, and represents a significant opportunity to deliver productivity experiences in a brand new way.

When we add unified communications to the mix, we find that UC is more than just providing universal access to individuals - it's about the opportunity of introducing social concepts, creating communities and connecting those communities together both within and beyond an organization.

The explosion of wireless communications, both Wi-Fi and cellular, is creating the ability to push these capabilities beyond the boundaries of the organization. The demands on the network are changing at a phenomenal and unpredictable pace, and networks have to be ready to respond to these demands in a way that is fully transparent to the user.

So the real question is, what can a user organization expect at the end of this workshop? According to HP, first is a shared understanding of how mobility impacts today's user experiences, the challenges an organization faces in responding, and what the future should look like. Most importantly, is an overall plan and strategy to guide this transformation between the present and that future vision. The goal will be a defined roadmap with the steps companies will need to take to reach their goal as well as the quick wins they can use to demonstrate its value.

So the transformation workshop encompasses a unique methodology that starts with a reference point of an organization's reality, the business they're in, the challenges they face, and the investments they've already made. The process takes the abstract concepts of "end-user productivity" and forces the company to look at them in the context of the business organization, and how the forces of consumerization and mobility can be used to their advantage.

For most organizations the chance to bring their team together and really think about the future is an opportunity they rarely get. Doing that with a focused methodology and the ability to tap into external expertise is something more organizations should avail themselves of.

This paper is sponsored by HP.