Mobilize Your Enterprise: Achieving Competitive Advantage Through Wireless Technology
|
Description
|
Preface There are some common mistakes technology vendors tend to make in an early market. They get confused by all the hype. But in an early market it is usually the supply side not the demand side that makes all the noise. This is self-perpetuating one vendor hears noise from other vendors, interprets it as a market, and then generates some more noise. In many cases, the hype gets out of hand and people get all the wrong expectations. Unfortunately, in the midst of all that, no real buyers can be identified. For example, two years ago many people thought there would be a real interest in performing financial transactions on a cell phone. Some were thinking that the average person would want to trade stocks from these small devices. The problem was that typical consumers had no desire to do so. The hype would not have been so bad if it had stayed among a closed group on the supply side. After all, the suppliers themselves are at fault for not having identified buyers with real problems that could be solved through the new technology. Unfortunately, this was not the case. The general public got wind of these big ideas about a big emerging market, and the confusion spread to the demand side. Following the early hype is a lot of disappointment and frustration. Few people realize that there was never such a market just a lot of companies going to the same trade shows and recycling ideas, mistaking those ideas for something coming from potential buyers. People who were in the middle of this look for various scapegoats for the market's not having taken off. They never realize that in fact the market they were targeting never really had a problem that could be solved by the technology in the state it was. Once companies go belly-up through all this and die-hard techies move on to the next hype wave, we start to hear a whisper one that in fact has been there long before the technology hype drowned it out. This whisper talks about an industry or industries who have had some burning problem for a long time. That is what is called a market somebody has a problem (the demand side) and somebody else has a solution (the supply side). This is not rocket science; any kid selling lemonade on a hot summer's day understands this. Mobile technology has matured in the last two years. There are several good wireless data services available and there are several good PDAs, tablet computers, and notebook computers with wireless capabilities built in. The technology is now at a state where real business problems can be solved and it turns out that there are real business problems crying out to be solved. These are the problems resulting from lack of critical information when and where workers need it. This problem is particularly acute among mobile workers especially those who spend a lot of time in front of customers. Mobilize Your Enterprise: Achieving Competitive Advantage Through Wireless Technology is both a business book and a technical book. It explains the business value of mobile technology to the enterprise and it explains the enabling technology in terms of its business value. As such, Mobilize Your Enterprise aims to help the following types of readers: Executives, looking to understand what mobile technology can do for your company: this book will arm you with answers to your business questions and it will give you a working knowledge of the technology that makes business value possible. Sales Managers, Service Managers, Line of Business Managers, looking for ways of optimizing the business processes of mobile workers: you will learn where mobile technology has business value and where it does not. You will learn enough about the underlying technology to be able to make sense of what vendors are telling you. IT Managers, looking to understand the mobility paradigm: this book will show you the different technologies that go into a mobile solution. It will also help you develop ways of talking about the business rationale for mobile technology to economic buyers in your company. You will learn the structure of the market, and what kinds of vendors you should call on. Technology Vendors, looking to further your knowledge of this market: this book will help you understand how the buyer sees mobile solutions. It will complement your understanding of the technology, and it will give you new insight into the competitive landscape. Mobilize Your Enterprise: Achieving Competitive Advantage Through Wireless Technology is a book to help you make decisions. I hope and fully expect that you will find the mobility paradigm a compelling way for your company gain an advantage. But if this book helps you decide that mobility does not make sense for your company, I will still consider that I have done my job. |
Other books on Mobile Computing
|
