Content Shift

The Case for ECM Mobile Apps

Despite the popularity of mobile devices and apps, mobile access to ECM is not prevalent in the enterprise today. In a study completed with AIIM, only 15% of organizations that participated had a dedicated app for ECM. As we can see in the following chart, email is still the number one mobile app. Dedicated apps are also popular for accessing social media or social business content.

                              Email has driven the enterprise adoption of the mobile device
 
In fact, 35% of organizations surveyed permit remote access to ECM or document management systems.

So where does this leave ECM in the mobile apps equation?

What makes mobile apps valuable to consumers, along with ease of use and accessibility, is the ability to find, share, and access quality content. Most business apps require a content repository to make them useful. A mature ECM system gives organizations a solid foundation for enterprise-grade apps by delivering a secure repository that can be coupled with a rapid app authoring and deployment framework.

ECM – with its proven content management functionality and security – allows the enterprise to leverage existing IT infrastructures and security to create an environment where business-critical information can be exchanged, used on the go, and retained in ways never before possible. A good illustration of this is a document sharing app that allows enterprise users to access, share, and manage content across devices in secure folders on smartphones, tablets, and PCs, or laptops.

A document sharing app brings together a secure repository, a mobile app, and the private or enterprise cloud. The enterprise maintains absolute control of data, while users can easily share content that is typically emailed or stored on shared on drives. The important point here is that the enterprise still “owns” the content and it is protected. Organizations can maintain safe data in existing systems while still providing the cloud-based app experience that users are increasingly demanding in the workplace.

How will the enterprise develop, distribute, and manage mobile apps? This will be explored in the next post in this series.

Read Part 1 in the series.

Read Part 2.

Read Part 3.

Read Part 4.

Read Part 5.

Read Part 6.

Read Part 7.

A Fusion of Features

In the previous post, we examined the critical role that the mobile interface plays in user adoption. Another key factor that affects consumer adoption of both mobile devices and apps is the ability to personalize information in context, which can be done, for example, with geo-location. Along with the ability to access and share information based on where the user is, the ability to capture documents, images, video, and audio is also important. This fusion of features, when combined with secure access, makes the mobile device indispensible for sharing, accessing, and managing business critical information.

Sharing information quickly and easily, in context, provides competitive advantage in many industries. The Oil and Gas industry, for example, would benefit from a mobile app that mashes-up information from a variety of sources, including news, maps, weather, and more – to present users with a visual overview. This combination of content from external and internal sources could form the basis of a crisis management app to effectively manage emergency oil well operations.

Immediate access to content in many formats means that decisions can be made more quickly and records of these decisions can be captured to maintain an audit trail, enabling people to be more productive and protected at the same time.

Enterprise apps centers will manage the distribution of vertically oriented apps by industry

Mobile apps are a cost-effective way to deliver new, personalized business mashups of enterprise and online data sources. The enterprise will require a controlled center for the development, approval, and distribution of mobile apps to ensure compliance and simplify integration. In an upcoming post in this series, we’ll take a look at how organizations will manage their mobile apps by using an app store structure, or what we'll term, an Enterprise App Center.

Read Part 1 in the series.

Read Part 2.

Read Part 3.

Read Part 4.

Read Part 5.

Read Part 6.

Interface & Usability

In the future, the enterprise will start to manage mobile devices like smartphones and tablets holistically as an extension of an organizational desktop. Mobile applications will be built to support multiple user interfaces and will share a common user-interaction model, giving people a seamless experience, regardless of context, location or device.

When exploring a business case for the development of a mobile app, a determining factor will be whether or not the interface is effective on company-preferred devices. Many organizations today are not providing mobile access to ECM systems. For some, this is because a remote access to applications, even using a web browser, is not available.

 
A recent study shows that most organizations are not providing mobile access to ECM systems

Based on the consumer experience, people prefer a dedicated-app end user experience to accessing information or applications over access using a web browser or remote interface. Accessing information using a standard web interface from a mobile device is not always a user-friendly option. The mobile interface is evolving to support a better end user experience—and based on our observations, there is agreement that the tablet delivers more effective access to information than many mobile devices. And apps provide a more satisfying experience than mobile access using conventional web pages.

Reading a document on a smartphone can be a challenge. With the limited screen size of mobile devices, an appealing user interface that displays information clearly is critical in creating a positive end user experience and driving widespread adoption.  Being able to view, filter, and sort information easily and intelligently on a mobile device is a key requirement.

User behavior typically drives UI development and users are embracing touch screens as technology moves away from the mouse-click to provide a richer and more intuitive experience. The iPhone, for example, is a gesture-based device that offers a touch screen for users. Touch screen devices are popular for delivering a very compelling, almost immersive, end user experience with the ability to interact with a device and its applications at a touch. Users are able to navigate through screens in a very intuitive way to view and manipulate—at a touch—objects, media assets, videos, web browser content, and more.

Our access to content will be increasingly filtered by metadata, preferences, or context. Being able to configure and personalize the mobile experience from both an app and an interface perspective is key to creating positive end user experience and removing barriers to adoption.

I’ll examine personalization and feature/function advantages of the mobile device in the next post in this series.

Read Part 1 in the series.

Read Part 2.

Read Part 3.

Read Part 4.

Read Part 5.

Security & Governance

As stated in an earlier post, the era of ‘bring your own device to work’ has arrived. In the 2010 study below, a staggering 58% of employees were individually liable for their mobile device, meaning that employees were not using enterprise-provided devices but rather their own.

The bring-your-own-device to work era has arrived

In a recent mobile study completed by AIIM, 42% of the participating organizations expected employees to carry two phones, one for professional and one for personal use. Combining personal and work information on a phone presents serious security threats. As the lines blur between consumer and business content, organizations are becoming increasingly focused on how to minimize the risk of sensitive data falling into the wrong hands when devices go astray or security breaches occur.

 
20% of companies surveyed do not have a governance policy on mobile content

In the graphic above, we can see that 47% of participating organizations allow their employees to use personal devices to access company data, but only a third of these enforce governance policies.

From a technical perspective, risk can be reduced by building and managing apps on secure platforms and making apps available using a secure enterprise app center or store. While the flexibility of passwords and password retention varies between devices, they can be controlled by an organization's mail-server settings. Organizations can also restrict access to company servers with a mobile VPN, deploy anti-virus/anti-spyware software onto mobile devices, and make use of “two-factor security” (fingerprint, PIN pads, dongles, etc.).

From an organizational perspective, a governance policy is a requirement to minimize risk.  Any policy needs a commitment to communication and enforcement. Findings from the AIIM mobile report are unsettling: 20% of companies surveyed don't have a governance policy on mobile content; 33% rely on their employees to comply with policies around passwords, reporting lost devices, and wiping data off defunct devices. A startling 9% allow staff to connect to corporate information in an ad hoc manner. This is a concern even for company-owned devices, given 61% of respondents feel that employees are likely to download unofficial apps.

Since tablets and mobile devices will continue to be embraced by the enterprise to help improve employee productivity, security for these devices will be a growing concern and top of mind for CIOs.

For more detailed security related stats and findings, read the report, called Making the Most of Mobile: Content on the Move.

Read Part 1 in the series.

Read Part 2.

Read Part 3.

Read Part 4.

Mobile BPM: Processes on the Go

Mobile business process management (BPM) is an example of an ECM application that delivers significant productivity and efficiency gains. Mobile BPM accelerates decision-making by giving management the ability to view workflows from their mobile devices in real time to review and approve steps, or select to reroute others to avoid potential issues or pitfalls. As a result, projects stay on track with mobile professionals making more informed and better decisions. Mobile access to processes gives organizations the ability to take decision making on the road for access at any time from any place.

Not only does management benefit from Mobile BPM: mobile access to up-to-date and accurate information gives sales teams competitive advantage. Content is combined with mobile capabilities such as GPS systems, calendars and notifications to keep a sales force connected to dynamic information 24-7. A document sharing app allows sales teams to access, share, and manage content across devices in secure folders on smartphones, tablets, and PCs or laptops. As a result, salespeople are able to connect from anywhere to the information they need to stay on top of account development and customer relations. Because the company is leveraging a secure ECM infrastructure, all information is guaranteed to be secure and compliant.

Mobile ECM has enabled one high tech organization to improve their productivity by as much as 21 hours in one week. Significant benefits like streamlined decision-making have been experienced by field service and executive management. Mobile ECM apps help organizations improve overall responsiveness to new opportunities, lower the costs of inefficient communications and collaboration, and ensures that critical content is secure.

I’ll examine mobile app security in more detail my next post.

Read Part 1 in the series.

Read Part 2.

Read Part 3.

Apps as Productivity Tools

The explosive growth in the popularity of mobile apps has many managers wondering how they can leverage the multi-functionality and portability of these devices to improve the productivity and engagement of their workforce. Extending content and apps to mobile devices increases the value of corporate assets through real time access to information and resources without the limitations of time or place. As a result, business can be executed more quickly, with employees being more informed and better equipped to do their jobs with fewer limitations.

In the survey by Forrester Research called Enterprise and SMB Networks and Telecommunications Survey, North America and Europe, 75% of participating companies reported an increase in employee productivity through the use of mobile applications. This was broken down into: improved employee responsiveness and decision-making (66%); faster resolution of customer and internal IT issues (48%); and improved customer satisfaction (42%). 

In a more recent report by AIIM, Making the Most of Mobile: Content on the Move, 35% of organizations surveyed considered mobile-specific applications or apps to be “essential to the business” or “highly productive” with a further 42% considering them “useful overall”.

In the above chart, taken from this same AIIM report, we can see that organizations are embracing the mobile app trend, especially in areas like social media, data capture, surveys, forms, and approvals. The enterprise is only now recognizing the potential for apps to increase productivity, reduce cycles for decision making, capture travel information and expenses, approve and reject forms such as purchase orders, and enable better customer relationship management. There is also a huge potential for productivity gains from apps that function to optimize business processes within specific industries.

Once adopted by the enterprise, mobile apps promise significant increases in productivity and performance. Before the rush to develop or outsource, however, it’s important to understand the business case for any app. Moving forward, organizations will be required to support mobile apps for both their employees and customers, and these apps will need to work across platforms and devices. As a result, many organizations will require a mobile development framework or a mobile enterprise application platform, something we refer to as Enterprise Application Management or EAM.

We’ll take a closer look at EAM in this series of blogs… but first we’ll examine a mobile app in action in the next post in this series.

A New APPtitude

The rapid adoption of mobile apps has been driven by devices like the iPad and the Smartphone from distribution platforms like iTunes and the Apple App Store. This model has redefined the client as mobile and the server as in the cloud, shifting the balance of power between content creators and content distributors in the process. This model is the single most significant technology development to affect business since the PC, and it will dominate computing well into the future.

On the consumer side, the success of this model is evident in the milestone 15 billion apps downloaded from Apple’s App Store in 2011. But how will apps and their distribution model alter the course of business? Considerably, when we look at the following statistics sourced from a 2011 Morgan Stanley Report:

• Apple shipped 10 million iPads in the September 2011 quarter and 45 million in 18 months.
• 9 months after Apple launched the iPad, 80% of Fortune 100 companies had deployed or were piloting it.
• 67 percent of CIOs surveyed by Morgan Stanley said they expected to incorporate tablets into their networks this year.
• Sales to corporations and governments will account for 30-40% of all tablet sales in 2012.
• More than 65% of enterprises in the US and the UK will deploy 5 or more mobile apps in 2011.

These statistics are backed by a recent study completed by AIIM called Making the Most of Mobile: Content on the Move. As illustrated in the chart below, in over half of the organizations surveyed in this report, mobile devices are being used as productivity tools: most employees are issued smartphones (25 - 65% of employees); the adoption of tablets are trending up (7% of organizations are issuing tables to 2/3 or their workforce); and both are combined with an increasing number of people bringing their mobile devices to work.

Mobile devices such as the smartphone have considerable use in the enterprise, with the tablet making inroads

With the success of the mobile phone and the arrival of the tablet, along with touch screen computing and the easy installation of apps onto mobile clients from a digital distribution platform, the world has entered a new phase of computing. The impact of this on content will be profound. We’ll examine these implications in this series of posts.

Predicting the future is never easy. Most successful visions of the future are either based on historical analysis or by detecting some anomaly or opportunity. Over 30 years ago, Dr. Donald Chisholm based his vision of the futuristic “Digital World” on the latter. Foreseeing great opportunities in digital technology, he predicted that information moving across networks would one day become more important than the telecommunications introduced by Alexander Graham Bell at the start of the century.

The problem with Dr. Chisholm’s bold statement was that very few who prospered in the analog computing world believed him. Time proved that his vision of the future was correct. History has a way of leveling the playing field for those who may be successful in the present, but fail to see beyond their success into the future. This is particularly true after long periods of incremental innovation. Such periods set the stage for a fusion of forces which create new paradigms and new windows of opportunity.

The future presents a unique window of opportunity driven by the confluence of digital media, cloud computing, and mobile devices. The clear and present “Tablet Wars” (iPads, PlayBooks, etc.) are yet another example of tensions that exist between established and new market players who are applying technologies to create new ways of communicating, working, learning, socializing, and in fact, living. 

The future of enterprise content belongs to the mobile app

The next decade holds as much risk as opportunity for every enterprise, NGO, and government institution worldwide. What lies ahead on the horizon now that we’ve lived to see Dr. Chisholm’s vision become a reality? Without a doubt, the mobile future is here to stay.  The key question is how affordable “moving culture” will shape commerce, education, and the way we live.  

This blog series will take a look at the mobile digital world that is emerging, and what it has in store for enterprise content in terms of usability, productivity, enterprise content management (ECM), and security.

Welcome to final installment in a series of interviews with Megan McKenzie of high-tech PR Firm McKenzie Worldwide on Managing Content in the Cloud. In this last podcast interview, we discuss the exciting possibilities offered by technologies like social media, mobility, and cloud computing. We explore these in our conversation, with a focus on how organizations are doing more with online resources and enhancing their ability to access content in any format, from any place at any time. While these emerging technologies offer great potential as productivity tools, they also present issues around security and privacy, which is why enterprise content management, or ECM, is so important.

Listen to the interview.

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Back in 2011, I completed a series of tours across Europe, Asia, and North America to promote my book Managing Content in the Cloud. During this tour, I visited over 40 cities where I met with hundreds of customers, partners, government officials, and media types. There’s no doubt that many of these countries—Canada, Germany, England, Japan, China, Singapore, Australia—are investing heavily in technology to drive innovation.

What I discovered in my travels is that content lies at the heart of technological innovation. It didn't matter what country I was in, people wanted to talk about content and how to manage it. It’s a growing problem. The topics of conversation focused consistently on cloud computing, social media as a productivity tool, semantic search, security, and mobility. These conversations are continuing well into 2012.

Here’s a video montage of my global thought leadership tour:

 Stay tuned for my upcoming series on the Rise of the Mobile Enterprise.