Take Advantage of Mobile Cloud. What Are You Waiting For?

As organizations seek ways to maintain real-time connections with their workforce and customers in an increasingly digital and mobile-centered world, the growth of mobile cloud will be a major force in shaping the business landscape and future tech decisions. The first blog post in this series, by Padmasree Warrior, explores how the convergence of mobility and cloud will deliver unprecedented transformation for all organizations. The second blog post in this series, by Sujai Hajela, answers the question of what mobile cloud really is and how it continues to provide new business opportunities. In the third post, Joe Cozzolino looks at what mobile cloud means for service providers and enterprises. In the fourth blog, Michael Fuhrman discusses the need for end-to-end security in a mobile cloud environment. And finally, this post will discuss actions that CXOs should take concerning cloud technology.  

Our recent mobility landscape study showed that organizations are looking for ways to maintain real-time connections with their workforce and customers in an increasingly digital and mobile-centered world.  The growth of mobile cloud is a major force in shaping the business landscape and future tech decisions. This blog series explores how the convergence of mobility and cloud will deliver unprecedented transformation for all organizations.

In this final post, Hans Hwang outlines two case studies where clients have used the reach of mobile cloud to improve customer interactions using real-time technology and results and speaks directly to business leaders on how to achieve the results they desire from mobile cloud technology.

In this series, we have covered a lot about what mobile cloud is and its capabilities, but can mobile cloud give you a return on your investment? As a Services leader, I see a lot of opportunity for you to get going with mobile cloud as a differentiator for your business. I’d like to close by talking about business outcomes. What is it you’d like to achieve? Increased efficiency? Reduced operating expenses? More revenue? A better experience for your customers? Or is it all of the above?

Let’s face it: your customers and your boss don’t care what particular technology you use to deliver results. They only care that you get there fast with minimal risk – and without extra funding. Investing in mobile cloud could be just your ticket, so let’s talk about business outcomes.

Bringing Mobile Cloud Experiences to Life

Many companies across a variety of industries are already experiencing the benefits of mobile cloud. In a Mobility Landscape study commissioned by Cisco earlier this year, 56 percent of organizations polled said their approach to mobility is converging with their cloud strategy, and 52 percent are pushing all their mobility solutions to the cloud. Collaborative partnerships with third party providers and your IT staff are what make it possible to design and build solutions that bring your desired experience to life.

• Real-time results for international fast food chain: To improve the attendee experience at a 30,000-person worldwide convention that took earlier this year, the company used a cloud-based solution that included Wi-Fi optimization, a customized mobile app, an analytics engine, and a visualization portal for real-time reporting on attendee behavior. Event coordinators were able to track the data in real-time and make traffic-flow improvements on the spot. The food chain and franchise owners can now use the data that was collected to make future decisions about new food launches, menus, and franchise layout.

• A national retailer in the US encourages store purchases: Reducing operating costs and improving the in-store shopping experiences to discourage “show rooming,” (a trend where customers visit a physical store to evaluate products and then purchase them online for the best price) was the desired outcome the customer was after. The first step was to optimize Wi-Fi in the stores to create a fun shopping experience that would allow the retailer to push applications to shoppers’ mobile devices, show them where products are located, and send targeted promotions. The customer was encouraged to remove Wi-Fi interference and lower IT costs by creating a mobile application for store employees to identify and disable devices that disrupt the Wi-Fi, such as electronic display signs. The application works using location analytics run on a mobile services engine. Cloud comes into play by providing a central place to manage Wi-Fi access points for the thousands of retail stores.

For enterprises who want results, it is important to work with service providers who offer new cloud-based Wi-Fi services, such as consumer-device tracking and location-based advertising. Businesses across all industries want to use technology to better understand and communicate with their customers, whether they’re sports fans at a large stadium, grocery shoppers, travelers, or diners. Cisco Services works with global SPs to develop new real-time mobile analytics services.

Two Steps Puts You on the Path to Your Business Goals

If you are a business executive, here’s what you need to do to start making technology work for you:

1. Determine your objectives including the metrics you’d like to achieve. If you’re not sure what mobile cloud can do for you, ask us for a workshop where we can help define low-hanging fruit and longer-term initiatives.
2. Start the conversation with your IT Services. They need to get the underlying infrastructure ready (with the appropriate security, policy management, and pervasive connectivity) so it doesn’t become a bottleneck to achieving your business outcomes.

Mobile cloud isn’t the answer for every problem. You may have specific security, regulatory, integration, or operations requirements that call for a different architectural solution. Through our experience working with clients in remote countries across highly regulated industries and in extreme environments, we can help you determine the best path for reaching your goals.

Let me know what you’re doing to get the conversation going about mobile cloud in your business. You can reach me on twitter @hhwang70.

Visit Executive Perspectives to learn more about how converging technology trends are shaping the way IT operates and delivers services. Be sure to join the conversation, #CiscoCloud and #FutureOfMobility.

Additional Sources:

• Read Mobile Cloud Accelerates the Pace of Change by Cisco’s Padmasree Warrior
• Read What Is Mobile Cloud and Why Should Anyone Care? by Cisco’s Sujai Hajela
• Read What Mobile Cloud Means for Service Providers and Enterprises by Joseph Cozzolino
• Read Mobile Cloud Security: What CXOs Need to Know by Cisco’s Michael Fuhrman