Industry experts and CIOs have talked for years about the need to eliminate silos and integrate decentralized devices, software, knowledge and infrastructure into one cohesive strategy. Are we there yet? Not exactly, but we are beginning to see some real progress, and happily, the results are much less terrifying than many had imagined.

For example, there is now widespread agreement that clouds are tying together and giving access to disparate mobile devices, proprietary software platforms and previously incompatible networks — and that’s a giant leap forward. Additionally, and very much related, the debates about social media’s role in the enterprise have calmed down, and the benefits are unfolding. What all of this means is that real transformation is starting to occur — and IT is squarely behind it. Better still, transformation is no longer the “T word” feared and loathed by IT and business alike. Transformation — and its partner, disruption — are seen as necessary conduits to business agility and innovation.

A new book, Social Business by Design (Jossey-Bass, May 2012), by thought leaders Dion Hinchcliffe and Peter Kim of Dachis Group, offers insights about what’s happening. In the book, Hinchcliffe, (who wrote for Smart Enterprise Exchange last year about social business and agile methodology), not only tells businesses to rethink the modern organization in light of social media, but along with Kim offers ways to go about it. The authors explain how to choose and implement a social business strategy and maximize its impact. Several impressive examples, such as SAP, Procter & Gamble, MillerCoors, Bloomberg, HBO, Ford and IBM, are included to illustrate successful strategies.

Equally impressive to me is the fact that Dachis Group as a whole “gets” that although the benefits are crystallizing, becoming a truly social business isn’t an easy transition — especially for those with legacy systems and mindsets in place.

Dachis consultant, Tom Bennett, recently wrote in his blog that: “No matter what the ultimate definition of Social Business becomes, it is a major shift from the current way many organizations work … One can’t simply dismiss everyone and start over.” Adopting social media models is “as much about a change in behavior, skills and activities,” as technologies. Bennett goes on to say that transformation will require the right mix of strategy, design and leadership in order to succeed.

For its part, McKinsey also is offering its perspective on “Demystifying social media.” A new report, mainly geared toward consumer marketing, explains how non-marketing executives can harness social media to drive business and generate revenue. Clearly, as McKinsey states, social media is no longer an experiment. In a related video — “Making sense of social media” — consumers share their experiences, and McKinsey partners provide advice on how companies can build brand loyalty and manage the organizational challenges.

Another compelling discussion about business transformation is taking place at Saugatuck Technology. Researchers there note that the real potential for business innovation lies in the synergy and “combinations among mobile, social, data analytics, integration and collaboration, all playing off each other and exchanging value in their interactions.”

The heavy lifting, according to Saugatuck, will come in the form of a Master Architecture that has to take shape, enabling what the firm calls the Boundary-free Enterprise™ — “with solutions that free the mobile knowledge worker and executive from their desks and build on the cloud, as well as other capabilities,” such as social/collaboration, data analytics and integration.

Figure 1 - Emerging Master Architecture ©

Others have coined terms for collaboration platforms before, but I’m intrigued by the vision of a boundary-free enterprise that uses “time- and location-independent computing capabilities — Cloud, Mobile, Social and Data Analytics (CMSA) plus integration” — to function efficiently and collaboratively. Like Dachis, Saugatuck also acknowledges that much work has to be done, particularly in the area of integration — “the glue that links capabilities together and joins them to on-premises data assets in data centers where mission-critical money systems still operate behind highly-secure firewalls.” Saugatuck’s founder and CEO Bill McNee will talk about these concepts at the upcoming All About the Cloud conference, co-produced by the Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA) and OpSource May 8-10, San Francisco.

In coming months, Smart Enterprise Exchange will be featuring more details about many of these research efforts, as well as other tools and approaches that enable business innovation. Meanwhile, share your tales of terror-free transformation and how your enterprise is becoming more innovative as it becomes a more social business. How are you closing the gaps between silos at your enterprise? Is transformation back?

Paula Klein

Editor and Community Manager

Smart Enterprise Exchange

Once tablets and smartphones rule the corporate environment, who will be liable for mobile device support — users or the business? More importantly, how many devices can any single user realistically own and use? Will unified communications (UC) become more urgent?

These questions and others were raised and debated at the recent Interop conference in New York. Now that the proliferation of consumer devices is a given, what will the mobile future look like at global enterprises?

I found some interesting answers and insights at an analyst roundtable led by Rohit Mehra, Director of Enterprise Communications Infrastructure at IDC. He predicted that the BYOD (bring your own device) trend will persist, yet he expects corporate-supplied mobile devices to increase as well. By 2015, IDC forecasts a nearly even split between smartphones supported by the business (45.3%) and those that users will be expected to maintain on their own (54.7%).

As tablets gain legitimacy in the enterprise, the bond between mobile and UC will grow tighter, he said. “Finally, mobile UC will take off,” he said, but while the IEEE 802.11 has become a de facto industry standard for wireless LANs and Wi-Fi, newer standards may emerge making interoperability difficult.

Five Devices per Person?

Then there are the challenges posed by the sheer number of devices. IDC expects that people will use as many as five mobile devices of all types, depending on their situation, location and the workload. It’s a number that illustrates the convergence of business and personal life, said Mark Lowenstein, Managing Director, Mobile Ecosystem. Lowenstein said that the desire of mobile users for constant connectivity and low pricing, however, “doesn’t jibe yet” with current cloud models and architectures. By his estimates, 15 to 20 percent of mobile devices are currently enterprise-liable.

On the app side of the equation, Bob Egan, VP Mobile Strategy and Chief Analyst, Mobiquity, cited a new Egan/Dresner Mobile BI Study that shows “seismic shifts” in how consumers will acquire their mobile business apps in the next few years. Specifically, he suggested that enterprises will increasingly offer apps themselves, as will mobile operators, as opposed to users getting them from third parties and app stores. Longer term, the apps will be available on the cloud.

IT Keeps Some Control

What’s really happening, in Egan’s view, is what he calls the “IT-ization of the workforce.” This means that IT will continue to determine which apps employees are allowed and individual industries will provide governance, lifecycle management and even apps. IT executives may be heartened by his belief that “BYOD won’t take over enterprise,” especially in highly regulated industries where governance and risk play a big role.

Meanwhile, Andrew Borg, Senior Research Analyst, Wireless and Mobility, at Aberdeen Group, noted a widespread confluence taking place among social media, mobile apps and the cloud.

Among other key points discussed were:

• Most believe that the future of RIM’s BlackBerry is weak at best (and this was before the recent RIM outages!) Mehra thinks it will be around for a while longer, based on its installed base.

• Lowenstein noted that Apple is clearly gaining serious ground at RIM’s expense in the enterprise, and he expects some consolidation of the market to take place in the next year. Borg said that Microsoft should not be discounted in either the smartphone or the tablet market.

• Security and authentication will continue to be the biggest challenge for mobile enterprises. That is where users will want to defer to corporate IT, and IT will want to leverage existing systems. Many different pricing and service plans will be tried, including site licensing for corporate apps, and even pushing the cost of regulatory compliance and security back to employees. Overall, mobile spending is rising quickly and is displacing PC-centric devices.

I think there's still a long way to go before the corporate mobile device market shakes out. What are your biggest concerns about corporate liability of mobile devices? How are you addressing unified communication needs?

Also, read more on how corporate IT is shifting in the face of consumer-driven IT. And more from Interop here.

Paula Klein

Editor and Community Manager

Smart Enterprise Exchange

What do recent hurricanes, earthquakes, tornados and other catastrophes around the world have to do with your role as a CIO? Plenty, when it comes to the traditional task of “keeping the lights on” 24/7. Many still consider the business continuity and disaster recovery aspects of IT as the most basic: Keep servers up and running; commission backup sites for emergencies, and replicate everything. That’s still sound advice, but in an age of cloud computing, virtualization, mobile devices and consumer driven IT, the basics are anything but basic.

In the past, when a disaster occurred, business was at a standstill until backup kicked in. Now, as wireless voice and data networks become more reliable, employees are ready to work remotely from their tablets, smartphones and other mobile devices — but only if the email server, VPN and other critical systems are up and access is available.

For example, many people who lost electricity this past week during the hurricane that hit the eastern U.S. were able to stay online via email and social networks and thanks to battery-powered mobile devices, Internet cafes and local libraries. That put extra pressure on IT departments to do their part: ensure that central servers were up and running so that business could continue. Thanks to backup and e-trading, the New York Stock Exchange opened as usual after the storm, and many in the financial industry — although they were unable to go to their offices — used Web access and Wi-Fi near home to participate in the trading day.

It’s clear that the business losses that result without adequate protection are huge. Based on a survey sponsored late last year by CA Technologies, the average global organization annually loses 545 person hours as a result of IT downtime. The survey, of 2,000 North American and European organizations conducted by Coleman Parkes Research firm, also found that “IT outages are frequent and lengthy — substantially damaging companies’ reputations, staff morale and customer loyalty. Despite this, 56 percent of organizations in North America and 30 percent in Europe don’t have a formal and comprehensive disaster recovery policy.”

A Smart Enterprise Exchange article last year also reported that a startlingly low percentage of businesses are actually adopting virtual backup despite the benefits in business continuity/disaster recovery initiatives.

What are some other options? As we reported, businesses are increasingly considering cloud options to help get data back online when disaster strikes. Several new products and services aimed at the need for virtual backup were introduced this week at VMWorld.

Of course some traditional advice still applies — with an updated twist. For instance, make sure you have remote access to your entire business — phones, services and email — even if you use a cloud provider. And be sure that your files, videoconferencing and all other databases and services are completely, and securely, accessible from a computer with a Web browser.

Mother Nature will continue to have her way, so backup protection is critical. When your mobile workforce logs on, will the enterprise be ready? Share your storm stories with your peers on the Exchange.

Paula  Klein

Editor and Community Manager