10 PILLARS TO BUILDING A WINNING MOBILE STRATEGYEvolving today’s mobile organization

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Dial up your mobile strategy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

Pillar # 1 | Maturity – Know your mobile maturity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

Pillar # 2 | Hurdles – Identify the hurdles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Pillar # 3 | Champion – Think small to think big . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

Pillar # 4 | Technology – Choose open and build for change . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

Pillar # 5 | Process – Build agility, maintain core . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

Pillar # 6 | Culture – Embrace a mobile mindset . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

Pillar # 7 | Tools – Application development your way . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .10

Pillar # 8 | Data – Fueling business value . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

Pillar # 9 | Security – Managed point-to-point . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

Pillar # 10 | Deployment – Bringing agility to continuous deployment . . . 13

The last word . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .14

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DIAL UP YOUR MOBILE STRATEGYMobility is increasingly blurring the lines of physical and digital interactions in our lives as consumers, employees, and as citizens . The challenges of being mobile extend far beyond the device and into an evolving digital world that is reshaping how we engage with people, content, machines, and our environment . Mobile strategy, as part of a broader digital strategy, cannot be ignored .

Mobile and cloud have been catalysts for major disruptions, causing businesses to rethink technologies, services, and techniques; and to evolve traditional roles, responsibilities, and organizational cultures accordingly . This has raised the bar on immediacy, pervasiveness, and contextual awareness and it’s changing how businesses engage and operate—challenging the traditional IT approach . At the same time mobile devices and technologies are continuously innovating and changing . This has placed new challenges on organizations to respond and reorganize .

These major disruptions, combined with a continuously changing environment, make it difficult to define mobile strategy . As the mobility market evolves and matures, this strategy needs to be revisited, updated, and aligned with changing market conditions in order to reap the returns on mobile investment . This eBook revisits the “10 steps to shape Mobile Strategy” eBook published in early 2014, reflecting recent market trends and perspectives from our client projects with the aim to help you achieve demonstrable, repeatable mobile successes .

« Greater mobile maturity should be seen as an iterative process of hit and miss, as companies try and overcome complexity of organizational, technical and resourcing obstacles . While it is by no means sure that all companies will manage to iteratively improve the way they approach mobile, the success of doing so will play a large role in determining winners and losers across all verticals . »

— 451 Research, Chris Marsh, Feb 2015

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KNOW YOUR MOBILE MATURITYThe first step is in recognizing how far along you are on the mobile maturity curve. Knowing where you are will help you move forward in a more goal-oriented manner. Which of the following stages best describes where you are?

NO MOBILE APP INITIATIVES – You have not embarked on any custom mobile app projects . Mobile Device Management (MDM) may be implemented and employees may be using publically available apps as part of their workflow . It could be time to consider some custom apps .

TACTICAL MOBILITY – You create mobile apps in a more tactical and siloed approach, without a company-wide direction . Often there is no formal mobile vision, strategy, or plan implemented . This tactical approach often leads to a tipping point at which it becomes difficult to scale and manage a growing number of mobile app projects .

STRATEGIC MOBILITY – You deploy mobile apps across a larger subset of the organization in a more strategic and centralized manner . Even though a mobile strategy is implemented, the use cases still tend to be more about automating existing workflow or business processes and less about transforming the business through mobile . This strategic approach is more about mobilizing and less about mobile innovation .

MOBILE-FIRST – You use the power of mobile devices and apps across the whole organization as a means to transform business processes to drive innovation in a unified way . Mobile is in your organization’s DNA and is user-centric and often user-driven, encompassing not only technology, but also organizational culture and processes . Your use of mobile recognizes the role of the business and end-users in driving winning mobile projects and the role of IT in enabling development at speed while maintaining stability of security, systems, and infrastructure .

What is your mobile maturity and what do you aspire to be? You don’t have to go through all mobile maturity stages to evolve towards being mobile-first . Be brave and bear in mind that a significant jump in maturity will not happen by chance .

Pillar # 1 | Maturity

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IDENTIFY THE HURDLESIdentify your specific barriers to mobile maturity. Often barriers are not technological, so be aware of how process and culture sometimes hampers mobile aspirations.

• Prioritize or rate these hurdles in order of the impact that they are having on your mobile success .

• Figure out ways to break down these barriers . Focus on solutions that will have high impact . For example, if cost is a key issue, identify what parts of your mobile efforts are consuming the most resources . Can you outsource parts of app development that are suited to a more automated and lower cost approach? Are skills costs high because you are dealing with proprietary technologies? Is cost being driven by an over-engineered approach?

• Determine what value or business outcomes you intend to achieve through creating mobile apps and allow the business, not IT, to play an active role in this . According to a recent 451 Research survey, in the next 2 years, 50% of mobile technology spend will be defined by line of business .1

• An important consideration is measuring mobile success and return on investment (ROI) . Use reporting and analytics throughout the complete app lifecycle – from concept to iterative deployment . This will help quantify ROI, but it will also give you the chance to find out how users interact with the app and inform continuous development .

1 | 451 Research, 451 Preview: 2015 Trends in Enterprise Mobility, Dec 2014

« While IT is still in charge of defining and setting the budget for mobility deployments, line-of-business (LOB) managers are becoming increasingly involved in the decision process . »

— 451 Research, 2015 Trends in Enterprise Mobility

Pillar # 2 | Hurdles

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THINK SMALL TO THINK BIGMobile and cloud have been a catalyst for major disruptions in how organizations design, develop, integrate, deploy, and manage enterprise software applications. Keeping up with change while pivoting in new directions is challenging.

• Be focused when it comes to creating and deploying apps . Consider championing mobile through developing winning mobile projects . That means choosing a key business challenge or process that will lend itself to transformation through mobile . It could be a field service app project that takes advantage of device features, augmented reality, and/or real-time integration with back-office systems to streamline workflow in the field . Or it could be a customer service app that adds value in the service delivery cycle through up-to-date product and pricing information . This best practice can then go viral within the organization and have a positive effect on other mobile projects .

• Prioritize key business processes that will lend themselves to quick success through mobilization . For example, look at paper-based transactions . Thanks to the cloud and the availability of tools for configuring apps and building mobile-optimized forms, it’s now possible to create form-based apps easily, even without coding skills .

• Keep it simple . A good app should be able to perform a given task within two or three clicks, swipes or gestures, so don’t cram it with every conceivable piece of functionality . IT departments have traditionally worked with multi-featured and multi-faceted applications, so you may to convince them that simple apps can be valuable .

Don’t stop at the low hanging fruit or the winning apps . Innovation is often about seeing the same things in a new way and creating the foundation to scale, fine tune, and succeed .

Pillar # 3 | Champion

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CHOOSE OPEN AND BUILD FOR CHANGE

Pillar # 4 | Technology

Open technologies and flexible architectures are replacing traditional proprietary technologies and monolithic architectures that no longer work for mobile.

• Open technology stacks based on RESTful APIs and loosely-coupled components are today’s alternative to traditional rigid monolithic architectures . Open, component-based stacks ease developer discovery, driving greater agility across company-wide projects . Even data from legacy systems can be mobilized using a lightweight approach .

• Consider the flexibility of a microservices approach where small loosely-coupled services can be combined into larger backend services that connect to each other via APIs . These microservices can be reused across multiple app projects, decreasing development time and cost .

• As mobile technologies and toolkits emerge and evolve at faster rates, you need to be able to keep pace with them to ensure continuity . Open frameworks and toolchains that are continuously updated by development communities equip developers with the best-in-breed tools . With significant skills gaps in mobile app development, these also deliver lower barriers to entry and faster learning curves .

• Consider JavaScript skills for frontend and backend development . These skills are more commonly available than other more niche coding skills and lend themselves to mobile app development . Node .js, which is based on JavaScript, allows developers to take advantage of existing skills to develop backend services that offer high performance for data-intensive real-time applications that run across distributed devices .

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BUILD AGILITY, MAINTAIN COREWith time to market and app development cycles shrinking, agility and agile processes have become the focus of attention with fast IT gaining popularity and mindshare.

• Adopt a bimodal approach to unite IT teams and combine agility with stability to address digital opportunities .2 While fast IT can employ agile approaches to meet business demand, don’t forget the need for sustainability, security, and stability of core IT systems of record . The need to move toward a systems of engagement model does not mean abandoning these . A two-track approach helps maximize development efficiency while centralizing control policies and backend integration . And, if you haven’t introduced agile processes, mobile projects are a great place to start building a foundation for fast IT .

• Agile development is geared to projects being delivered at speed, sometimes weeks or even days . Iterations and upgrades are continuous . Experimentation is king and modern toolkits and loosely scripted languages reign . The agile IT professional is dynamic, nimble, and focused on delivery at speed and not consumed by the fine-grained details . The agile mindset is user- and business-oriented with the communication skills to respond to business needs .

• Meanwhile, core IT focuses on the creation and maintenance of the infrastructure, back-end connections, and APIs that enable apps to retrieve and deliver data to and from enterprise systems . This takes place in a secure, reusable, and scalable manner, even when these are legacy systems that are not designed to be mobilized .

• Cloud platform technologies and collaborative approaches help promote flexibility that can give fast IT the agility they need while centralizing the critical components governed by core IT — e .g . connectivity to back-end data sources — and making them accessible in a securere, collaborative, and reusable way .

2 | Gartner, “The Future of Mobile Apps and their Development,” Richard Marshall, 24th October 2014 https://www .gartner .com/doc/2887017/future-mobile-apps-development

« The use of a bimodal strategy — one mode addressing stability and the other agility — allows organizations to maximize development efficiency and respect information control policies, yet address the urgency of volatile competitive, seasonal and unplanned needs . »

— “Adopt a Bimodal Approach to Mobile App Development Strategy”, July 2014, Richard Marshall, Research Director, Gartner

Pillar #5 | Process

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« Large enterprises may tend to institute too much bureaucracy, which is exactly what can kill mobile innovation . Companies should use their centers of excellence to define the framework around security, the user experience, regulatory requirements, and use of corporate digital assets, but beyond that, lines of business and their business analysts and internal developers should be allowed to innovate . »

— 451 Research, “Enterprises need to flip the 80:20 in their Mobile App Strategy to gain scale”, Nov 2014

EMBRACE A MOBILE MINDSETToday’s digital, user-centric business world has changed from push to pull, from technology-driven to user-led, from silos to collaboration. How does the organizational culture match these shifts and provide focus on engaging the digital user?

• Promote innovation and transformation . Give business units more control over the apps that they need to improve business outcomes while letting IT take control of complex backend integrations, security and policy management, user access, and infrastructure .

• Innovation needs support from the top . Executive sponsorship will improve the traction of mobility initiatives . But remember that great ideas can come from anyone, anywhere, at any time . Very often, the people on the ground who undertake tasks on a daily basis will know there’s a better way to work and inspire you to transform the way things are done . Encourage mobile rockstars and reward mobile success .

• Foster a collaborative and open culture . The role of IT should be enabler and not gatekeeper of these mobile projects, allowing the business and end-users to share ideas

• Define roles . Responsibilities should be clear between the business and IT, between agile development teams and core IT, between frontend and backend developers . Put communication mechanisms and platforms in place that give the business control over frontend app idea generation and give IT control over security, policy and governance, and backend integration .

• Make sure to consider the resources and the skill sets you require to support your mobile strategy . Choose your team with agility and flexibility in mind—whether resources are internal, external or both . You’ll need a blend of business, UI, frontend design, backend integration, and DevOps skills .

Pillar #6 | Culture

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APPLICATION DEVELOPMENT YOUR WAY

Reusable code, backend services (microservices), APIs, templates, codeless apps, and out-of-the-box solutions all help accelerate the development cycle, increase efficiencies, and reduce costs . Be open to the tools that can get you on the mobile track fast and painlessly .

Remember that developing an app is only part of the equation in the app life cycle. Enterprise mobility is a continuous cycle of design, development, integration, deployment, measurement, and management. When it comes to the development piece consider:

• Start with the user and involve them throughout the complete app lifecycle . Avoid trying to adapt an existing web interface or create an app based around a technology decision: rethink the possibilities that today’s mobile, cloud, social and, data combinations can bring to your users .

• Keep an open mind when it comes to devices, types of apps (native, hybrid, web), and deployment options . There is no one size fits all in mobile . Consider the future of devices and don’t limit yourself to just smartphones and tablets . The market is innovating at speed as wearable technology, beacons, and smart sensors evolve .

• Developer toolkits for mobile are abundant and are evolving at a rapid pace . Common coding languages include, JavaScript, Objective C, C#, Java™, Node .js, and HTML5 . There is also a plethora of frameworks — AngularJS, Ionic, Sencha Touch, Backbone .js, Ember .js; as well as toolkits such as Apache Cordova, Appcelerator, and Xamarin . Then there’s native SDKs . With all this innovation it’s important to be as flexible as possible, letting developers choose the tools and environment they need to build great apps with maximum agility .

• Enterprise-grade mobile app projects require a range of different skillsets that need to collaborate effectively to bring apps to market at speed . Skills often include UI design, frontend coding, backend integration, DevOps, analytics, QA, and more . Kinks in this team-based approach can expose security vulnerabilities and slow down development . Collaboration across the team is necessary to support greater agility .

Pillar # 7 | Tools

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FUELING BUSINESS VALUEChoosing the platforms, architectures, technologies, and methods that help manage growing data workloads is critical to creating enriched digital experiences.

• Secure and enterprise-grade integration of mobile apps with backend systems, applications, and data helps organizations take advantage of their data to enhance value for customers, employees, and for the business .

• The cloud plays a pivotal role, whereby data can be transmitted over a secure channel to the cloud, which sends it on to the app on the device . As well as providing greater performance, this approach is inherently more secure than exposing corporate data directly to the device .

• Mobile Backend-as-a-Service (MBaaS) functionality provides a high-performance, lightweight framework to securely integrate mobile apps with back-end systems . This manages data storage and management, scaling, security, data sync, notifications and more between the mobile clients and back-end systems .

• Application programming interfaces (APIs) and microservices are the building blocks of back-end services and can help speed development and reduce complexity . A RESTful API architecture helps capture and store data generated by devices as well as unlocking the value in existing systems of record .

« Mobile Backend as a Service (MBaaS) attempts to fill the gap between traditional application platforms and mobile applications . It is the new middleware, exposing APIs and functions that enable developers to rapidly build new mobile apps and mobile-enable legacy enterprise applications . »

— GigaOM Research, “Sector Roadmap:Enterprise MBaaS Platforms”, Jan 2015

Pillar # 8 | Data

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MANAGED POINT-TO-POINTSecurity touches every step when creating a mobile strategy. Data is being exposed as users consume more information on multiple devices, at diverse locations, at any time. This brings with it a shift in how security is managed.

• With an increase in shadow IT practices—where business units bypass IT to create or use their own apps—mobile security risks can escalate . Centralizing control over security, integration, and policy management with IT while giving the business the freedom to innovate will help ensure adherence to company security and compliance requirements without stifling creativity .

• The cloud can bring greater security to mobile projects and app data . Most cloud providers have integrated rigorous security protocols across distributed infrastructure, making them less open to security breaches than some traditional on-premise deployments .4

• Flexibility in choosing deployment options, such as hybrid cloud, can help meet stricter compliance and governance requirements .

• Robust user authentication and authorization are essential to make sure that sensitive data doesn’t get into the wrong hands . Look to technologies that provide this functionality, especially for employee or B2B apps that often require more granular user access management .

• Often overlooked, the app development process should also be considered as it relates to security . With multiple developers accessing projects and parts of app development possibly outsourced, ensuring security around sensitive development components, such as backend services that expose corporate data, is important .

Define the organization’s governance, risk and compliance requirements as it relates to mobile . How will security be managed in terms of mobile and other connected devices, user authentication and access to data, deployment models, 3rd party tools and technologies, and the app development and deployment process itself .

Pillar # 9 | Security

3 | Gartner, Gartner Says Cloud-Based Security Services Market to Reach $2 .1 Billion in 2013, Oct . 2013

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Consider agile tools to help deploy quickly and manage effectively . These technologies, like mobile development toolkits, are continuously evolving so make sure to constantly evaluate .

BRING AGILITY TO CONTINUOUS DEPLOYMENTMobile brings with it a model that is characterized by continuous cycles, where developers and DevOps work collaboratively in continuous development, integration, and deployment cycles.

• Cloud-based infrastructure allows you to take advantage of server-side business logic and execution, and gives you the speed, flexibility, and scalability that are the prerequisites for effective mobile apps .

• Depending on your organization’s requirements, public, hybrid, or private clouds may be considered as deployment targets for the cloud code . This also true for traditionally-architected, on-premise datacenters . Think beyond standard virtual machines and Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) and explore Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) with its potential to accelerate and streamline application development and delivery to solve many time-consuming headaches of managing a technology stack .

• Developers’ focus should be on building great apps that meet the needs of the business and users alike . Time is wasted in standing up and configuring the stack, managing distributed code, and dealing with the complexities of data storage, security, and management . The more effective the deployment model and technology stack, the less developers will have to concern themselves with when it comes to infrastructure configuration .

• Consider the ability to change as your infrastructure strategy changes over time . Portability and interoperability are important factors in avoiding cloud lock-in . Technologies and platforms built on open technologies can be more easily deployed in an automated fashion to any cloud including public, hybrid, or entirely on-premise . Don’t underestimate the power of open source communities in lowering cost and driving rapid innovation with open cloud models .

• Due to cost, it may make sense to have a number of mobile apps hosted publically while more sensitive apps are deployed on-premise or in a private cloud configuration . As more apps are developed and deployed, a hybrid cloud may be desirable . Don’t get tied into a single deployment model — look for flexibility .

Pillar # 10 | Deployment

Mobility is increasingly becoming a top priority for business as a means to drive innovation and streamline operational efficiency . However, it’s also creating demand for faster, continuous development cycles that challenge traditional IT infrastructure and development methodologies .

In crafting and reviewing your mobile strategy, this eBook helps you break the process across the 10 pillars outlined . You’ll find the real value of enterprise mobility will be revealed as your app deployments mature from tactical to more strategic use cases and as you evolve towards more agile approaches to development and deployment . This is not a one and done exercise . You must remain flexible, even when it comes to your mobile strategy .

Red Hat’s experience and leadership in enterprise IT, its portfolio of open source and cloud technologies, and its mobile capabilities and mobile application platform can help your organization evolve towards greater agility and digital innovation .

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