The social enterprise is here to stay, and so is the mobile enterprise
There was a time when the enterprise led consumers in technology adoption. Chances are your parents had a computer at the office before they had a computer at home. Smartphones were once synonymous with Blackberries issued only to executives. Those days - at least when it comes to the adoption of communication - are behind us. The great democratization of information technology led by household names like Apple, Google, and Facebook has now pushed the frontier of innovation out of the office and into the mall.
When you read headlines like Salesforce.com's recent acquisition of Rypple, it's tempting to think: "wow, what a validation of the concept of the social enterprise." However, we should probably be thinking: "well it's about time." The same is true of mobility and the enterprise. I've been in the business of selling mobile software to enterprises for the past 6 years, and have had the great privilege of dealing with objections such as:
- This is too complicated for my employees,
- Where will we find time to train everyone,
- Is my HR policy ready to deal with employees using their personal phones to do work?
The truth is that employees are using mobility to be more efficient and collaborative in their personal lives, they are just chomping at the bit to be able to do the same in their professional lives. And the good news for employers is that for the most part they are willing to provide the hardware if you facilitate a BYOD approach to enterprise mobility.
So the challenge we put out to you in 2012 is: how would I run my business if I had the ability to communicate with my employees in real-time wherever they are? And yes, I should also be thinking about allowing my employees to communicate with each other in real-time wherever and whenever they want. It is after all what they do when they aren't on the job.