Picture: Leonardo da Vinci

As change agents, CIOs, CTOs, and technology and strategy managers need to help design great mobile moments that drive revenue growth, improve the customer experience, and eventually help transform their organization’s business model. Technology will play a major role in this endeavor. To succeed, it is important to remember that:

  • There will not be one single new revolutionary mobile technology. Many mobile technologies are coming of age; their true potential will unfold through the intelligent combination of mobile technologies to support mobile moments. The goal for the CIO should not be to chase the latest mobile technology, but rather to combine emerging mobile technologies in the most effective manner.
  • Mobile has moved well beyond smartphones and tablets. Mobility is now embedded in nearly every business process in both the consumer and business markets. Wearables and all sorts of devices and machines are becoming part of the mobile universe. The Internet of Things will also have a strong mobile dimension.
  • CIOs must focus on the mobile technologies with the greatest user impact. As CIOs create their business technology (BT) agendas, they need to take a more proactive approach to understanding and investing in emerging technologies for competitive differentiation. CIOs need to identify and catalog the customer impact of the main emerging mobile technologies that will help their organizations thrive in the age of the customer.

The report, The Top Technologies Driving The Mobile Mind Shift, highlights the most important technologies that will enable the mobile mind shift over the coming three to five years: mobile broadband, multiplatform application development, sensors, near field communication, data management, geolocation, speech recognition, mobile wallets, and mobile device batteries. These technologies are not necessarily on the cutting edge; they’re significant because of the ways leading businesses are beginning to deploy them in combination. When combined, these mobile technologies will significantly change how organizations engage with users and enhance their experiences. CIOs, CTOs, and technology and strategy managers can no longer afford to look at these mobile technologies as silos or nice-to-haves — they need to make mobility a cornerstone of their BT agenda.