Business Agility: Strategies for Gaining Competitive Advantage through Mobile Business Solutions

able to uncover some exceptions. For example, you may be able to wire-

lessly enable an existing customer relationship management or sales

force automation package with a relatively small amount of effort and

generate valuable business benefits. Many of the enterprise case studies

we profiled earlier, provided solid benefits by focusing on a small appli-

cation area that was a quick win for customers and employees.

When prioritizing your application initiatives, you will also want to

look at the realistic timeline for deployment. Certain applications may be

deployable today given the current state of the technology and market

acceptance, whereas others may be further out on the horizon. For

example, customer access to order status and customer service informa-

tion may be a good prelude to eventual customer access to M-Commerce

application functionality. For the wireless carrier, customer access to uni-

fied messaging functionality may be a precursor to further wireless data

applications—such as a wireless data portal, M-Commerce applications,

and wireless application service provider offerings.

The initial applications that are targeted should not only be self-

justifying in terms of the return on investment, but they should also

be considered within this portfolio approach where they help to set

the groundwork for future applications to build upon. A good exam-

ple of this is the executive dashboard and business intelligence appli-

cations. These types of applications can provide enterprise access to

key business metrics, but can also set the stage as a portal or dash-

board for future expansion of application functionality.

Business Case Development

Once you have identified and prioritized your M-Business applications,

you may wish to develop a mini-business case around the most com-

pelling initiatives in order to gain project approval and funding. In devel-

oping the business case, there will certainly be many differences based

upon whether the initiative is internally focused or externally focused and

whether this is an extension to an existing offering or an entirely new

product or service. At the present time, a business case for an internal

initiative is a much easier proposition, since the audience and the level

of pain or opportunity is well-established and often well-articulated.

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