Go Mobile!

Good advice from RightNow's CEO: go mobile

During his recent RightNow Summit 2010 keynote, CEO Greg Gianforte said there are six things that every company needs to do, number-one being to "go mobile." However, many organizations – enterprises, government departments, and enterprise applications vendors – think that adding the ability for customers, employees, and partners to interact with them through mobile devices is not relevant to them or their markets. Taking this attitude means these organizations will have to scramble in the future and could find themselves at a competitive disadvantage. It is better to start experimenting with mobility now before it is a critical issue.

Enterprises and enterprise applications vendors need to "go mobile," even if they don't think it's relevant to them

The pervasiveness of mobile devices in developed and developing countries means that sooner or later all organizations will need to be mobile enabled. Enterprises and government organizations therefore need to start working on becoming mobile access friendly. Unfortunately, many organizations do not perceive mobile access as relevant to their customers or employees. Similarly, not all enterprise applications vendors are convinced that their clients will need to reach customers via mobile devices. This attitude among organizations and software vendors means that both groups could find themselves at a competitive disadvantage when the ultimate consumers of products, services, and corporate data demand mobile access and move on when their companies, suppliers, or partners cannot comply. Examples of enterprise applications vendors that understand the opportunity that mobile access represents include SAP (through the Sybase acquisition) and RightNow. Early adopters such as these two firms can seize an important advantage over software vendors that are skeptical about this trend.