The FINANCIAL — BARCELONA – Mobility is one of the most important digital technologies for enterprises, according to the Accenture Mobility Insights Report 2014, a global study of 1,475 executives – 100 of them Spanish – in 14 countries. Asked about digital priorities for the year, 43 percent of executives globally rated mobility as a top two priority, and of Spanish respondents, 68 percent rated Mobility as a top five digital priority.
The great majority (79 percent) of those Spanish businesses that participated regard digital technologies as a strategic investment, suggesting they believe it will help them to grow and reach more clients. In fact, only 10 percent of the Spanish companies participating stated that they have no formal strategy for mobility. However, and in spite of this drive, there is still a series of strategic, operating and organizational shortcomings that represent a hurdle when it comes to fully accomplishing the potential of mobility in business. These challenges are associated with the difficulties involved in implementing mobile capabilities, the lack of formal indicators to measure their effectiveness, and the lack of sufficient investment in stated mobility priorities, according to Accenture.
Of organizations globally that have seen over 100 percent Return on Investment (RoI) from mobility implementations over the last two years (one in ten), over two thirds claimed to have effectively adopted and deployed mobile technologies, compared to 45 percent of others. This group, named as “mobility leaders” in the study, shows a greater tendency to exceed the financial results of their industry averages. They are also prominent as they have a more ambitious, strategic and cross-company approach to mobility, reinforced by the active participation of C-level management in the formulation of mobility strategy. In Spain, nearly one third of companies surveyed (31 percent) have CEOs that play a role in developing mobility strategy. In addition, 44 percent of Spanish firms have made focused investments in mobile technologies to drive RoI, while a further 43 percent aggressively pursued an investment in mobile technologies, seeing it as a key part of business strategy.
Consumers, Companies and Connected Products
Among the consumer-focused mobile priorities for the next year, 63 percent of Spanish companies are looking to access new markets, develop new mobile services and products (62 percent), and to drive revenue by means of greater interaction with customers (58 percent), including by generating better knowledge of them through mobile analytics (57 percent), according to Accenture.
Among the enterprise-focused mobile priorities, monetizing data from connected products emerged as the most important for a significant 75 percent of Spanish companies, followed by streamlining operations through the ability to track orders, assets or inventory from anywhere (68 percent), and improving asset reliability and maintenance through deployment of sensors and other mobile technologies (67 percent).
Connected products – interconnected smart devices – were shown to be of increasing importance in Spain, with connected vehicles named as the most relevant of them to over half of Spanish respondents (56 percent). This was the second highest score globally for connected vehicles, trailing only the United States where 63 percent of enterprises believe them to be relevant.
Connected building and plant solutions were second most relevant to Spanish respondents at 44 percent, while wearable, sensor-based devices garnered interest from over one third of Spanish businesses (34 percent). In addition, enhancing mobile presence by launching new apps, improving existing apps’ reliability and adding new features were some of the other key priorities for Spanish firms, according to Accenture.
“It is encouraging to see that Spanish companies are embracing the importance of mobility, with nearly eight out of ten placing it in their top five priorities, and 95 percent meeting or exceeding their RoI goals for mobility implementations to date,” said Ismael Sancha, managing director, Accenture Mobility Spain. “Spain is also amongst the global leaders for having a formal mobility strategy in place as 90 percent do, but there is still a way to go to translate strategies for specific business units or functions into enterprise wide strategies. The adoption of an overarching mobility strategy will enable a level of competitive differentiation that can help grow a business, almost entirely regardless of the sector in which it operates, but it must include all elements of the business and engage users, as well as decision makers and IT teams,” Sancha added.
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