The Future Project: Vol. 3 Envisioning the Impact of Big Data & Analytics on Mobile

Predicting Customer Needs with Greater Accuracy Through

Mobile and AnalyticsInterview with Chuck Martin, @chuckmartin

CEO, Founder of Mobile Future Institute

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2 | The Future Project: Vol. 3 Envisioning the Impact of Big Data & Analytics on Mobile

Introduction

As technology grows and evolves, so do the ways in which we work and do business. Tablets, smartphones, wearables and other mobile devices keep us constantly tethered to the Internet and one another. But how this affects the way business gets done – both inside the enterprise with employees and outside with customers – is not yet fully understood.

Organizations are rethinking the way they’re structured, breaking down traditional silos in favor of productivity and collaboration. They’re also rapidly trying to keep up with today’s demanding customers, to understand where, when and how they want products and services, at exactly the right instant.

Chuck Martin is the CEO of Mobile Future Institute. He was recently interviewed to shed light on these challenges and unveil what the coming years hold for the future of mobile.

About Chuck Martin

Chuck Martin sees a future where customers are better served through the powerful combination of mobile and analytics. Chuck Martin is a New York Times best-selling author about business and has been a leader in emerging digital technologies for more than a decade.

He is considered one of the foremost mobile experts in the world and is the Editor of MediaPost’s IoT Daily and mCommerce Daily. He also writes the well-read daily columns Connected Thinking for IoT Daily and MobileShopTalk for mCommerce Daily, which are sent to more than 100,000 subscribers each day. Follow Chuck on Twitter @chuckmartin or connect with him on LinkedIn.

3 | The Future Project: Vol. 3 Envisioning the Impact of Big Data & Analytics on Mobile

The way to look at the development of apps is that every five years we emerge from the dark ages. So five years ago it was the dark ages of apps. But when we move five years forward from today, we’ll look back and say that today was the dark ages of apps. So we’re going through the dark ages pretty much every five years.

With regard to protecting data sharing, there are really two issues with customer data. First, there is the data itself, which is really the area of security, and many companies have this built into their DNA. Then there is the issue of privacy, which is totally different from security. Sometimes companies mix these two issues together, when they are in fact really separate.

So if you look at data as two segments, it’s security, and it’s privacy. Privacy goes with the consumer. Data goes with the responsibility of the security of the company.

Companies mix the issues of data security and privacy together, when in fact they are separate.

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Greater Understanding

How are we building apps differently today compared with five years ago? And what issues or challenges are companies facing to protect data sharing?

4 | The Future Project: Vol. 3 Envisioning the Impact of Big Data & Analytics on Mobile

Mobile analytics is the richest of the analytics that you can get, primarily because it involves location. If you look at what’s occurred historically, we could measure supply and demand. But with mobile, we can merge supply and demand with time and location. So we now have supply, demand, time and location, which have never been available together in the past.

Mobile is also empowering the workforce as people have begun to bring their devices to work. But what’s important to remember is that our employees are also consumers. So we can’t treat them one way and then treat customers another, because they are the same people.

The challenge for organizations is being advanced enough to keep up with what is happening in the consumer marketplace and also to start thinking about employees as consumers.

Workforce Empowerment

What is unique about mobile analytics compared with other types of analytics? And how can mobile empower your workforce?

Mobile analytics is the richest of the analytics that you can get, because it involves location.

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5 | The Future Project: Vol. 3 Envisioning the Impact of Big Data & Analytics on Mobile

There are two ways that companies can look at this, either short-term or long-term. If they make the mistake of focusing only on the short-term, they are gathering all this data, analyzing it, crunching it and then using it to provide someone, usually the company, with a short-term benefit. But this does not benefit the consumer.

Instead, what we should be doing is providing higher value to the consumer at the moment when it matters most. Second, and more important, we should be using the aggregation of that data for long-term strategic decisions. However, companies aren’t even close to doing that yet.

Strategic Data Usage

How can you capitalize on mobile context to ensure that you are gathering actual insights in the moment?

We should be using the aggregation of data for long-term strategic decisions.

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6 | The Future Project: Vol. 3 Envisioning the Impact of Big Data & Analytics on Mobile

Moving into the Future

In the future, we need to look at analytics and say, “Okay, what insights can we get that will enhance the value of a product or service for our customer?” I don’t think that many companies are thinking like that yet, and this is where we need change.

I like to think about business gaps, what companies are doing, what they should be doing and what gap needs to be filled. Analytics and mobile will be critical in filling this gap as we gain greater depth in understanding and predicting customer needs at the exact and most optimal time to make the largest impact for customers.

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IBM MobileFirst Can Help

Mobile is significantly impacting how organizations approach engagement and has the power to transform professions and industries.

Customers, employees and partners are connecting and collaborating in new ways, using their mobile devices across all stages of evaluating, buying and using products and services. To drive mobile business innovation, barriers to adoption must be eliminated — it must be safe and easy to unleash enterprise mobility, and create user experiences that bring the power of mobile to the individual.

IBM’s 6,000 mobile experts have been at the forefront of mobile enterprise innovation. IBM has secured more than 4,300 patents in mobile, social and security, which have been incorporated into IBM MobileFirst solutions that enable enterprise clients to radically streamline and accelerate mobile adoption, and help organizations engage more people and capture new markets. Through IBM’s partnership with Apple, the two organizations are transforming enterprise mobility with a new class of industry specific business apps.

For more information on the IBM MobileFirst portfolio visit IBM.com/MobileFirst, and join the conversation at mobilebusinessinsights.com

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