I won’t claim to be one of the best, nor even a shining example of innovation (I’ll leave that to greater egos than mine) but I know two things hold true for corporate strategy at all levels.

1. The more you know, the stronger your strategy will be.

2. The more you know, the less you know.

Forrester just released its report on 10 2011 Mobile Trends. It’s a great read, and contains some valuable pointers for the future.

But to me it points up a third truisim about corporate strategy – Nobody ever went broke predicting the future … for everybody else.

When it comes to predicting your own company’s future, the stakes are critical. Smart companies – in deciding how to invest in mobile – should heed forecasts (both internal and external), understand and communicate with the crowd and (in the immortal words of the Kinks) Give the People What They Want – and then give just a little bit more …

But watch the deeper, long-term trends, watch your competitors’ behavior over time, anticipate the smart moves you’ll want to make a year or five from now and carefully map a flexible path to the future to maximize ROI.

So what should you make of Forrester’s 2011 Mobile Trends? The company (rightly) gives itself a B+ for its 2010 forecasts, and predicts the following:

1) Use of the mobile/social/local combination will explode but will generate little revenue

As a rule, I’d agree. But if your model is locally-delivered goods and services, your company would be wise to extend your brand into the space where people could be making purchase decisions based on their friends’ opinions and activities.

Build a mobile app now that people need. (At Perficient, we design and build them, so we can help – plug, plug.)

2) 2011 will be the year of the “dumb” smartphone user

Absolutely right. The booming ubiquity of Android-powered devices and Apple’s extension of iPhone/iPad data-service licensing to Verizon – representing nearly half the world’s smartphone market – make this a lead-pipe cinch.

Assume that you’re no longer looking at niche-y gadget-geek numbers, but at the growth of a mass smartphone (and tablet) ecosystem.

3) The mobile fragmentation problem will continue in 2011

Quite. More platforms and interaction protocols (iOS, Android, HTML5, SMS, app-vs-web) means more targets to hit with your limited number of mobile-tech arrows.

Research carefully, anticipate your market’s future, aim for its technological heart, and shoot smartly. Put your business where onto the platform most-likely used by your customers.

4) The app versus mobile Internet debate will continue – and remain irrelevant.

In the end, Forrester says, “curated” apps can offer better service for some businesses, but the Web is the only ubiquitous mobile platform on smartphones – and will prove cheaper to support than ever-evolving mobile OSes.

Don’t make the mistake of choosing one over the other, as both have significant value to the enterprise.

5) Mobile marketing spend will surpass $1 billion as consumers spend billions via mobile

Yep. I won’t claim to know the numbers, but as I pointed out, a lot of smart money is pointed at mobile this year.

If you’re selling anything that can be bought online, you’ll need solid mobile marketing strategy as well as solid mobile sales strategy, because your competitors already see the writing on the wall – or will before too long if they’re paying attention. Make sure you’re the one doing the writing.

6) Mobile will increasingly prompt consumers to interact with their physical environment

This prediction is curious to me, as it assumes that NFC (which I wrote about here), QR codes and augmented-reality apps will be adopted widely enough to have significant impact in 2011.

I think this is the year that the more propeller-beanied companies will score big PR hits with those technologies, but it may be a year or two before adoption grows broad enough to support them as core mobile strategy pivots. Get to know them, and see if it makes sense for you to invest ahead of the curve.

7) The attention paid to 4G will vastly outweigh the impact of these new networks

Agreed. Blog chatter on the importance of 4G is overflowing by the petabyte. Forrester points out launches of LTE in Sweden, 4G (Verizon) in the U.S. and LTE in Japan late last year. But it will take years for the hardware in networks and handsets to catch up.

Don’t panic about 4G. Yet. Unless your business model requires you to pump video or other high-bandwidth media to mobile customers, you can wait and watch in some comfort.

8 ) Companies will invest first in convenient services for customers; acquisition will come second
In the hierarchy of benefits that mobile offers — revenue generation, cost savings,
and convenience — convenience will reign for the next year. Consumers will engage with
or download apps from brands that they trust. Mobile product and service professionals —
particularly in the travel industry — will invest first to keep their most lucrative customers
happy. The more direct financial returns realized through revenue gains and costs reduced
or avoided will elude companies until consumers substantially adopt and use mobile services.
A near-term focus on the financials as a primary motivator puts the cart before the horse.

Well-said. Mobile is a critical investment, not a quick bottom-line strategy.

9) Casual gaming will continue to lead the mobile charge for content companies

Forrester somewhat buries the lede here – their actual point is that content companies will increasingly ape game companies’ use of subscription, microtransactions and in-app purchase to bolster their bottom line.

If you sell goods or services that can be sold – or sold into – online, this is a strong strategy regardless of your industry. Smarter companies are already retooling their point-of-sale model for the handheld screen.

10) The term “mobile” will mean a lot more than mobile phones

As anyone who’s been watching the boom of iPad sales be followed by the majestic long tail of Xooms and Galaxy tabs and their ilk could tell you, mobile strategy needs to reach far beyond phones.

If it has an interface and lets the user touch the Web, it absolutely needs to be part of your mobile strategy.

The smartest companies will be those that focus not on the pipe but on the content and functionality – not the pipe – and then assemble the technology needed to put them through to any interface imaginable.

If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to reach out to us. We have some good ideas on how you can win the war before your competition even gets its boots on.

Sony's just-announced PlayStation Phone - hot to trot?

Apple devotees tout the ubiquity of iOS-enabled iPhones, iPads and iPod Touches, pointing out that because Apple’s App Store and SDK (software developers’ kit) came first, it now owns the market and like an 800-pound gorilla it gets to sit wherever it wants.

Perhaps rightly, Droid fans point out that (unlike Apple’s heavily-censored, walled-garden-where-we-skim-30%-off-your-receipts-and-don’t-let-you-tinker-with-the-firmware) Google’s open-source mobile OS will eventually dominate the market because it epitomizes freedom of development.

It’s like the old hot-rodder’s joke: Q. What happens when you put a Ford motor in a Chevy and a Chevy motor in a Ford? A. They both go faster.

In other words, both Apple and Droid fans are right: Apple has and will keep a tidy, dedicated share of the market thanks to a reasonably well-curated (and therefore reliable) platform that launched first and is hugely popular. And Google’s Droid market share will continue to boom as the SDK improves and unfettered human invention dreams up wilder and better uses for a smartphone. (Full disclosure: I hate a number of things about my otherwise-beloved iPhone 4.)

Meanwhile, the Nokia Ovi Store just made its 30,000th app available (as Nokia let slip in a Q4 earnings report) and there’s no wholesale jumping-ship happening among Nokia users dissatisfied with the app experience.

Likewise the Blackberry App World (with 17,000 apps) and Windows 7′s just-launched Apps Marketplace, which is adding 100 new apps a day to its library of (most-recently-reported) 6,500 applications – are neither going to massively win or lose the smartphone battle based on the apps numbers war but rather (I believe) on the basis of the whole-smartphone experience.

A good smartphone is a good smartphone. Quality – based solely on app availability – is just a matter of opinion.

But I won’t rely on opinion to make the point, so here is my (completely subjective and probably biased) evidence:

The way my developer colleagues and gadget-geek buddies talk about this stuff, people aren’t buying phones – even smartphones – because of the number of apps available for a particular platform. They have more mundane and practical desires at heart:

• User experience – some love crisp handling of a Blackberry’s hardware buttons. Others are comfortable with the conjurer’s-touch-with-auto-correct voodoo of a touchscreen iPhone or Droid Nexus.

• OS – some are deeply invested in Windows at an emotional or professional level – and either want to, or must for professional reasons, stick with Windows Mobile.
• Price – sure the iPhone is $200 with a data plan, but that data plan can cost $80 a month – far more than some competing platforms.
• Phone service – AT&T (the flagship iPhone carrier) has made iPhone a whipping boy over repeated dropped calls (something I’ve somehow managed to avoid)
• Hardware – high-res cameras, slide-up keyboards, excellent speakerphone functionality – these are the badges of utmost quality for some phone buyers.
• Software quality – not quantity. Some people swear by RIM’s address book, others like syncing with iCal, still others prefer Outlook.

In short, all the smartphone platforms already carry some version of the general-utility apps that the vast majority of people come to rely on (address books, maps, calendars and games). No one ever chose a phone because it had more (or fewer) fart-sound apps or a really bitchin’ version of Bejeweled.

That said – Sony-Ericsson has announced a PlayStation phone …

… and the sound you just heard was a certain three of my drooling geek buddies out in the parking lot revving up their Fords.

Or Chevies, as the case may be.

So, uh, why did you choose your particular flavor of smartphone? Drop a comment below.

But the futuristic notion of mobile-based payment – which seemed a vague rumbling just a few short days ago is now ballooning into the bona fide mobile-IT strategy trend of 2011:

First Google’s Eric Schmidt hints that the search-and-services giant will be “all about mobile” in ’11.

Then came today’s thumper: Apple may launch a mobile payment system for iPhone and iPad later this year based on a technology called “near-field communication” (NFC), according to a consultancy quoted in Bloomberg News …
NFC lets devices interact at a distance of about four inches – and by device, I mean cellphone, smart card or any other enabled device, say, a cash register.

Other companies have tried NFC-based commerce -and, indeed, Sony’s FeliCa makes mobile payments routine in that land of rampant mobile innovation, Japan. I visited Tokyo in 2009 and I can attest, shoppers routinely enjoy slapping their cellphones upside a cash register and walking out with purchases.

But until Apple’s hugely popular iPhone and iPad came along, no mobile manufacturer in North America had quite the reach needed to make NFC ubiquitous enough to become a standard.

Now, apparently, AT&T and Verizon (Apple’s two mobile service providers) along with T-Mobile are backing Isis, a pay-by-phone technology company that claims it can bring 200 million cellphone users to the till, and it’s not too audacious a leap to suggest they’ll be channeling transactions through whatever their hardware providers peddle..

Apple has already laid substantial pipe in terms of its popular hardware and software: iPhone and iPad owners routinely buy music, subscriptions, games, apps and other digital goods using nothing more than their iTunes logins. iPhone’s slice of the booming smartphone market is rising dramatically, and iPad sales are projected to hit 28 million in 2011.

Apple also recently added Verizon service to the mix with flagship carrier AT&T, and if they’re not already hammering out a similar deal with T-Mobile, I’ll be having ketchup and a side of fries with my propeller beanie shortly, thank you very much.

If the analysts are correct, Apple could include NFC into the iPhone 5 and iPad 2 – but they’re trailing Google, which already built it into the Nexus-S phone running Android.

So a few open questions remain:

1. What specific payment technology does Google have up its sleeve?

2. How will the backers of NFC get NFC-friendly cash registers into enough retail establishments?
3. How will MasterCard, Visa, AmEx (and every other pay-by-plastic credit bank) react – Partnership? Litigation?
4. And finally, how many black marketeers are licking their chops over the prospect of adding NFC-enabled iPads to their inventory?

Watch this space.

(via PC World)

Chase's mobile application for Android

Google will be “all about mobile” in 2011. Soon-to-be-former CEO Eric Schmidt says so in the most recent Harvard Business Review:

Google needs to do some serious spade­work on three fronts. First, we must focus on developing the under­lying fast networks (generally called LTE). These will be 8-to-10- mega­bit networks, roughly 10 times what we have today, which will usher in new and creative applications, mostly entertainment and social, for these phone platforms.

Second, we must attend to the development of mobile money. Phones, as we know, are used as banks in many poorer parts of the world—and modern technology means that their use as financial tools can go much further than that …

Third, we want to increase the availability of inexpensive smartphones in the poorest parts of the world. We envision literally a billion people getting inexpensive, browser-based touchscreen phones over the next few years.

Google’s already hard at work on the third item – Android-based smartphones are available now from several suppliers at $100 or less – and the first item is only a matter of time. Most of the major carriers are developing LTE networks to support much-faster mobile transmission protocols to sate the public’s ravening hunger for faster interaction by cellphone, whether it’s consumption of rich media, gaming or social networking.

But Schmidt/Google’s second goal is the meat of the news here, and could prove to be as significant a pivot point as Google’s ranked search was more than a decade ago.

Because mobile devices are fast overtaking conventional computers as the life-management workstation of choice, people will need easy, secure ways to manage their money by smartphone.

Financial institutions are at the vanguard: Bank of America and many others already make their secure web sites available in mobile-friendly formats, and firms like USAA and Chase let you cash checks immediately by simply snapping photos of them with your phone’s camera.

But the long tail will take shape as Google (and others emulating Google) develop mobile payment systems. As Schmidt suggested at a conference in November, this would allow consumers to walk up to any point of purchase, “bump” their phone to the cash register and walk away with whatever they’ve bought.

Mobile money is coming, one way or another – whether by a big-footprint Google API, or broader adoption of transaction conduits such as PayPal Mobile. Security concerns will work themselves out in the tech marketplace (losing your purchase-enables smartphone could be twice as ugly as losing your wallet!) as will the features, functionality and user experiences that make mobile money succeed.

The only question to ask yourself is “How can we make our business ready for it?”

(hat-tip: ReadWriteWeb)

With me, it’s more of the latter. As companies begin extending their brands, services and products into the mobile space, they are strengthening bonds with consumers, and a host of solutions are rising up to meet their needs.

Increasingly, those solutions are coming closer to where the rubber meets the road for enterprise – at the point of sale.

Case in point: Square …

Created by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey and launched in the wild last month, the heavily-funded tech startup has the potential to rock the notion of bricks-and-mortar storefronts and e-commerce both, with a very simple concept:

Square is a credit-card reader that integrates with mobile phones, laptops, even iPads, letting you take payments on the fly from anyone, anywhere on virtually any mobile device.

Square gives away the readers free and then processes payments on its site, shaving off a sliver of each sale (2.75% plus 15 cents) for the service.

Now, it’s something of a fantastic leap to worry that the Square reader will empower any individual entrepreneur to compete with enterprise on selling goods and services. It does nothing to support development, manufacturing and supply-chain logistics, let alone marketing and CRM.

But it does cut out the cost of maintaining the hardware and software usually associated with merchant credit-card accounts – and the need to tether transactions (and, indeed, in-store conversion) to the cash register.

What happens to sales when you equip retail floor-walkers, car salesmen, trade-show booth workers with the gadget? What if you allow not only handshakes, but also direct payment in the field for wholesalers and contract sales agents?

If nothing else, instant credit card transactions have the power to reduce the that enterprise must commonly overcome in agreeing upon – and consummating – large sales contracts.

Is this a notion with all the plausibility of a flying car? Perhaps. But don’t forget – Twitter used to be a quirkly little micro-blogging platform used by only a handful of geeks. Now look.

A word or two about me:

I’m new to Perficient, and new to this blog. But as time passes, I hope to become a familiar face for you and – at the very least – a source of good information and conversation about mobile strategy.

I am Innovations Director with Perficient’s Interactive Agency CC, and a lead consultant, focused on social strategy, mobile development and user-experience design.

Our division specializes in helping brands and businesses find their footing and thrive in the volatile, fast-evolving intersection of people, process and technology.

If your company needs insight or solutions in social media, mobile strategy, marketing and enterprise user-experience design, please don’t hesitate to drop me a line. I’d love to talk with you.

–      Network Convergence. The industry has promised any app on any device anywhere using any medium.  This promise will facilitate the convergence of telecom networks while furthering the adoption of cloud computing.

–      “True” SOA and BPM. Carriers are realizing that the true promise of SOA is as much about enabling effective business processes and there are new opportunities to achieve web service value across enterprises.

–      Portals are now about enabling content. Traditional service providers are rushing to find ways to avoid being marginalized as dumb pipes.  All this new content is going to require portals and rich Internet applications that are comprehensive yet easy to use.

–      Data Management finds its business case. There is a strong business case behind using DM as a means to prevent customer churn through real-time and accurate customer analytics and clients are realizing that ineffective DM has enterprise-wide impacts.  There’s also new promise for data-oriented offerings like revenue assurance for overall business operational assurance.

The telecommunication market:

• has surpassed USD 1 trillion in revenues
• is growing in real terms of around 3% per year
• is growing in share of GDP at 3%
• is the fastest growing item in household consumption (communication goods and services).
• has increased investment in recent years by 24% (from USD 129 billion in 2003 to USD 160 billion in 2005) driven to a large extent by the high demand for broadband data access.

This blog is dedicated to the telecommunications industry in enterprise information technology. More info here.

Oracle’s article goes on more about convergence in the industry. Read the full article: Introduction to Convergence and Next Generation Networks

Telecommunications will be a strategic priority for many companies. This decade will see resurgent spending in IP telephony, Martin says, partially because these companies need to replace legacy telecom equipment. There aren’t many old PDXs out there with useful lives past four to five years, he says. Another driver for IP telephony is the need to support employee mobility. There’s increased investment in teleworking among consulting and business service providers. “It’s not just taking your PC home,” Martin says. “It’s setting up an environment in your home, or wherever you want to work, that effectively emulates an office environment.”

Read the full article.

Self-service and personalized customer care is what propels industry leading organizations to success through strong relationships with their customers. Perficient developed a global customer care system using Oracle Siebel to do just that for a major unified communications equipment vendor. A leader in communications systems, applications, and services incrementally rolled out a multi-phase global implementation for its Global Services Support organization. In addition to deflecting a majority of incoming phone calls, it will enable thousands of agents to more effectively serve end customers with a personal touch by efficiently identifying the customer, the installed base, and the entitlement information.

This program is a “mission critical” to our client as it provides the foundation necessary for the company to drastically reduce costs and increase efficiencies across their support organization while improving their customers’ experiences.

Perficient is responsible for the overall Siebel program inclusive of

• program management
• enterprise architecture
• business requirements
• implementation
• data migration
• integration
• offshoring

Business capabilities include a “push” case model, intelligent routing, CTI, and over a dozen real-time integration points into back office systems. Visit with our Oracle team to learn more about this project and Perficient’s Communications Practice at Oracle OpenWorld 2010, September 19-23 in San Francisco.

We’ll be Booth 301 Moscone South. More info Here.

Don’t forget to follow us on Twitter for regular updates throughout OpenWorld: @PRFT_Oracle and follow the conference hash tag on Twitter: #OOW10

Overall telecommunications industry trends:

1. Increasing speed of delivery for data, voice, video and other data transfer
2. Rapid deregulation: “governments are revoking monopolistic policies and older players face a new breed of competitors.”
3. “wireless communication, Internet, cable and satellite program distribution are increasing their share in overall industry earnings”
4. Increasing focus on self-service
5. Focus on next-generation mobile platforms and services
6. Demand for pre-payment and real-time billing infrastructure

How the corporate market differs from the consumer market:

1. Ready to pay more for quality and reliability of servers
2. Less price sensitive in areas such as VPN, data security and video conferencing

This article finishes up with an end-to-end perspective on order management, from order capture to provisioning all the way through to fulfillment.

It then reviews the challenges in order management and then how current telecom trends (listed above) are impacting how the major players are managing processes such as order management.

Read the full post here.