The Australian Crawl to Mobile2014 Accenture Mobility Insights Report

Contents

Digital technologies hold great promise for Australian organisations

Australian companies are clearly focused on mobility—and plan to spend on it

Challenges with silos and metrics are preventing greater progress in mobility

Next steps for Australian organisations

Methodology and charts

Mobility leaders provide some tips for success

Executive summary

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Executive summary

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Mobility is high on the agenda for Australian organisations, and looks set to get increasing attention and funding in the coming years. However, many organisations continue to struggle to make significant progress in their mobility initiatives and generate a better return on their investment. Accenture research has found three major shortcomings that are holding Australian companies back including: a lack of enterprise-wide focus on mobility; misdirected mobility funding priorities; and no formal metrics for evaluating the effectiveness of mobility initiatives.

Accenture annually surveys executives around the world about their views on mobility in the enterprise, and our most recent edition has uncovered some intriguing findings about the Australian market.

Australian executives’ enthusiasm for digital technologies broadly, and mobility specifically, continues to grow, and is generally outpaced only by that of Chinese executives. In fact, Australian respondents overwhelmingly view their investment in digital technologies as a strategic investment that can help them engage with customers and grow their business.

Furthermore, they see mobility as important to their business—more than any of the other major digital technologies—and plan to invest an average of one-third of their IT budget in mobility.

Despite this enthusiasm, however, many Australian companies continue to struggle to make progress in their mobility initiatives. Less than half of the executives polled described their overall adoption and deployment of mobile technologies as effective, and only 16 per cent said their company has generated a 100 per cent or greater return on their investment in mobile capabilities thus far.

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Australian organisations plan to invest an average of 33% of their IT budget in mobility

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1. A decreasing number of Australian organisations reported having a formal, enterprise-wide mobility strategy

Instead, many are opting to develop business-unit-specific strategies that may not further the mission of the broader organisation. The problem with this “bottom-up” approach is that it makes it difficult for mobility proponents within a company to get a seat at the leadership table and get senior leaders’ support of key mobility initiatives. It also can dilute mobility’s impact in general, as initiatives that do get implemented tend to focus only on improving a specific aspect of the company’s operations or service offerings.

2. Australian companies are struggling to develop formal metrics for evaluating the effectiveness of mobility

Only 12 per cent, compared with 24 per cent of those in the United Kingdom and 23 per cent in China, have developed such metrics. This lack of formal metrics or analytics makes it difficult for Australian companies to truly gauge the effectiveness of their mobility efforts to date, as well as to determine priorities and securing funding for future initiatives. In essence, it suggests Australian companies are still experimenting with mobility with little clear vision for what they expect mobility will enable them to do differently and better in the future.

3. There is a lack of alignment between spending and priorities

The mobility priorities cited as important to the business by the largest percentage of Australian executives were also among the least-frequently named targets for budget allocation. For instance, 52 per cent of respondents said generating deeper customer insights through mobile analytics is important to their business, yet only nine per cent said building capabilities that help them do that is a priority for investment. Similarly, despite 51 per cent citing improving asset reliability and maintenance through the deployment of sensors and other mobile technologies as important to their business, only 16 per cent said such capabilities were an investment priority. In other words, while Australian companies are, indeed, increasing their mobility budget, they look to be spending the least on some of their biggest priorities—hardly a recipe for success.

Beyond the Australia-specific results, our research also uncovered a number of practices that are strongly correlated with mobility success—practices Australian companies should consider as they seek to improve their progress in adopting and using mobile capabilities and increase the return on their investment in them. These practices include taking a more ambitious, strategic and cross-company approach to mobility that’s backed by active involvement of the company’s senior leadership, a substantial monetary commitment to developing mobile capabilities, and a superior methodology for developing and deploying mobile apps.

In the following sections of this report, we explore our research findings in more detail.

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Based on our 2014 mobility insights research, Accenture believes there are three main reasons for this lack of progress:

Digital technologies have massive potential to transform the ways in which companies create revenue and results via innovative strategies, products, processes and experiences. But do Australian companies recognise that potential and, more importantly, are they mobilising to capitalise on it? According to our research, the answer is a qualified “yes.”

Digital technologies hold great promise for Australian organisations

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Of the major digital technologies—which include mobility, social media, big data analytics, the cloud, and connected products—mobility has risen to the top in terms of importance to many Australian organisations.

Seventy one per cent of Australian executives in our survey (compared with 87 per cent of Chinese executives) considered mobility among their top five priorities for the coming year, and 33 per cent said the technology was in the top two (Figure 1).

Furthermore, Australian respondents view their investment in digital technologies as a strategic investment geared to helping their companies grow (Figure 2). The most commonly cited outcomes Australian executives look for from their digital investments were focused on keeping up with customer demands and increasing sales in existing markets. In fact, Australian executives were nearly three times’ more likely to cite these growth-oriented outcomes than improving operational efficiency.

As digital technologies continue to evolve, Australian companies are looking to gain a foothold with a new slate of emerging tools that can help them build on the investments they have already made. The most likely of these tools to be considered as part of the respondents’ digital/IT agenda in the next three years will be wearable computing, low-energy components and open Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) and developer programs.

71% of Australian organisations have mobility in their top five priorities, 33% in their top two

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Given mobility is a key enabler of the digital business; it makes sense that mobility has been an area of keen focus among Australian companies of all types (although the intensity of their focus lags that of Chinese firms). Just over three in 10 of Australian executives, compared with six in 10 Chinese respondents, indicated their company has aggressively pursued and invested in mobile technologies across the business and consider mobility a key part of their business strategy. Just over half of Australian executives indicated they are very interested in mobile technologies and have focused investments on them where they could demonstrate sufficient return.

Australian companies are clearly focused on mobility—and plan to spend on it

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Reflecting that enthusiasm, Australian organisations plan to spend considerably more on mobility in the coming year.

A quarter of Australian companies anticipate dedicating at least 26 per cent of their IT budget to mobility in their next fiscal year (including five per cent that expect to allocate at least half their IT spending to mobility). That far outpaces the percentage of Australian companies planning to invest in other digital technologies (Figure 3). Overall, 30 per cent of Australian companies plan to spend at least US$30 million on mobile capabilities in the next two years—more than companies in any other mature market except the United States (but less than the 37 per cent of Chinese firms).

Some Australian companies’ investment in mobility will be focused on applications. For a number of companies (49 per cent), that focus translates into improving existing apps to make them more reliable and to improve the user experience. About four in 10 Australian companies indicated their mobile app priorities will centre on launching an enterprise app store, implementing new features that capitalise on the latest technologies, or growing their overall mobile presence by introducing new apps.

However, a particular segment of mobility—connected products— is getting the cold shoulder from Australian companies, relative to their counterparts in the United States, United Kingdom, and Canada. Executives in the latter countries are consistently more likely than their Australian equivalents to consider a wide range of connected products to be relevant to their business priorities—especially connected vehicle solutions and connected building/plant solutions. This finding reflects the relative dearth of large-scale products manufacturing (such as automobiles) in the Australian economy, which limits the country’s ability to contribute to the innovation of this sector of the mobility market.

20162014

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30% of surveyed Australian organisations plan to spend at least $30 million on mobile capabilities in the next two years

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While the preceding data shows there is considerable interest in and enthusiasm for mobility, most Australian organisations still have work to do to make mobility a core—and beneficial—element of their business. In fact, our survey found that Australian companies’ efforts to date have not lived up to expectations due to a number of strategic, organisational and operational challenges that have made it difficult for them to take full advantage of mobility’s promise.

Challenges with silos and metrics are preventing greater progress in mobility

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Most Australian companies have not made substantial progress toward the mobility priorities that are important to their business. On average, only slightly more than four in 10 companies have made at least good progress across these priorities. Looking more closely at our results, we found no more than 22 per cent of Australian respondents describing their progress as extensive on any one priority.

To further support this point is the fact that less than half of Australian respondents (49 per cent), compared with 66 per cent of respondents in the United States and 78 per cent of those in China, described their overall adoption and deployment of mobile technologies as effective.

Such limited progress is reflected in the return on investment (ROI) that Australian companies have generated from their mobile capabilities in the past two years: Only 16 per cent have experienced an ROI of 100 per cent or more—meaning, their capabilities have already paid for themselves, and more. Just under half (49 per cent) reported less than 50 per cent ROI.

One reason progress is not more pervasive is that although Australian companies said they plan to invest in mobility as stated earlier; they have not consistently directed those funds toward the priorities they believe are important. In fact, when considering the initiatives to which respondents are planning to allocate their

budget, one can see that virtually all of these priorities—including the top five—will be funded by a far lower percentage of respondents than those who believe the priorities are important to their business. Significant gaps are especially seen with generating deeper customer insights through mobile analytics and improving asset reliability and maintenance through the deployment of sensors and other mobile technologies. Just over half of respondents cited those priorities as important to the business, yet only nine per cent and 16 per cent, respectively, cited them as mobile initiatives targeted for investment.

In addition to lack of alignment between importance and investment, pervasive internal shortcomings could be preventing Australian companies from making greater progress toward their mobility priorities.

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The most prevalent shortcoming appears to be a lack of formal metrics that enable companies to measure the effectiveness of mobility initiatives. Eighty eight per cent of Australian respondents indicated they did not have such metrics.

Another common shortcoming relates to determining where and how mobility can have the greatest impact. Eighty four per cent of respondents said their organisation doesn’t have a formal process for identifying, evaluating, and prioritising ways mobility can benefit their business.

Below the preceding were a number of shortcomings that are present in an estimated three-quarters of Australian companies—including no clearly defined, centralised ownership of mobility initiatives and related technology projects within the organisation; the inability to keep pace with new mobile devices, systems, and services, and adopt them as necessary to improve the business; and a lack of internal and external skills necessary to properly plan and execute mobility initiatives.

In about seven in 10 Australian companies, shortcomings include:

• Lack of a robust blueprint to guide adoption and deployment of mobile capabilities;

• Insufficient budget to fund mobility initiatives;

• No formal and robust methodology for developing mobile applications that spans development, testing, distribution, and updating;

• Current systems and infrastructure that cannot smoothly accommodate new mobile technologies, and;

• Failure to have developed new, or redesigned existing, business processes, workflow, and roles to better incorporate mobility services.

Just over six in 10 Australian companies reported having difficulty extending their security technologies and practices to cover their mobile capabilities, getting their senior leadership highly engaged with mobility initiatives, and truly understanding the benefits mobility can generate for their organisation.

Compounding these operational shortcomings is a major strategic challenge: 59 per cent of Australian executives said their company lacks a formal, coherent mobility strategy guiding their mobile investments. Furthermore, a decreasing percentage of

Australian organisations have a formal, enterprise-wide mobility strategy (Figure 4): 39 per cent, which is down from 65 per cent in 2013. Instead, a greater percentage (47 per cent) have mobile strategies for specific business units, which means investments in mobility are being made in isolation rather than being integrated into the overall enterprise strategy. One reason for the lack of an enterprise-wide strategy could be that the CEO is involved in formulating the mobile strategy in just 35 per cent of Australian companies (compared with 52 per cent of US companies and 55 per cent of Chinese organisations).

12%

Only 12% of Australian organisations have developed formal metrics for evaluating the e�ectiveness of mobility

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While it’s clear Australian companies have embraced mobility conceptually—and are making strides in infusing the technology into their everyday operations—there are a number of things they could consider doing to generate greater returns on their mobility investments.

Mobility leaders provide some tips for success

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When we analysed the global data from our study, we found a small group of companies overall—about 10 per cent—reported having generated more than 100 per cent return on their mobility investment.

This group, which we deemed “mobility leaders,” also were more likely than other companies to say their company posted exceptional financial performance. For instance, 49 per cent of mobility leaders compared with 29 per cent of “others”—said their company’s overall financial performance was far above the industry average.

Not surprisingly, mobility leaders also were more likely to report having made significant progress toward all of the mobile priorities covered by our survey, as well as to believe they have effectively adopted and deployed mobile technologies (69 per cent versus 45 per cent).

Helping to drive such compelling results are some underlying mobility approaches and practices that leaders employ—and that are less evident among the rest of our survey sample. Specifically, we found mobility leaders are more likely than others to:

• Consider the full range of digital technologies to be among their top five priorities in the next year, and to expect to use those technologies to build an entirely new digital business or service rather than simply improve upon the existing business (35 per cent versus 27 per cent).

• Have a formal enterprise-wide mobility strategy instead of separate strategies for individual business units or functions, and use that strategy to inform their mobile investments (52 per cent versus 38 per cent).

• Ensure the CEO and leadership team or board of directors owns their mobile strategy,

and that their company’s senior leadership are highly engaged with the organisation’s mobility initiatives.

• Have aggressively pursued and invested in mobile technologies across their business and consider mobility a key part of their business strategy. In fact, leaders are far more likely than others to plan to invest more than US$30 million in mobile capabilities in the next two years.

• Develop formal metrics and analytics capabilities to measure the return on mobility investment and guide future planning.

• Be focusing on creating an enterprise mobile app store or catalogue to make it easier for internal users to access enterprise mobile applications securely, and have a formal and robust methodology for developing mobile apps that spans development, testing, distribution, and updating.

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Our survey clearly shows that Australian companies have considerable opportunity to get more out of their mobility initiatives than they have to date. Three things are key to doing so.

Next steps for Australian organisations

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1. Strategy They need to develop mobility strategies that cross organisational and functional silos. Getting the CEO more engaged in mobility strategy development, implementing strong governance from the top, and deploying a mobility centre of excellence are important first steps.

2. Metrics They should develop formal metrics that make it possible to gauge progress and impact—and, ultimately, determine mobility ROI and how mobility can generate real business outcomes so they can direct and justify future spending.

3. Balance of investment They must look to strike a better balance in their investment across all digital technologies, seeing such tools as social media, connected devices, cloud and analytics as complementary to, not separate from, their mobile strategies.

The experiences of mobility leaders suggest there’s no shortcut to generating strong business results from mobility. Rather, as our survey results show, mobility success takes a strong dedication of resources and attention, as well as genuine engagement by the top management of the organisation. Companies that are committed to building robust mobility capabilities, and that make these capabilities a core part of their operations, are much more likely to benefit from the promise of this increasingly important growth-generating technology—and take greater strides toward becoming a digital business.

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Accenture’s mobility study was designed to explore how companies are applying digital technologies—especially mobility—to improve various aspects of their business. To that end, we conducted an online survey of senior executives between December 2013 and January 2014. A total of 1,475 executives, including 125 from Australia, completed usable surveys.

Australian executives’ titles spanned the C-suite, with the majority serving in a technology-related role. Respondents’ companies represented eight industries and were predominantly large: More than one-third have annual revenues of more than US$10 billion, with 16 per cent reporting sales of US$50 billion or more.

Methodology and charts

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Cloud

Mobility

Connected products

Social

0% 10% 20% 30% 40%

Cloud

Social

Connected products

Big data/ analy�cs

Mobility

Series2

Series1

38%33%

Big data/analytics 37%26%

38%22%

34%21%

30%22%

Top 5 priority Top 1 or 2 priority

Figure 1 Percentage of Australian respondents who think the main digital technologies are a priority

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32%Increase sales in existing markets

0% 10% 20% 30% 40%

Increase sales in exis�ng marketsGenerate addi�onal revenue

Keep up with customer demandsBuild an en�rely new digital…

Penetrate in new marketsIncrease market shareStrengthen our brand

Boost overall enterprise…Streamline our business…

Increase our speed to marketProvide differen�a�ng…

Enhance the quality of our…

Series1

4%Provide di�erentiating customer service

10%Increase our speed to market

12%Streamline our business processes and operations

25%Boost overall enterprise profitability

18%Strengthen our brand

25%Increase market share

25%Penetrate in new markets

28%Build an entirely new digital business/service

35%Keep up with customer demands

26%Generate additional revenue

8%Enhance the quality of our o�erings

Figure 2 Business outcomes Australian executives expect from the convergence of social, mobile, analytics, cloud and connected devices

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Big data/analytics

Mobility

Digital as a whole

Social

Cloud

Connected products

0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

Mobility

Big data/ analy�cs

Cloud

Social

Connected products

Digital as a whole

0%

1-25%

26-50%

51-75%

76-100%

81%

83%

80%

77%

82%

67%

6%

6%

7%

9% 2%

2%

2%1%

1%

1%

9%

20% 3% 2%

14%

9%

10%

13%

8%

8%

0% 20% 40%Australian companies

60% 80% 100%

51-75% 76-100%1-25%0% 26-50%

Portion of IT budgets

Figure 3 Approximate portion of Australian companies’ IT budgets allocated to the following digital technologies

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We do not yet have a formal mobility strategy but are working on one

We do not have a formal mobility strategy and have no plans to develop one

We have a formal mobility strategy for specific business units or functions

We have a formal, enterprise-wide mobility strategy

39%

47%

9%5%

Figure 4 Australian companies’ approach to mobility strategy

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Contact us

For more information about this report and to discuss how to advance mobility in your organisation, please visit accenture.com.au/mobility or email John Cassidy, Managing Director, Accenture Digital on john.h.cassidy@accenture.com.

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About Accenture DigitalAccenture Digital, comprised of Accenture Analytics, Accenture Interactive and Accenture Mobility, offers a comprehensive portfolio of business and technology services across digital marketing, mobility and analytics. From developing digital strategies to implementing digital technologies and running digital processes on their behalf, Accenture Digital helps clients leverage connected and mobile devices; extract insights from data using analytics; and enrich end-customer experiences and interactions, delivering tangible results from the virtual world and driving growth. Learn more about Accenture Digital at www.accenture.com/digital.

About AccentureAccenture is a global management consulting, technology services and outsourcing company, with approximately 289,000 people serving clients in more than 120 countries. Combining unparalleled experience, comprehensive capabilities across all industries and business functions, and extensive research on the world’s most successful companies, Accenture collaborates with clients to help them become high-performance businesses and governments. The company generated net revenues of US$28.6 billion for the fiscal year ended Aug. 31, 2013. Its home page is www.accenture.com.au.

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