Drivers for Government Mobility

Any democratic government is elected by the people, consists of the people, and is intended to work for the people. Therefore, it is important that the government’s ways of working are aligned to that of its people. It should keep a close tab on the current circumstances, situations and trends that impact the lives of the junta that is governed by them, and evolve its policies and procedures to address the same. Therefore the mega trend of mobility cannot be ignored by the powers that be. It has to be considered in the decision making for the government technology. Thee are many drivers for mobility in government today.

 

1. Mobility Can Bridge The Digital Gap:

 

When the e-government initiative was first introduced, a lot of people thought that it would not be able to penetrate the low-income population and might fail. This notion has since then been proven wrong. There are people today who feel similarly unenthusiastically about the mobile initiative of the white house. However, the data says otherwise.

 

Smartphones are cheaper than laptops, and it makes them a good computing choice for people who cannot afford one. As per the Pew Internet & American Life Project report, 34 percent of adults in the US, with household income less than $30,000, own a smartphone. This is a 12 percent increase over the previous year numbers. There are at least 5 different state governments currently implementing a variety of mobile apps for use by the local residents.

 

2. Mobility Can Change Relationships Between Citizens And Government:

 

The features of the mobile devices offer many functionalities that are not available through the online portals. These include the geo – positioning system (GPS), the camera, and other sensors like the accelerometer and gyroscope. These features add context awareness to the communication, which is another thing unavailable to the web users.

 

Applying for benefits and services creates questions and requires documentation. Mobility can streamline this process. Governments can mobile-enable portals and use these value added features to help leapfrog personalization and improve convenience. Research reveals that this move from standardized to personalized service is a key shift for governments to more cost-effectively deliver public service outcomes that citizens want.

 

3. Mobility Can Make the Agencies More Proactive Than Reactive:

 

For the public services to be meaningful, they cannot be reactive. If you have to have a complaint or resident communication before you act, the service model is wrong. The governments services should be insight driven, and to drive insight, there needs to be an integration and collaboration of the systems across agencies. This collaboration can drive the required proactive behavior.

 

With the help of smartphones and tablets, the on – the – ground data collection becomes much easier. From Law enforcement to emergency response teams to public surveyors, all agencies find use for the mobile data collection systems, whether on the smart devices, or as an in – vehicle system. This data can be instantly uploaded on to the central servers where it is accessible by the analysts and other teams, who can act on the information.

 

4. Increased Productivity And Satisfaction:

 

According to a February 2012 CDW-G report on federal mobility, almost all the federal IT team members say that they have mobile devices deployed for their agencies. Another interesting fact is that nearly ninety percent of the employees who were actively using the smart devices for work related activities, felt that they made them more productive. According to them, the productivity was most obvious when they were travelling for work. Also, almost seven tenths of the employees believed that an increase in mobile adoption in the government agencies would improve the citizen related services.

 

It is clear, that mobility rings in productivity, proactivity, and employee satisfaction. We would all like to see our government become more mobile.

 

 

Why Mobile Applications Fail

When you consider the world of mobility, the application ecosystem is like the air that the inhabitants breathe in order to survive. If you remove mobile applications from the equation, the ‘smart’ devices will lose their brilliance, becoming overpriced feature phones at best. The application economy is what keeps the ‘smartness’ in, allowing these shiny rectangles to achieve far more than just call people. Even in the enterprise domain, the popularity of the mobile devices is because these pieces of code can do wonders in terms of automating and mobilizing so many workflows in the organization.

 

However, there are a lot of businesses, whose mobility journey does not bear the results that they thought they would, and this leads to heartburn, wasted effort and money, and most importantly, the derailing of business objectives. Why does this happen?  To get an answer to that question, we need to dig deeper, and see the impact of the failures, to analyze what expectations were missed.

 

Impact 1 – Business Disruption

 

The biggest impact of the unavailability or failure of technology is the impact on the business. There have been numerous reports of the workforce not being able to fulfill their job tasks because the mobile application did not work. This implies that actual business downtime occurred because of the reliance on mobile applications. It is also not surprising, that the impacted teams were not limited to the ones using the application. Other teams and functions in the value chain were also rendered unproductive.

 

Impact 2 – Missed Deadlines

 

Consequent to the downtime experienced, the deadlines of technology and business initiatives get impacted. When the stakeholders are unavailable to share data or to collaborate, or are busy completing missed tasks, the rest of the team is left unproductive, causing delays, and misses.

 

Impact 3 – Loss of Promised Agility

 

A lot of enterprises buy into the mobile dream because they want to be agile and efficient. The mobile application they so painstakingly build, or pay to have built, is supposed to drive faster innovation and collaboration amongst the operations teams. However, with the application not living up to the expectations, the results are typically much farther from the promise. The people in the field are left high and dry, while the operations managers have to resort to email to allocate work.

 

Impact 4  - Renouncement of Apps

 

Lastly, with the broken promises, failed projects, a frustrated workforce, and an embarrassed development team in its wake, the errant applications are abandoned, and the cost written off. This generally is followed by a period where the proponents of mobility in the organizations being unable to meet the gaze of colleagues.

 

Reasons For Failure:

 

Now that we understand the widespread impact of a failed mobile application, exploring the reason(s) for the failure is very important. The 2 most common reasons why most of the failed mobile application initiatives fall short are:

 

1. Lack of coherent strategy: The teams that own the project operate in a functional silo, and are not a part of the larger, enterprise wide strategy. Therefore, the vision of the project did not factor in the impact and integrations with other functions and processes.

 

2. Integration with backend systems: More often than not, enterprise applications require integration with a number of internal enterprise systems. These integrations need to be planned, designed, implemented, and most importantly, maintained well. A number of times, the integrations stop working when something changes on the internal system.

It has been said before, and it will be said again success of any project lies in planning more than it does in execution. So, in order to avoid failure, plan well, and include the stakeholders early.

What Is Your App’s Competitive Advantage?

A competitive advantage, for lack of a better explanation, is something that your company, or one of its products, offers that no other does. In the case of a mobile app, a competitive advantage is not unlike any other product bought or sold around the world. Mobile apps have competitive advantages just as do lawn mowers, cars, or even juice blenders. While these products offer tangible competitive advantages such as faster acceleration in a car, or more precision cutting on a lawn mower, a mobile app has more intangible advantages, such as easier interface navigation, or more enjoyable interaction. If you are unsure of what your mobile app’s competitive advantage is, there is always the chance that it simply does not have one. In such case, you should feverishly try to develop one, as your app will never become one of the top sellers in its market without at least one competitive advantage. To help you do so, here are some ideas to develop your app’s competitive advantage.

 

A Reduced Selling Price

 

One of the easiest competitive advantages to develop is that of a reduced selling price. If you can offer the exact same, or remarkably similar, features compared to another app in your market, but do so at a reduced price, then you will have very easily created a competitive advantage. It you realize that your app is without a competitive advantage and is already on the market, the easiest, and in most cases, best way to create such an advantage is by reducing its selling price. This way you do not have to change anything about your app, all you really have to do is plan its finances accordingly.

 

A New Feature

 

Offering a new feature that your competition is lacking is another useful method of creating a competitive advantage for your mobile app. If you can do so without your competitors copying it, then it will be even better. While you basically have zero control over this aspect of your competitive advantage, the fact that you originated the feature will constitute as enough of an advantage. For example, a new feature serving as a competitive advantage could end up being something related to your individual industry, or it could be a feature as generic as your app’s welcome screen. The point of creating a competitive advantage for your app is not meant to be something overly complex, it simply must be something that your app offers that no other does. While it will certainly help your cause if that “something” entices users to the point of choosing your app over all others, you can still create less impressive advantages that add up in the minds of users. This is ultimately how you develop a loyal base of customers.

 

Conclusion

 

While it may initially seem unusual to create a competitive advantage for your mobile app, however, in actuality, a mobile app is not unlike any other business. Businesses have competitive advantages, and so should your mobile app. Whether it is a reduced selling price while offering the same features as every other app in its market, or simply offering a new feature that no other has, your app will most certainly need a competitive advantage if it wishes to become a top seller. So, if your app currently does not have a competitive advantage, look to the aforementioned tips to find one quickly.