A new Accenture mobility study that included 1,475 executives in 10 industries across 14 countries says that, after years of focusing in other areas, many companies are finally shifting to a mobile-first mindset with their marketing.
A majority of the executives interviewed told Accenture that their research departments were going “detailed and deep” when it comes to mobile, with a keen interest in adopting mobile within their companies.
Of two buzzwords trending right now, mobility definitely is bigger than Big Data. It’s in the top five priorities of 77% of the respondents, with 72% saying that analytics is up there as well. Connected devices came in with 65%, above cloud computing at 62%. 61% went toward social.
What’s most impressive is the fact that 39% of executives said they will consider wearable devices like smart watches and exercise devices in their digital/IT agenda in the next three years. Voice recognition, motion/gesture-based interfaces and AR are also in the sights of 38% of executives, while geofencing and location-based services will be included in the plans of 35% of companies.
Another 30% reported that they’ll definitely be exploring solutions for NFC.
The reason these attitudes are emerging is simply that acceptance and recognition have finally caught up with the mobile agenda. Before mobile marketing became as popular as it is today, only a few companies were focusing on implementing mobile solutions in order to streamline their operations and increase their employee communications.
As is almost always the case in business, familiarity breeds investment. In recent years, as business decision-makers began experiencing the power and relevance of mobile technology on a daily basis, they didn’t need salespeople selling them on the relevance of the platform anymore, it was selling itself.
Simply put, platforms like an NFC, LBS, connected devices, wearables and voice/gesture technology won’t require as much defense and explanation as they used to in the past because corporate decision-makers are finally convinced of their worth.