A version of this post was originally published at NACD Directorship on 3/22/2012.
The term “macromyopia,” also known as Amara’s law, postulates that there is a tendency to overestimate the short-term impact of a new product or technology, and to underestimate its long-term implications on the marketplace and how competitors will react. This concept perfectly describes the situation that many businesses face with the rapid, even exponential, onslaught of mobile technology expansion and adoption.
Despite economic woes, consumers are demonstrating an insatiable appetite for smartphones and next-generation tablets. According to IDC estimates, more than 491 million smartphone devices were shipped in 2011, a growth of 61 percent compared to 2010. Tablet sales posted 80 percent year-over-year growth in the second quarter of 2011, according to Infonetics. The United Nations recently found that a staggering 85 percent of the world’s population is now covered by a commercial wireless signal, which provides greater reach than the electrical grid.
With these infrastructure shifts, mobile devices are rapidly replacing laptops and desktops both at home and at work as the primary mechanism for accessing web-based content and applications. Research by the mobile-app developer AnyPresence indicates that mobile web users will surpass desktop users within a few years. Smartphone shipments in the U.S. and Europe have already surpassed those of regular mobile phones. Yet surprisingly, most businesses still lack mobile support for both employee and customer-facing systems. Those that continue to underestimate this technological shift will quickly find themselves struggling for relevancy.
The most recent well-publicized victim of this trend is Borders, whose failure to recognize the industry-changing ramifications of mobile e-book readers resulted in its losing market share both to online entrants such as Amazon and to traditional competitors such as Barnes & Noble, which recently claimed a bold 25 percent of the e-book market. Even mobile technology stalwarts Research In Motion and Nokia missed the writing on the wall with respect to mobile-ecosystem trends like vibrant app stores and developer communities. Is your company vulnerable to the equivalent mobile disruption within your sector?
As a corporate director, it falls upon you to challenge the status quo of your firm’s outlook with respect to leveraging and adapting to mobile trends for top-line growth and bottom-line efficiencies. One of the simplest litmus tests is to determine whether management has fully embraced the mobilization of enterprise applications, for both employee-facing (productivity- driven) and customer-facing (revenue- and satisfaction-driven) business processes. Will your company be able to position itself as a cutting-edge innovator, or is it another dinosaur in the making?