#M6xChange Conference Wrap-up 2016, Top 8 Conference Highlights

Last week, I had the joy and opportunity to participate, speak, and interact with some of the brightest minds in enterprise mobility in North America. M6 Mobility xChange conference was held at the Hyatt Regency Scottsdale Resort & Spa from May 22-24th. This year’s theme was “Driving Digital Transformation through Mobile, Cloud, & Analytics.” The conference was held by nGage Events and chaired by Maribel Lopez of Lopez Research and notable Forbes contributor.

After putting on and managing Go Mobile conference 2 years in a row in Dallas, Texas and making the tough decision to no longer continue in the conferencing world, Compass Intelligence was seeking out a conference that continued very similar themes around enterprise mobility and also maintained some of the most intelligent, innovative, and forward thinking thought leaders, executives, and companies in the mobile landscape. I was excited to meet the nGage team and get on board as a board advisor for M6xChange in 2016.

One of the best aspects of the conference was the focus across vertical markets or key industries, and having more intimate breakout sessions to explore case studies and have direct one-on-one meetings with key executives. The key benefit is that all attendees are sponsored by nGage, meaning the conference pays all expenses for the attendee to participate…of course Big sponsors (keynote sponsors included AirWatch by VMware, IBM, and Xamarin and conference partners included Box, HPE, Intel, Microsoft, and Secure Channels and 44 other Platinum, Gold, Silver, and Bronze sponsors) are the ones to thank for this great opportunity. Attendees are also carefully selected and approved based on executive level, decision-making authority, industry, and other targeted aspects. Attendee companies from some of the larger Fortune 1000 list included Waste Management, American Airlines, Coca Cola, Bank of America, Harley-Davidson, Raytheon, and Nike.

I would like to highlight a few key themes and key take-aways from this year’s conference and invite you to join us in the fall for our upcoming two events M-Enterprise Summit and IoT6xChange!

1.Securing the mobile enterprise is critical
2.Enterprise Mobile Application Development, Integration, and Enablement are in full swing
3.We are reaching “The Cognitive Era”
4.Cloud, analytics, security, and the user experience (uX) are finally coming together
5.Mobile applications continue to challenge the enterprise
6.IT and OT are in direct conflict and fighting it out
7.Understanding how data moves
8.The C-level folks are the most resistant to digitization and change

A more detailed review of the 8 conference highlights are listed below.

1.Securing the mobile enterprise is critical
Across every panel, discussion, case study, and one-on-one meeting securing the enterprise remained a priority and key topic of discussion. As we continue to automate and connect EVERYTHING and access critical and vital enterprise data from any device, we must secure the end-point, the network, related infrastructure, and the content. Interesting security solutions and technologies from Check Point, Better Mobile, and others were among the case studies demoed this year. The consensus is that passwords are dead and going away. Security is not a technology problem, it is a company problem!
2.Enterprise Mobile Application Development, Integration, and Enablement are in full swing
We have reached a pinnacle where we require access to business data, corporate applications, and business content wherever we are and through any device or medium. This has brought a wealth of companies supporting mobile application projects and initiatives. Many will come and go, but some will remain. Companies need support to help vet mobile application partners and need help with working with 3rd parties. This conference brought innovative solutions and use cases from companies such as Built.io, PowWow Mobile, mPoynt, Box (Box Platforms), hopTo, and many others. Common messages included the need to develop faster (talking days, not months), have modular approach, simplify coding, better integration into existing systems, support with APIs and SDKs, movement to microservices architecture, platform agnostic solutions, making legacy look like “new,” low code to no code approaches, and move to functional PaaS (platform as a service) through content, identity, communications, and more.
3.We are reaching “The Cognitive Era”
During Maribel’s keynote, she mentioned that we are all “Pioneers” as we move to “The Cognitive Era.” Cognitive learning involves the processing of informational habits of a person or thing (machine). Cognition describes a person's typical mode of thinking, perceiving, remembering, or problem solving. The mobile applications and computing systems we interact with through home, work, and play will reach new heights of learning our behaviors to improve the customer experience and improve business processes and operations.
4.Cloud, analytics, security, and the user experience (uX) are finally coming together
Cloud was less of a topic of focus this year, as it is pretty much a given in every business today that we are accessing content, information, data, and storing business data in the cloud. However, in every context of the themes discussed this year, all of the elements are finally coming together to really improve the overall customer experience or user experience. This year and moving forward, businesses are beginning to understand that leading with the customer engagement and experience can overall improved products, customer service, services, and how business gets done. The disparate technologies are coming together to provide more holistic enterprise solutions, and thus PaaS and other related topics appeared to be discussed more frequently.
5.Mobile applications continue to challenge the enterprise
The enterprise continues to be challenged with developing mobile applications, whether that be for customer facing applications or employee/partner facing applications. Companies today are primarily focused on end-customer or client facing mobile applications, yet we are reaching higher interests in enabling the mobile workforce through expanding and building out mobile applications for work purposes. Legacy applications are also a challenge, as we heard this week that even the Federal Government continues to use operating systems such as Windows 3.1. We are stuck and challenged every day and need further support from the vendor community to help us prioritize, understand payback or ROI, and invest in business models that make good business sense. Integration is also a challenge, as businesses want new mobile applications to integrate into existing CRM, ERP, logistics, shipping, inventory, and other systems and software. Additional support and services need to be offered as part of the technical or mobile application development for the enterprise community.
6.IT and OT are in direct conflict and fighting it out
As technology decisions continue to be made outside of the general IT department, there continues to be the problem with shadow IT. Shadow IT is often referred to as IT systems and solutions built and used inside organizations but without executive or organizational approval. Another factor is OT or operational technology. Many of those that manage the technology solutions for operations are also wanting to keep their networks and security separate and completely independent from the IT network, especially when it comes to decision-making, approvals, and buying. As the overall push of connecting the workplace, including people, systems, and machines, there is also a need to support with the integration of IT and OT to provide for better integration, a uniform compliance/security strategy, and because many operational systems are now touching the “network.” As IT and OT battle it out, each industry will have continuing challenges and concerns, especially when it comes to security and overall integration or sharing of information.
7.Understanding how data moves
It is important to not only understand security and where your important business or enterprise data resides or is stored, but understanding how data moves is critical to securing your company’s most important IP, assets, and corporate data. From a security standpoint, whether the employee is accessing this critical data from a personal device or corporate-issued device that data may move or behave very differently. Understanding other partners and vendors involved as part of a service stored in the cloud is also important. You may partner with a 3rd party mobile application vendor, but they may use AWS as a partner to store your critical company data. Having transparency and holding your vendors responsible for breaches and 3rd party relationships, are all growing areas of concern and need for enterprise mobile solutions and applications.
8.The C-level folks are the most resistant to digitization and change
On one of the analyst/expert panels, it was noted that the executives or C-levels are sometimes some of the most resistant to change and advancing a company’s digital strategy. In this day and age, we just do not know who our competitors will be as new market entrants continue to disrupt traditional business models. If we are not moving fast and embracing the digital transformation now, we will be left in the dust and many will just go out of business. This resistance is common, but we as industry thought leaders must continue to message the importance of embracing technology change, implementing digital and mobile transformation initiatives, and automating operations to improve the customer experience. Businesses who wait will suffer the consequences!