Mobile is the word: Three keys to what mobile means for your business

The bases are loaded and mobile technology is ready to hit this one out of the park. Ok, so I’ve mixed a few metaphors here. But this is important so I want to get your attention. To take it one step further; it’s just the second inning.

So what is really going on here? Simple we are at the tipping point and if you are not thinking about how to use mobile technology to connect with your customers, then you are going to get run over. It is really that simple. It is true for all businesses, governments, schools, and trades.

How do I know, well Mary said so. Mary Meeker that is and she knows what she is talking about as a partner at Kleiner Perkins, Caufield and Byers; the VC firm in the center of all the action in Silicon Valley. Two weeks ago one of my CEO Focus associates sent me a copy of her presentation on just how persuasive the change is and how fast it is coming. A quick read on Sunday night and my eyes opened to just how dramatic the change has been over the past two years. The inflection point is here. It is time to catch the wave. See her full presentation here.

Her three key points:

• Internet growth remains robust, rapid mobile adoption still in early stages
• Re-imagination of nearly everything
• Asset light – from hand to cloud and back. The rise of the Sharing Economy

How rapid is the mobile adoption?

• 42% growth in 2012 of global smart phone subscribers
• 50% of all US Phone subscriptions are smart phones
• iPad growth is 3X iPhone growth
• Android is even faster; 6X iPhone growth
• 12/09 1% of internet traffic was mobile
• 12/10 4% of internet traffic was mobile
• 12/12 14% of internet traffic was mobile
• Any doubt that by 12/15 50% of internet traffic will be mobile?

The tipping point is here. The time to re-imagine your business is NOW.

• The mobile wave is being powered by new devices, touch based user interface (android/IOS), and ubiquitous internet connectivity
• Your customer HAS the entire world at her finger tips (information, pictures, prices, comparisons, reviews, terms, you name it) and is using it right now to decided if he is going to buy from you. What are you telling her?

The rise of the sharing economy.

This kind of thing really gets me excited.

In the early 80s I studied computer science and was amazed at the change Windows and Intel (and the personal computer) brought to the world. I remember when the first PC hit the desk of the first corporate programmer in 1984. That was not me; I was still coding in COBOL and delivering punch cards to the mainframe.

As a management consultant in the 90s what I could do on a PC manipulating gigantic amounts of health care data would have made a NASA scientist from the 60s blush. I knew it at the time. Power was shifting from the big company (mainframe) to smaller, nimble teams who could do some rudimentary programming.

Now today, the computing power in my iPhone is 100X more sophisticated than the old PC I worked on in the 90s. Plus we are all connected all the time by the internet.

This change is bigger.

People still need goods and services, cars and diapers, lawyers and accounts, programmers and sales people. The difference today is we want all of that in the palm of our hand right now.

Are you ready? I hope so. Your competitor is working on it tonight. I guarantee it.