Abandoned Projects Leave Companies ‘Behind the 8-Ball’ on Mobility

While the majority of digital leaders feel that their company is making great progress toward a digital transformation, they also indicate that they’re “behind the 8-ball” in attempting to deploy mobile tech to support business goals, according to a recent survey from Dropsource. The resulting report, titled “Mobile Is the Achilles Heel of Digital Transformation,” reveals that a significant number of organizations have actually had to abandon mobile app projects—often due to insufficient budgets as well as “unrealistic expectations” about what these projects can do. An estimated 200 U.S. digital executives took part in the research, which was conducted by Qualtrics. The following slide show presents survey highlights, with charts provided courtesy of Dropsource.

More than three of five survey respondents describe their company’s progress toward a digital transformation as “mature.” Only 18 percent describe their organization’s progress as “nascent” or “non-existent.”

Despite the high self-assessments of their company’s digital transformation efforts, 84 percent of respondents said that either they, their team or their organization is “behind the 8-ball” at least “somewhat” when it comes to using mobile tech to support business goals. And 41 percent of respondents said this is negatively impacting business success.

Forty-six percent of respondents said they’ve had to abandon a mobile app project at least once—and possibly up to five times—within the last 48 months. This creates a number of issues, including wasted time and investment, stalled progress toward a true digital transformation and lost business opportunities.

When asked why they’ve abandoned a mobile app project over the last one to two years, 23 percent of respondents cited an insufficient budget. Nearly one in five cited “unreasonable expectations of what’s possible” and 15 percent cited a “lack of imagination about what’s possible.”

When asked how the lack of mobile progress has made them feel, 44 percent of respondents said “misunderstood/under pressure” and that “management does not appreciate/understand how tough mobile is.” More than three of 10 said it’s “frustrating that mobile is so tough and expensive to try to do properly.”

In planning to tackle the challenges, 42 percent of respondents said they are looking to increase the budget for mobility projects. Seventeen percent said they will seek to hire more talent.

The findings indicate that 64 percent of respondents consider the mobile apps that their company currently offers as either “effective” or “very effective” in driving sales and customer engagement. Nearly the same percentage said the same about their mobile apps’ ability to boost employee productivity.