Mobile is here to stay. Let’s face it, it is no longer a fad or just trendy to be including mobility as part of your corporate operations – even if it’s in-house or an outsourced service. In doing business these days, mobile is too ubiquitous to be ignored and treated as mere add-on to facilitate how customers and employees interact with your organizations.

So if you’re asking yourself if you need a mobile strategist in your company, we’ll give you a yes for an answer. At the very least, a mobile strategist could be that somebody in your organization or from an offshore location who is focused on mobile.

While organizations are dabbling in the mobile space for several years already, thinking about mobile strategy was not a priority (until now to some enterprises). According to HP’s Genefa Murphy, a director of product management, mobile, analytics and user experience, companies were creating mobile application but overall focus on mobile is too small.

As mobile finally take over the point that it has today, companies are realizing that the right thing to do now is to implement a mobile strategy. The realization finally dawn on companies that the key to be successful in mobile is about having a strategy or at the very least a person who will be in charge to oversee this space.

What is a mobile strategist?

A mobile strategist, or regardless of what job title you give them, is responsible for developing a mobile-centred roadmap for your organization. Such strategy spells out for implementation an enterprise’s mobile plans, policies, and tactics aligned with business goals.

This person will be working with your organization’s different departments as well as different groups to implement the mobile roadmap. Those who might get involved overall include product managers, marketers, and sales for their external mobile activities. They also might work with your in-house IT teams to expand mobility for employees.

In developing the mobile plan of the company, the mobile strategist will first have to identify the company’s business goals around mobile. Sometimes, the goals or what your enterprise would want to benefit from going mobile may be centered around increasing productivity, supporting your virtual workers offshore, or making brands more accessible to customers.

Where you plan your app to live is also another important consideration. Do you plan to launch a native, Web or hybrid app? The mobile strategist will also list rationalize his preferred architecture in terms of budget, compatibility and most importantly of support. Then a list of functionalities or features that users need must accompany the plan, picking out what the mobile strategist thought would be more relevant to your brand’s users and differentiate your app among the many others.

For budgetary reasons, the mobile strategist will also need to mind the scope of the implementation of the plan. Decide whether you aim your roadmap to fulfill a short-term tactical need or long-term scalability. Short-term purposes, for instance, include coming up with an app supporting an event which has a temporary duration so the features and compatibility with fewer operating systems may be what’s necessary. On the other hand, an app that would require long-term support and cross-platform compatibility would be segmented to apps geared for long-term purposes.

Is it the right time now to outsource a mobile strategist?

It’s the smart thing to do. Now, you might ask why. Sooner or later, your enterprise will be dealing with mobile. If the timing alone will be our basis, hiring a mobile strategist within your organization is important. Depending on the role that your mobile strategist will handle, you must think about how active a role should mobile strategy be playing in your business. Then, you must be sure what you plan to do about it: are you hiring a mobile strategist to work in-house or are you outsourcing one from your trusted partner and contractor?

The answer lies upon you or how far you want to go within the mobile space. If you are an enterprise at an early phase of mobile adoption, your mobile strategist’s role might simple be focused on educating different groups within your organization about the need for increased mobility. This mobile strategist might also be there to assess mobile readiness for you.

On the other hand, if your organization has already established deep down the mobile path, your mobile strategist may be assigned to develop tooling strategies for your mobile development, testing, management and monitoring. He or she could also be your consultant which apps your organization can mobile and which to leave as is.

So, if you plan to step up your mobile strategy soon, the next thing for you is to answer, what your next step will be.