Strategic Vs Tactical Approach To Enterprise Mobility

By Author: sadie hawkins
Total Articles: 18
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What are we referring to when we discuss tactical and strategic approaches to business mobility, and which should we be actually using?

Ok, so this is actually a little bit of a trick question as you would probably find yourself using both approaches to a BYOD policy. But it's essential that businesses out there recognise the differences between both and when it's right to employ each. Getting mixed up can cost you money and essential time, and furthermore results in less effective business mobility.

Strategies vs. Tactics

If you queried people on what the difference between strategy and tactics were you would most likely get many varying answers. A decent and concise definition could easily be seen as: "strategy is doing the correct things, tactics is doing things right."

Tactics

Tactics, however, are specific actions required to realise the strategy potential. When it boils down to BYOD, you could be in a position to need to set up VDI (virtual desktop infrastructure) to add a secure and useful working environment for mobile devices in your workplace. This counts as a tactic.

Tactics ...
... are most successful when used when delivering a strategy that's wider. When wanting to meet business objectives by mobilising different components at different times, you ought to begin by coming up with a decent method then implementing your tactics as necessary, instead of the opposite approach around it.

Strategy

A strategy is the great concept. It answers the question of what you wish to carry out and why, so you can complete your objectives for the business. Say you needed to implement a strategy when approaching business mobility, and then you would need to plan a strategy that details specifically what you hope on achieving, and what steps you will need to take to achieve that, and also why these steps are vital.

Ordering the steps will be a smart plan too, making a disciplined approach to the implementation. For instance, initially applying your biggest cost-saving measures in the first instance can free up capital necessary for later stages, otherwise you may find that you need the infrastructure in place first, for the other steps to become attainable.

Tactics and strategy examples

If mobilising a specific method or process is considered a method to attain business objectives, and thus the benefits being clearly identified, you've got an answer to each of why and what of your planning of your strategy. For instance, mobility may be a method to increase efficiency in production of a product or the delivery of a service. Strategy should cover all vital aspects which are related to what tasks and processes need mobilising necessary to achieve your business objectives.

The tactics focus on how to mobilise processes, systems and information - how to design services, device management, how to go about introducing changes in your organisation, training and educating people to use them in efficient and secure ways, and so on. Once you do that after you have a mobility strategy in place, you will be much less likely to fall into a trap of basing your approach around the technology you bought, as opposed to aiming to achieve business objectives.