Mobile information and communication technologies (ICT) promise to significantly transform enterprises, their business processes and services, improve employee productivity, effectiveness, and efficiency, and create new competitive advantages and business agility. Despite the plethora of potential benefits, however, widespread enterprise adoption of mobile ICT has not been as extensive as initially anticipated. Drawing on the extant information systems, technology management, and organizational innovation literature, this dissertation investigates the salient drivers and inhibitors of emerging ICT adoption, in general, and mobile ICT in particular, and develops an integrative ICT adoption decision framework. From this synthesis we identify four broad elements that influence an enterprise s decision to adopt mobile ICT: (1) business value, (2) costs and economics, (3) strategic alignment, and (4) enterprise readiness. The latter decision element has received only little theoretical and practical attention. In order to fill this gap, this dissertation explored the concept of enterprise readiness in further detail and identified eight key dimensions and their associated assessment indicators. Using a two-stage expert study and experimental design approach, we empirically validated these dimensions and determined their relative importance. Results indicated that leadership readiness followed by technology, data and information, and resource readiness, contributed the most to enterprise readiness for mobile ICT. The results are implemented into a web-based readiness diagnostic tool (RDT) that enables decision makers to assess an enterprise s readiness for mobile ICT. The benefits of the RDT are multifold: first, it navigates the decision maker through the complex readiness assessment space; second, it identifies potential organizational deficiencies and provides a means to assess potential sources of risks associated with the adoption and implementation of mobile ICT; and third, it enables decision makers to benchmark their level of readiness against other organizations. The dissertation concludes by highlighting both theoretical and practical implications for emerging and mobile ICT adoption management and suggesting directions for future research.

Mobile enterprise applications (MEAs) are found in increasing numbers in organisations as smart-devices become an everyday necessity amongst employees and customers. Large amounts are invested in these applications, so it is important to see the value in improved business processes and the consequential improvement in business performance. Realising the benefits from their use is important to obtain the value from these investments. Yet, benefits management (BM) is poorly implemented in companies and a first step to improve this situation is to improve the visibility of the benefits that can be achieved by using MEAs. Hence the primary question asked in this study is “How can MEA benefits be successfully realised?” The strategy used to answer the question was action research in a single organisation using three MEAs in two different action research cycles. The study was conducted in a short-term insurance company in the Western Cape of South Africa with an established IT and project capability. Globally, the short-term insurance industry is under a significant threat from disruption by market entrants who don’t have to navigate legacy systems and who are more agile with their product offerings. Traditional insurers are looking for innovative solutions to transform the way in which insurance is sold and serviced. A BM process, which was modified from the literature, was refined through action cycles in three MEA projects to improve benefits realisation. The result showed that for MEA projects, which are not very large investments relative to other IT projects, a lighter, less cumbersome process was more practical and acceptable in the organisation. The creation of a benefits and risks template, during the action cycles, helped the organisation to build stronger business cases for MEA projects and also allowed for more comprehensive benefit identification, measurement and tracking, ultimately realising business performance improvements. The study also used a survey amongst 88 brokers and assessors to determine the factors which influence their adoption of these MEAs. The most significant factors influencing user adoption were the company’s willingness to fund the smart-devices, the ease of use of the MEA, job relevance and location dependence. A limitation of this study is that the organisation has a particular approach to project funding whereby the importance of BM is weighed against the cost of the project, hence BM is more important for very expensive projects. While the model prescribed in this study was sufficient in this context, it may not be suitable for organisations that are more conscientious about BM. This model would need to be tested in other contexts for transferability. A further limitation was the duration of time available for conducting this study because this was a PhD research project. Further action cycles might have refined the process further. The findings from this study are relevant to researchers and to organisations wanting to deploy MEAs. The BM process defined in this study can be used in MEA projects as a process to manage the identified benefits and ensure that they are realised. The benefits template can be used as a first step in the BM process to build the business case and the risks template can be used to identify potential problems that could hinder benefits realisation and can used to put mitigating actions in place to prevent problems to benefits realisation. The identification of factors influencing adoption of MEA can help organisations focus on these factors to ensure that their MEAs are used and they thereby derive benefits. The theoretical contributions of this study are a process model for the BM body of knowledge and a model explaining the factors influencing symbolic adoption of MEA. The identification and description of benefits and risks extends the body of knowledge for mobile applications research. These specific issues in the context of MEAs in the short-term insurance industry are understudied.

The rapid increase in smartphone usage has led enterprises to start adapting their internal systems for use with smartphones; so called mobile enterprise applications. Previous research show that these mobile applications can increase the efficiency, satisfaction and productivity of a company's workforce. Developing and deploying the applications is far from trivial, and companies have struggled to fully adopt enterprise mobility. This paper gives a detailed description of the development and implementation of two smartphone applications for internal use at two companies. Through two case studies consisting of an app analysis and interviews with key stakeholders, the research presented focuses on addressing the research question: how do new smartphone applications fit into existing systems to provide added value to companies? The results show that even though the apps developed are simple in their functionality, the fact that they are used on mobile devices makes them valuable in itself. From the companies’ perspectives, availability and connectivity were the two most important aspects of the applications - they provided easy access to company information. Developmental obstacles were also identified, most notably how to integrate the apps with the different internal systems already in place. The usefulness of mobile enterprise applications is discussed, and guidelines for future stakeholders and developers are suggested to make transformations into mobile enterprises easier. / Den snabba ökningen i användandet av smartphones har lett till att företag i allt större utsträckning anpassar sina interna system för mobilanvändning: så kallade mobile enterprise applications. Tidigare forskning visar att dessa mobilapplikationer kan göra företagets anställda mer effektiva, produktiva och nöjda. Att utveckla och lansera dessa applikationer är långt ifrån trivialt, och företag har haft svårt att fullt ut anamma ett mobilt arbetssätt. Denna uppsats ger en detaljerad beskrivning av utvecklingen och implementeringen av två interna smartphone-appar hos två företag. Genom en analys av appar samt intervjuer med nyckelpersoner på två företag syftar den här uppsatsen till att besvara frågan: hur passar nya smartphone-appar in i befintliga system så att de tillför värde för företagen? Resultaten visar att även om de nya apparna har tämligen grundläggande funktionalitet, räcker det faktum att de är mobila för att göra dem värdefulla och användbara. Ur företagens synvinkel var tillgänglighet och anslutning de två viktigaste aspekterna hos apparna – de gav medarbetarna enkel tillgång till företagets information. Även hinder för utvecklingen har identifierats; främst hur man ska integrera apparna med de olika interna system som redan är i bruk. Användbarheten hos mobilappar för företag diskuteras, och det föreslås riktlinjer för framtida intressenter och utvecklare för att underlätta omvandlingen till mobila företag.