Using mobile back end as a service (MBaaS), embedded in a standard enterprise architecture, as a platform for mobile app development offers organizations development agility. MBaaS features also include mobile security, business logic, analytics and support services.
A Brief Introduction to a Digital Experience Platform (DXP)Pimcore
As the need for customer-oriented and context-optimized experiences come to the fore, web content management systems pave the way for integrated digital experience platform (DXP) solutions, for superior flexibility, agility, personalization, and cross-channel delivery. Here are 6 key steps that go into building a DXP: Read more http://bit.ly/2lS4bm3
How should organizations go about tackling BYOD schemes?
While it is true that BYOD programs can and most likely will liberate and motivate employees, giving them a sense of personal choice, they can also bring with them unforeseen consequences when it comes to cost and security, even productivity, which must be fully considered before a scheme can be implemented. At the recent Olympic and Paralympic Games, the international scope meant Atos had to deal with a vast array of mobile devices coming in from many different sources, each with the requirement of flawless and secure delivery of IT services over the Olympic and Paralympic Games’ vast network.
HOW TO DIFFERENTIATE YOUR DIGITAL CUSTOMER CARE Idc journey to_the_3rd_platfo...CMR WORLD TECH
HOW TO DIFFERENTIATE YOUR DIGITAL CUSTOMER CARE
Your customers evolve and so does your organisation. With similar products and services to your competition, there is a growing requirement to design unique customer benefits. Service is becoming the primary differentiator in a competitive market.
Wearable Devices: The Next Big Thing in CRMCognizant
When integrated with CRM systems, wearable devices offer the same type of digital experience as desktops, laptops, smartphone or tablets, but with the convenience afforded by watches, eyeglasses and headbands. Wearables apply across the CRM spectrum - from sales, to marketing, to services.
Digital Transformation for Utilities: Creating a Differentiated Customer Expe...Cognizant
Utilities stand to reap large gains in customer-service efficiencies and user experience satisfaction by adopting a mobile-centric approach with apps that cover a wealth of transactional and engagement features.
A Brief Introduction to a Digital Experience Platform (DXP)Pimcore
As the need for customer-oriented and context-optimized experiences come to the fore, web content management systems pave the way for integrated digital experience platform (DXP) solutions, for superior flexibility, agility, personalization, and cross-channel delivery. Here are 6 key steps that go into building a DXP: Read more http://bit.ly/2lS4bm3
How should organizations go about tackling BYOD schemes?
While it is true that BYOD programs can and most likely will liberate and motivate employees, giving them a sense of personal choice, they can also bring with them unforeseen consequences when it comes to cost and security, even productivity, which must be fully considered before a scheme can be implemented. At the recent Olympic and Paralympic Games, the international scope meant Atos had to deal with a vast array of mobile devices coming in from many different sources, each with the requirement of flawless and secure delivery of IT services over the Olympic and Paralympic Games’ vast network.
HOW TO DIFFERENTIATE YOUR DIGITAL CUSTOMER CARE Idc journey to_the_3rd_platfo...CMR WORLD TECH
HOW TO DIFFERENTIATE YOUR DIGITAL CUSTOMER CARE
Your customers evolve and so does your organisation. With similar products and services to your competition, there is a growing requirement to design unique customer benefits. Service is becoming the primary differentiator in a competitive market.
Wearable Devices: The Next Big Thing in CRMCognizant
When integrated with CRM systems, wearable devices offer the same type of digital experience as desktops, laptops, smartphone or tablets, but with the convenience afforded by watches, eyeglasses and headbands. Wearables apply across the CRM spectrum - from sales, to marketing, to services.
Digital Transformation for Utilities: Creating a Differentiated Customer Expe...Cognizant
Utilities stand to reap large gains in customer-service efficiencies and user experience satisfaction by adopting a mobile-centric approach with apps that cover a wealth of transactional and engagement features.
WCP Research identifies key software industry trends including solid growth over the last five years; BYOD growing as employees and managers and employees choose their own devices; and Big Data accelerating in 2013. Salesforce.com makes a big bet on marketing cloud, while Oracle announces surprising partnerships with Salesforce.com and Microsoft.
TOP MOBILE APP DEVELOPMENT TRENDS OF 2021Imbibe Tech
Within the last decade, many tech. industries are making their ways into our lives. One of them is the ever evolving mobile app development industry.
Both the users and app developers are hitting the jackpot today as the mobile development industry is continuously growing and apps are becoming better day by day, thus making our lives better.
Mastering Code Halos Using Digital Insights to Drive Customer ExperiencesCognizant
Innovators recognize that every interaction with every
person and every thing now creates a trail of data — and
they’ve mastered the ability to harness it. Every click, browse,
download, share, transaction and device transmission
enables them to understand, and subsequently monetize,
relationships in ways never before possible.
An Analysis of U.S. P&C Insurance Customer-Facing Mobile AppsCognizant
Property and casualty insurers are playing catch-up in the mobile app space, with most failing to deliver features and functionality that meet consumer needs and expectations, or matching the capabilities provided on existing Web portals, our latest research shows.
Insurance Mobility Business Strategy: A Roadmap and Implementation ApproachCognizant
We produce a strategic framework for mobility implementation for insurers including a self-assessment mobility maturity index. Our insurance mobility roadmap includes users, application, platforms, products and functions.
Your Challenge:
- With the complexity of mobility increasing in most organizations, enterprise mobility management (EMM) is becoming necessary to manage devices, as well as all aspects of mobility.
- While EMM might seem simple from the outside, it has many moving parts. It covers devices, applications, data, security, policies, financial management, and help desk management.
- Without a detailed implementation plan to mitigate issues such as missing components, an unprepared IT department and help desk, and low end-user adoption, IT will find it difficult to ensure a successful launch.
Our Advice:
Critical Insight
- Mobility within organizations continues to grow more complex, and requirements for managing mobility now extend far beyond the device itself.
- As BYOD continues to grow and new products are released into the market, EMM will become a necessary tool for long-term sustainability and effective use of mobility.
- Without a proper implementation plan in place, organizations will find it difficult to achieve a suitable, unified solution for short and long-term sustainability of mobile management.
Impact and Result
- Prepare the organization for mobility by developing an implementation plan that covers EMM from start to finish, including selecting a vendor, managing help desk changes, engaging users, and developing an actionable timeline.
- Create a tailored solution for the unique needs of your organization.
Don't come last in a mobile first --WhitepaperAbhishek Sood
By 2020 mobile devices will outsell PC’s by a factor of 10.
Regardless of what mobility strategy your company has in place, or how you intend to execute it, the more mobile users, devices, applications and content your organization adopts, the more challenges you will have to deal with.
Download this white paper to discover how to overcome the most pressing mobility challenges including device security and management, app development, remote support, mobile data and analytics, and more.
How Telematics Will Improve Driver Experience and Deliver Greater Business ValueCognizant
Rapidly accelerating advances in telematics and human-machine interface design promise to deliver not only superior driving experiences but also benefits across the automotive ecosystem and beyond.
Exploring Mobile Apps Categories and Successful Mobile VAS and Multimedia App...Ali Saghaeian
Some of the topics covered in this slide deck:
Successful Mobile VAS and Multimedia Applications
Different Mobile App Categories & Functions
Operators’ Mobile App Functions
Top APIs operators could implement
Case Study: Network API Platform
Making the most of enterprise apps
Pros and Cons for Providing Mobile Apps
Benedict Evans, consultant with media and technology analyst firm Enders Analysis, talks about the fundamental shift in internet use to mobile and tablets and the ways in which that disrupts publishers.
Slides for the presentation on BaaS at the Cloud Computing event hosted by GTECH Technology Forum, Technopark.
Covers :
- What is Backend as a Service ?
- How much time can be saved by using BaaS ?
- Current Mobile Ecosystem with BaaS as the new middleware
- Bringing BaaS to Enterprise IT.
- Leading Providers
WCP Research identifies key software industry trends including solid growth over the last five years; BYOD growing as employees and managers and employees choose their own devices; and Big Data accelerating in 2013. Salesforce.com makes a big bet on marketing cloud, while Oracle announces surprising partnerships with Salesforce.com and Microsoft.
TOP MOBILE APP DEVELOPMENT TRENDS OF 2021Imbibe Tech
Within the last decade, many tech. industries are making their ways into our lives. One of them is the ever evolving mobile app development industry.
Both the users and app developers are hitting the jackpot today as the mobile development industry is continuously growing and apps are becoming better day by day, thus making our lives better.
Mastering Code Halos Using Digital Insights to Drive Customer ExperiencesCognizant
Innovators recognize that every interaction with every
person and every thing now creates a trail of data — and
they’ve mastered the ability to harness it. Every click, browse,
download, share, transaction and device transmission
enables them to understand, and subsequently monetize,
relationships in ways never before possible.
An Analysis of U.S. P&C Insurance Customer-Facing Mobile AppsCognizant
Property and casualty insurers are playing catch-up in the mobile app space, with most failing to deliver features and functionality that meet consumer needs and expectations, or matching the capabilities provided on existing Web portals, our latest research shows.
Insurance Mobility Business Strategy: A Roadmap and Implementation ApproachCognizant
We produce a strategic framework for mobility implementation for insurers including a self-assessment mobility maturity index. Our insurance mobility roadmap includes users, application, platforms, products and functions.
Your Challenge:
- With the complexity of mobility increasing in most organizations, enterprise mobility management (EMM) is becoming necessary to manage devices, as well as all aspects of mobility.
- While EMM might seem simple from the outside, it has many moving parts. It covers devices, applications, data, security, policies, financial management, and help desk management.
- Without a detailed implementation plan to mitigate issues such as missing components, an unprepared IT department and help desk, and low end-user adoption, IT will find it difficult to ensure a successful launch.
Our Advice:
Critical Insight
- Mobility within organizations continues to grow more complex, and requirements for managing mobility now extend far beyond the device itself.
- As BYOD continues to grow and new products are released into the market, EMM will become a necessary tool for long-term sustainability and effective use of mobility.
- Without a proper implementation plan in place, organizations will find it difficult to achieve a suitable, unified solution for short and long-term sustainability of mobile management.
Impact and Result
- Prepare the organization for mobility by developing an implementation plan that covers EMM from start to finish, including selecting a vendor, managing help desk changes, engaging users, and developing an actionable timeline.
- Create a tailored solution for the unique needs of your organization.
Don't come last in a mobile first --WhitepaperAbhishek Sood
By 2020 mobile devices will outsell PC’s by a factor of 10.
Regardless of what mobility strategy your company has in place, or how you intend to execute it, the more mobile users, devices, applications and content your organization adopts, the more challenges you will have to deal with.
Download this white paper to discover how to overcome the most pressing mobility challenges including device security and management, app development, remote support, mobile data and analytics, and more.
How Telematics Will Improve Driver Experience and Deliver Greater Business ValueCognizant
Rapidly accelerating advances in telematics and human-machine interface design promise to deliver not only superior driving experiences but also benefits across the automotive ecosystem and beyond.
Exploring Mobile Apps Categories and Successful Mobile VAS and Multimedia App...Ali Saghaeian
Some of the topics covered in this slide deck:
Successful Mobile VAS and Multimedia Applications
Different Mobile App Categories & Functions
Operators’ Mobile App Functions
Top APIs operators could implement
Case Study: Network API Platform
Making the most of enterprise apps
Pros and Cons for Providing Mobile Apps
Benedict Evans, consultant with media and technology analyst firm Enders Analysis, talks about the fundamental shift in internet use to mobile and tablets and the ways in which that disrupts publishers.
Slides for the presentation on BaaS at the Cloud Computing event hosted by GTECH Technology Forum, Technopark.
Covers :
- What is Backend as a Service ?
- How much time can be saved by using BaaS ?
- Current Mobile Ecosystem with BaaS as the new middleware
- Bringing BaaS to Enterprise IT.
- Leading Providers
We Are Social's comprehensive new report covers internet, social media and mobile usage statistics from all over the world. It contains more than 350 infographics, including global snapshots, regional overviews, and in-depth profiles of 30 of the world's largest economies. For a more insightful analysis of these numbers, please visit http://bit.ly/SDMW2015
Network effects. It’s one of the most important concepts for business in general and especially for tech businesses, as it’s the key dynamic behind many successful software-based companies. Understanding network effects not only helps build better products, but it helps build moats and protect software companies against competitors’ eating away at their margins.
Yet what IS a network effect? How do we untangle the nuances of 'network effects' with 'marketplaces' and 'platforms'? What’s the difference between network effects, virality, supply-side economies of scale? And how do we know a company has network effects?
Most importantly, what questions can entrepreneurs and product managers ask to counter the wishful thinking and sometimes faulty assumption behind the belief that “if we build it, they will come” … and instead go about more deterministically creating network effects in their business? Because it's not a winner-take-all market by accident.
In this update of his past presentations on Mobile Eating the World -- delivered most recently at The Guardian's Changing Media Summit -- a16z’s Benedict Evans takes us through how technology is universal through mobile. How mobile is not a subset of the internet anymore. And how mobile (and accompanying trends of cloud and AI) is also driving new productivity tools.
In fact, mobile -- which encompasses everything from drones to cars -- is everything.
Value Journal, a monthly news journal from Redington Value Distribution, intends to update the channel on the latest vendor news and Redington Value’s Channel Initiatives.
Key stories from the November Edition:
•Commercial Bank of Dubai adopts the Microsoft Cloud to accelerate digitization
•The next frontier of value
•Abu Dhabi Municipality chooses Aruba for digital workplace transformation project
•Nutanix announces new IT automation for private clouds
•Fortinet ranked high by Gartner for SDWAN equipment market share by revenue
•Okta launches Okta SecurityInsights to protect global workforces
•Automation Anywhere launches AI-Powered RPA-as-a-Service platform
•New Mimecast report finds staggering increase in BEC Attacks
•Huawei stresses on key pillars for digital economy in the region
•DU chooses Oracle to accelerate uptake of UAE FEDNet programme
•VMware ranked 1st in cloud systems, service management
Web and internet computing is evolving into a combination of social media, mobile, analytics and cloud (SMAC) solutions. There is a need for an integrated approach when developing
solutions that address web scale requirements with technologies that enable SMAC solutions. This paper presents an architecture model for the integrated approach that can form the basis for solutions and result in reuse, integration and agility for the business and IT in an enterprise.
Web and internet computing is evolving into a combination of social media, mobile, analytics and cloud (SMAC) solutions. There is a need for an integrated approach when developing
solutions that address web scale requirements with technologies that enable SMAC solutions.This paper presents an architecture model for the integrated approach that can form the basis
for solutions and result in reuse, integration and agility for the business and IT in an enterprise.
Digital transformation through integrationCetrixSaudi
The business world is undergoing a revolution. With the proliferation of technology across our lives and work, industries around the world are realising that the tried and trusted methods that have kept them moving forward might no longer suffice. Consumers today are connected, informed, and unprecedentedly technologically savvy, and as a result, the companies they deal with are expected to be the same.
What are Microservices and Serverless Architectures_ What makes them popular_...Anil
Microservices and serverless architectures are both modern approaches to building and deploying applications that have gained popularity in recent years
Microservices architecture, or simply microservices, is a method to broaden software frameworks or a single software as a collection of numerous small services. The following are likely to be the top microservices trends of the coming year. Let us take a look at them. https://bit.ly/3uNIrbs
In this presentation, Rishabh introduces the concept of SMAC and discusses trends.He is interested in using SMAC to create solutions that positively impact customer experience. The applications that he intends to develop will be available anytime and anywhere is what he says.
Enterprise mobility refers to the execution of mobile application development as a strategy that addresses the particular requirements of a company. Mobile technology is used to connect people, processes, and information. Enterprise mobility can improve how consumers interact with items and services.
SaaS, or Software as a Service, is radically transforming conventional software tools for micro/SMEs by diminishing transaction costs, increasing market flexibility and providing
cost effective outsourcing solutions to IT. Unlike any other time in history, micro/SMEs have a level playing field with large enterprise and Fortune 500 companies through early adoption of a myriad of SaaS solutions, which are enabling massive efficiency gains in areas such as: ERP, CRM, BI & HR solutions to name a few.
A Gartner survey says that by the end of 2023, over 80% of all enterprise software will be built using a microsevices architecture. The State of Microservices Maturity Report found that 61% of respondents experienced improved application resilience after transitioning tomicroservices
A Gartner survey says that by the end of 2023, over 80% of all enterprise software will be built using a microsevices architecture. The State of Microservices Maturity Report found that 61% of respondents experienced improved application resilience after transitioning tomicroservices
Using Adaptive Scrum to Tame Process Reverse Engineering in Data Analytics Pr...Cognizant
Organizations rely on analytics to make intelligent decisions and improve business performance, which sometimes requires reproducing business processes from a legacy application to a digital-native state to reduce the functional, technical and operational debts. Adaptive Scrum can reduce the complexity of the reproduction process iteratively as well as provide transparency in data analytics porojects.
It Takes an Ecosystem: How Technology Companies Deliver Exceptional ExperiencesCognizant
Experience is evolving into a strategy that reaches across technology companies. We offer guidance on the rise of experience and its role in business modernization, with details on how orgnizations can build the ecosystem to support it.
The Work Ahead: Transportation and Logistics Delivering on the Digital-Physic...Cognizant
The T&L industry appears poised to accelerate its long-overdue modernization drive, as the pandemic spurs an increased need for agility and resilience, according to our study.
Enhancing Desirability: Five Considerations for Winning Digital InitiativesCognizant
To be a modern digital business in the post-COVID era, organizations must be fanatical about the experiences they deliver to an increasingly savvy and expectant user community. Getting there requires a mastery of human-design thinking, compelling user interface and interaction design, and a focus on functional and nonfunctional capabilities that drive business differentiation and results.
The Work Ahead in Manufacturing: Fulfilling the Agility MandateCognizant
According to our research, manufacturers are well ahead of other industries in their IoT deployments but need to marshal the investment required to meet today’s intensified demands for business resilience.
The Work Ahead in Higher Education: Repaving the Road for the Employees of To...Cognizant
Higher-ed institutions expect pandemic-driven disruption to continue, especially as hyperconnectivity, analytics and AI drive personalized education models over the lifetime of the learner, according to our recent research.
Engineering the Next-Gen Digital Claims Organisation for Australian General I...Cognizant
In recent years, insurers have invested in technology platforms and process improvements to improve
claims outcomes. Leaders will build on this foundation across the claims landscape, spanning experience,
operations, customer service and the overall supply chain with market-differentiating capabilities to
achieve sustainable results.
Profitability in the Direct-to-Consumer Marketplace: A Playbook for Media and...Cognizant
Amid constant change, industry leaders need an upgraded IT infrastructure capable of adapting to audience expectations while proactively anticipating ever-evolving business requirements.
Green Rush: The Economic Imperative for SustainabilityCognizant
Green business is good business, according to our recent research, whether for companies monetizing tech tools used for sustainability or for those that see the impact of these initiatives on business goals.
Policy Administration Modernization: Four Paths for InsurersCognizant
The pivot to digital is fraught with numerous obstacles but with proper planning and execution, legacy carriers can update their core systems and keep pace with the competition, while proactively addressing customer needs.
The Work Ahead in Utilities: Powering a Sustainable Future with DigitalCognizant
Utilities are starting to adopt digital technologies to eliminate slow processes, elevate customer experience and boost sustainability, according to our recent study.
AI in Media & Entertainment: Starting the Journey to ValueCognizant
Up to now, the global media & entertainment industry (M&E) has been lagging most other sectors in its adoption of artificial intelligence (AI). But our research shows that M&E companies are set to close the gap over the coming three years, as they ramp up their investments in AI and reap rising returns. The first steps? Getting a firm grip on data – the foundation of any successful AI strategy – and balancing technology spend with investments in AI skills.
Operations Workforce Management: A Data-Informed, Digital-First ApproachCognizant
As #WorkFromAnywhere becomes the rule rather than the exception, organizations face an important question: How can they increase their digital quotient to engage and enable a remote operations workforce to work collaboratively to deliver onclient requirements and contractual commitments?
Five Priorities for Quality Engineering When Taking Banking to the CloudCognizant
As banks move to cloud-based banking platforms for lower costs and greater agility, they must seamlessly integrate technologies and workflows while ensuring security, performance and an enhanced user experience. Here are five ways cloud-focused quality assurance helps banks maximize the benefits.
Getting Ahead With AI: How APAC Companies Replicate Success by Remaining FocusedCognizant
Changing market dynamics are propelling Asia-Pacific businesses to take a highly disciplined and focused approach to ensuring that their AI initiatives rapidly scale and quickly generate heightened business impact.
The Work Ahead in Intelligent Automation: Coping with Complexity in a Post-Pa...Cognizant
Intelligent automation continues to be a top driver of the future of work, according to our recent study. To reap the full advantages, businesses need to move from isolated to widespread deployment.
The Work Ahead in Intelligent Automation: Coping with Complexity in a Post-Pa...
Why MBaaS Now
1. Why MBaaS Now
A mobile back end as a service platform should be part of an
organization’s digital transformation roadmap to ensure holistic and
consistent integration of the mobile channel across all consumer
touchpoints.
Executive Summary
Digital transformation is fueling the growth of
enterprises today — connecting customers and
enterprises across countless channels and pro-
viding new brand experiences and forms of
customer engagement. As a result, enterprises
across industries are investing more heavily in
creating effective and meaningful omni-channel
experiences.
The mobile channel is the crown jewel of digital
consumer interaction. Over the past three years,
consumer adoption of the mobile channel has
grown remarkably, compelling organizations to
enable mainstream commercial functionality to
mobile apps and mobile broadband platforms.1
Throughout 2014, mobile technology continued
to penetrate the consumer market, delivering a
growing number of engaging user experiences
and forcing organizations to significantly increase
their investments in apps that deliver digital
marketing services. This has given rise to the
emergence of better products and integration
mechanisms, such as mobile back end as a ser-
vice (MBaaS), to manage mobile services offered
by IT departments. These offerings are part of a
larger global back end as a service (BaaS) market,
which TechNavio Analysts predict will grow at a
compound annual rate of almost 101.88% from
2014 through 2019.2
Figure 1 on the next page depicts the enterprise
mobile model, a structure comprising two ser-
vice areas — one focused primarily on uplifting
consumer mobile interactions, and the other on
right-sizing enterprise information to the mobile
consumer.
To fuel mobile interactions and transactions,
organizations historically adopted mobile appli-
cation development platforms (MADPs). While
MADPs are effective as an entry point into the
world of mobile apps, many enterprises are fast
transitioning from MADPs to mobile-based inte-
gration platforms (i.e., MBaaS) to enhance IT
service management. They provide a great way
for enterprises to empower and federate mobile
development to the lines of businesses interest-
ed in building their own styles of native, Web or
hybrid apps while centralizing access to these
apps via a common integration platform.
• Cognizant 20-20 Insights
cognizant 20-20 insights | may 2015
2. cognizant 20-20 insights 2
Traditional enterprise middleware solutions are
managed by the enterprise service bus (ESB),
service oriented architecture (SOA) and API
management products that serve larger integra-
tion needs but are not necessarily optimized for
mobile apps. MBaaS addresses mobile-specific
integration needs and fills an important gap by
providing a centralized mobile cloud platform
for all developers across the enterprise. It
provides an ecosystem to write scalable mobile-
specific business logic, enables a relevant
enterprise mobile security model and provides
analytic services to assess user behavior access-
ing the app. It also serves as a single channel for
other value-added services to provide mobile
storage and push notifications within the same
MBaaS cloud platform.
This white paper demystifies the MBaaS ecosys-
tem and offers insight into the important role it
plays in the larger enterprise’s IT digital strate-
gy. It also offers a proven methodology to apply
MBaaS technology to implement mobile apps
that are tightly integrated with enterprise core
IT services. Lastly, it delves into key MBaaS tech-
nology components such as micro services and
enterprise integration features that, if properly
embraced, can provide seamless access to back-
end enterprise services.
MBaaS Strategy for Enterprise
Mobile Apps
Standardized ways of developing enterprise
mobile apps have hit a wall. Many of the early
adopters of standard cross-environment mobile
development platforms are ill-suited for today’s
more dynamic, omni-channel times. A new pat-
tern is developing in which mobile apps are
required to work within a larger enterprise frame-
work that provides consumable and consistent
digital experiences across all consumer touch-
points. Delivering mobile digital experiences
that leverage enterprise information to convey
brand-aligned user interactions and personal-
ized experiences is paramount to companies that
seek to lead in the new digital age. To do this, we
believe, companies must distill and apply mean-
ing from the intersections of digital data that
surround people, processes, organizations and
devices — a concept we call Code Halo™ thinking.3
In this context, the refreshed mobile strategy
should create a unified enterprise experience
rather than disconnected line-of-business-centric
app experiences, which to date has been the rule
rather than the exception.
We recently spoke with the CEOs of leading
MBaaS vendors such Kinvey, FeedHenry and
AnyPresence to share their product outlook and
market adoption. All of the CEOs with whom
we interacted expressed a common sentiment:
Enterprise Mobile IT Model
Figure 1
Digital Mobile Experience
Federated App Development Centralized Service Management
Enterprise Mobile Services
Native/Web
Technologies
Enterprise
Connectors
Mobile
Security
Business
Services
SMS, Push
Notifications
Back-End ServicesFront-End Services
3. cognizant 20-20 insights 3
MBaaS is playing a critical role in digital trans-
formation. What follows are excerpts from our
conversations.
FeedHenry CEO, Cathal McGloin, told us: “The
core challenge facing enterprise IT is how to facil-
itate a two-track approach where they focus on
the slower-paced critical tasks of business conti-
nuity, security, data integrity and stability of core
systems whilst the rest of the organization can
rapidly build the mobile applications that they
need. MBaaS is the tool that can successfully
deliver on two-track IT.”
AnyPresence CEO, Anirban Chakrabarti, noted:
“As we enter the fascinating world of connected
devices everywhere, with apps running on non-
traditional end points such as appliances,
automobiles and personal clothing, it is imperative
for enterprises to enable their developer eco-
systems to build solutions that leverage these
modern interaction paradigms such as MBaaS.”
Sravish Sridhar, CEO of Kinvey, revealed:
“MBaaS enables a modern mobile platform fitting
both business and IT. While the lines of business
gain the flexibility to use any tools and resourc-
es to deliver apps they need quickly, IT gains a
platform that allows them to have a consistent
and compliant approach to building apps across
their organization. Customers like Johnson &
Johnson, Schneider Electric and VMware have
exactly done that.”
MBaaS is becoming more relevant for deliver-
ing consistent enterprise data to customers. It is
fast becoming the smart enterprise plug-in that
provides customers with relevant data from the
cloud. Rather than standardize mobile devel-
opment, enterprises are standardizing mobile
services. For example, “scan and deposit” mobile
service has become the most used feature among
digital banking consumers. A “digital insurance
card” issued by auto insurers has emerged as an
important document that consumers can store
offline in their mobile wallets. These key servic-
es are now enabled as micro services4
that can
be leveraged by mobile apps of any platform of
choice or the mobile Web.
Embedding an MBaaS layer within the enterprise
reference architecture has become a key strate-
gic decision that can advance enterprise mobile
initiatives. The larger enterprise strategy for
building a digital framework should have MBaaS
as an integral component.
In this regard, enterprises are following two broad
approaches within their larger digital transforma-
tion programs. In the first approach, the executive
leadership team articulates a digital transforma-
tional vision for all or part of the business, built
on the SMAC StackTM
(i.e., social, mobile, analyt-
ics and cloud technologies), which provides an IT
foundation required to operationalize Code Halo
thinking. In the second approach, enterprises are
putting in place a digital infrastructure and wrap-
ping it with a fabric built around MBaaS, on top of
which various user interfaces can be built by dif-
ferent business units.
MBaaS-Based Mobile Application
Architecture
Figure 2 depicts how the MBaaS platform fits
within a standard enterprise architecture to
deliver a compelling and consistent digital user
experience.
Embedding MBaaS into the Digital Architecture
Enterprise DataMBaaS Platform
Micro Services
App Interaction
Digital Experience
Figure 2
4. cognizant 20-20 insights 4
The anatomy of a mobile app in an MBaaS environ-
ment consists of two layers — one for the mobile
thin client, and the other for the MBaaS platform.
• Thin mobile client layer: The thinness of the
mobile client is focused mainly on user interac-
tions, built with lightweight architecture based
on the model view controller (MVC). The MVC
architecture contains the preferred user expe-
riences, tied to the associated service actions,
using controller logic. As a best practice, the
controller logic is kept light by having the busi-
ness-related logic stored in the MBaaS platform.
• MBaaS platform: The platform contains the
necessary modules to optimally connect with
existing enterprise applications and data. They
can be further classified as follows:
>> Cloud-based server app: The Node.js-based
app provides a single scalable interaction
point for managing client requests to back-
end micro services. Since it resides on the
cloud and is distributed, this app server
becomes a central mechanism for manag-
ing data across multiple client-side apps re-
questing services via multiple channels and
regions.
>> Micro services: These components are
adaptors that service each mobile function
request and that respond with the appropri-
ate (and granular) enterprise service data. As
part of service fulfillment, the user informa-
tion, context and location are stored for later
channel analysis. Once the layers are built,
various touch points are integrated and con-
figured to complete the app assembly. The
layered approach provides the flexibility to
enable the micro services layer to function
as a plug-in that can serve many mobile apps
based on their functional requirements.
>> Mobile data objects: In the typical desk-
top computing paradigm, data in databases
requires time to be converted into and rep-
resented as objects in a middle tier, and
again converted to UI classes for viewing.
This two-staged conversion process can
impede performance, which creates delays
and delivers a suboptimal user experience.
Hence, the MBaaS platform implements
mobile information as mobile data objects
from the micro services to mobile devices
and does not perform conversion during
the exchange of data between the layers.
Another performance attribute involves
the management of non-volatile client data.
MBaaS provides a cache facility, with refresh
limits, to satisfy client-side requests directly
from MBaaS rather than fetching it every
time from the enterprise data layer. Such
rules should be established in MBaaS to
ensure high performance.
MBaaS App Development Model
Mobile apps are typically developed using an
Agile model, allowing for iterative refinements
and parallel development. As shown in Figure 3,
MBaaS allows parallel development by allowing
the layer of independence between a mobile ser-
MBaaS: Working in Synchronicity
INDEPENDENT
UX Design & Interaction
Development
FASTER time-to-market
& REDUCED risk
MBaaS App Lifecycle
with Parallel Development Tracks
INDEPENDENT
Micro Service
Development & Reuse
Wire UI to Micro Services
User Interface Development
Mobile Visual &
Interaction Design
Scaling & Deployment
Configuration
Identity & Security
Services Development
Micro Services Development
& Mobile Business Logic
Figure 3
5. vice developer and a mobile app developer. This
independence provides the flexibility of a UX
designer and front-end developer to focus on the
customer experience needs, while the mobile ser-
vice developer focuses on the granularity of the
information that needs to be plumbed from the
enterprise and created as mobile services based
on representational state transfer (REST).
The mobile service developer can choose to create
either mobile-specific data sets from the “sys-
tems of record” or an “API gateway” and create
the necessary transactional or informational end
points that could be enabled in the MBaaS layer.
These services can be created independent of app
requirements and can be made part of a larger
line of business functional needs. In time, these
services can be standardized to become a pub-
lished mobile service catalog for the enterprise.
As the customer experience changes over time,
mobile services can be rewired to deliver better
mobile experiences. In terms of time-to-market,
reusing mobile services can provide significant
reduction in development time. Parallel develop-
ment would also remove dependencies between
the service developer and app interface devel-
oper, saving more time to get the app to market
faster.
MBaaS Platform Characteristics
A recent Forrester Research report titled “The
Engagement Platform’s Aggregation Tier” lists
technology choices based on three key mobile
development categories in which the “engage-
ment platform” category reveals a subset of the
MBaaS vendors serving the marketplace (see
Figure 4).
The primary goal of the MBaaS platform is to
create a successful mobile integration layer to
operate a mobile channel in the enterprise seam-
lessly with other channels. MBaaS platform
vendors differ in their feature offerings. In fact,
many vendors extend their current cloud stack or
middleware stack to MBaaS — which may not work
for all enterprises. Each enterprise must evaluate
the MBaaS vendor for its key capabilities and vet
out-of-the-box capabilities vs. necessary add-on
capabilities. For example, many MBaaS vendors
do not offer powerful data synchronization or
encryption capabilities.
Figure 6 (page 7) depicts the MBaaS platform
features needed for successful mobile channel
integration within the enterprise.
Data Integrators Middleware Engagement Platforms
Description
Provides API access to back-
end data.
End-to-end mobile inte-
gration and development
solution built on existing
platform.
Encapsulate API access with
mobile development libraries
(both native and Web).
Example Vendors
• Intel/Mashery
• CA Technologies/
Layer 7 Technologies
• MuleSoft
• Apigee
• IBM Cast Iron Systems
• IBM Mobile First
• Kony
• SAP Mobile Platform
• salesforce.com
• AnyPresence
• Appcelerator
• Kinvey
• FeedHenry
• KidoZen
• OutSystems
Advantage
Expedites development by
providing a consistent,
consumable access layer.
Trusted in the enterprise,
solution includes develop-
ment tooling.
Built from the cloud down,
allows for best-of-breed tool-
ing and services integration.
Modern Engagement Platform Choices
Source: Forrester Research, “The Engagement Platform’s Aggregation Tier: A Closer Look At The Heart Of Modern
Enterprise Architecture,” May 2014.
Figure 4
cognizant 20-20 insights 5
6. How MBaaS Can Power Enterprise Digital Transformation
at a Large Insurer
One of our large U.S. insurance clients sought a dig-
ital strategy to deliver a more engaged customer
experience via its Web and mobile channels. As a
key partner in this carrier’s digital transformation
initiative, we created a roadmap by assessing API
services, responsive Web and mobile app adoption.
We first showed this client that the company’s
enterprise information services were designed to
share large information chunks on customer poli-
cies and products and were not granular within a
customer context. These large information chunks
will throttle the mobile bandwidth and provide a
suboptimal user experience.
In fact, we demonstrated that its enterprise ser-
vice bus was primarily focused on an internal
exchange of information between systems of
record and Web portals, and hence was heavy-
weight in nature. Analytics was not baked into the
service platform and thus did not track the nature
of the service usage. There were no mechanisms
to provide alerts to customers about upcom-
ing due dates of policy expiry, even though the
insurance company generated business events
covering these developments.
Addressing the above issues, a digital refer-
ence architecture based on an MBaaS solution
was developed and contextualized for the enter-
prise. As part of our recommendation, an MBaaS
platform was chosen by evaluating the leading
vendors in the market. Key business use cases
such as policy administration for customer self-
service were chosen as a pilot to prove the value
proposition. The MBaaS platform will be integrat-
ed as part of the company’s larger cloud-based
ecosystem for consumer-facing solutions. MBaaS
provided an obvious choice as the platform to pro-
vide service integration, security and analytics in
a single solution. As part of its digital architecture
roadmap, the insurer has begun to implement
MBaaS for its consumer self-service app, a project
that is planned to go live by summer 2015.
Product Operations
Enterprise Marketing
Sales Operations
Service Management
Insurance Lines
Enterprise MBaaS Platform
CUSTOMER
MOBILE SERVICES
AGENT
MOBILE SERVICES
EMPLOYEE
MOBILE SERVICES
Insurer Mobile Apps
Customer-Facing Apps
Agent-Facing Apps
Employee-Facing Apps
• Common services layer for all business
segments such as marketing, claims,
commercial, etc.
• Monitoring services for analytics,
performance.
• Centralized push notifications.
Quick Take
Insurance MBaaS Solution
Figure 5
6cognizant 20-20 insights
7. cognizant 20-20 insights 7
MBaaS capabilities can be broadly classified into
four key areas and addressed as follows:
• Mobile security: Since mobile devices are
treated as an untrusted channel, it would be
unsafe to store enterprise security tokens
for session management. The best practice
is for MBaaS to manage the enterprise
security tokens for each user and have a
separate token management mechanism, with
tokens generated from MBaaS. This, in our
experience, makes the enterprise security
model more secure. MBaaS should have the
ability to integrate with any enterprise identity
management solution supporting various
security protocols such as SAML, OpenID,
oAuth, etc. The MBaaS should also be able
to manage encryption with data at rest and
transmit it to mobile devices.
• Mobile business logic: In enterprise platforms,
the best practice is to develop solutions by
using a three-tier architecture that comprises
engagement, business and services tiers. In
mobile solutions, the business tier usually is
stored in the device, which prevents the code
from being managed in concert with changing
business logic requirements. Since business
logic is common across mobile devices, MBaaS
provides the capability to house business logic
in the MBaaS layer, limiting device code to user
engagement.
• Mobile analytics: MBaaS provides the
capability to obtain analytics in two channels.
The first channel — client interaction — can help
fine-tune the app to enhance user experience.
Feedback about the number of page views,
usual functions leveraged and abnormal user
exits can provide the enterprise clues on where
it should focus attention on increasing feature
coverage. The second channel — service
analysis — can provide insights about the user
device and location from which the service is
being called, as well as the performance of the
service. This can help the organization proac-
tively address its channel challenges and focus
on certain regions based on location intel-
ligence. Additionally, it provides plug-ins to
connect with third-party analytic tools.
• Mobile support services: Additional mobile
user interactions can be supported by inte-
grating enterprise communication channels
with push notifications, triggers for action,
cross-channel connects, etc. based on business
events applicable to targeted consumers.
Looking Forward
To fully leverage the virtues of MBaaS as one of
our large insurance clients intends to (see sidebar,
page 6), we suggest IT organizations factor the
following three tenets into their cross-channel
enterprise mobile thinking:
Native
Apps
Mobile Security
OmniAuth Capability
(LDAP, AD, SAML 2.0,
OAuth, etc.)
CRUD Operations
Data Transforms
Caching Services
Offline Data Sync
Service Analytics Mobile API Analytics
Mobile Business
Logic
Mobile Analytics
Mobile Support
Services
Web Apps
Web URLs
Mobile App Types MBaaS Platform Features MBaaS Standards & Best Practices
Push Notifications
Email Notifications
SMS Messaging
Social Sharing
MBaaS managing omni-auth access token
management bridging enterprise security.
Mobile support services providing enterprise
connectors, e-mail notifications, text and social
API support.
1. CRUD operations managing mobile-specific
business logic done in MBaaS, keeping device
logic thin.
2. Caching services both in MBaaS and device at
session level and user level and auto-synchroni-
zation of transactions.
3. Scheduling services to execute time-based
actions and push notifications.
4. Service transformation to combine two or more
mobile-specific service responses for data
enrichment.
5. Mobile analytics to observe client app
interaction behavior and service usage model.
MBaaS Platform Capabilities
Figure 6
8. • MBaaS is fast becoming a mobile inte-
gration platform and many enterprises are
adopting it to embrace a mobile-first approach
to delivering a consumer-centric omni-channel
experience (see sidebar).
• MBaaS can be the service glue to create
a successful platform of engagement
within the digital infrastructure. MBaaS
seamlessly fits into related cloud technology
developments such as scalable content
delivery networks (CDNs) and application cloud
enablement (ACE).
• The value-added services enabled by MBaaS,
such as mobile analytics, are together
proving to be the insight mechanism for
channel improvement. For example, push
notifications are being integrated into the
enterprise communication medium. These
intrinsic values make MBaaS a complemen-
tary addition to the evolving digital enterprise
backbone.
Reference
• Michael Facemire, Jeffrey S. Hammond with Christopher Mines, Dominique Whittaker, Eric Wheeler,
“The Engagement Platform’s Aggregation Tier: A Closer Look At The Heart Of Modern Enterprise
Architecture,” Forrester Research, May 2014.
Footnotes
1
“Mobile App Devs Take Note: Five MBaaS Trends Shaping the Future,” http://insights.wired.com/profiles/
blogs/mobile-app-developers-pay-attention-five-mbaas-trends-that-will?xg_source=activity#
axzz3NeTVayDx.
2
http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/global-backend-as-a-service-baas-or-mbaas-market-2015-
2019-300017381.html.
3
For more on Code Halos, read the book “Code Halos: How the Digital Lives of People, Things, and
Organizations are Changing the Rules of Business,” by Malcolm Frank, Paul Roehrig and Ben Pring,
published by John Wiley & Sons. April 2014, http://www.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/pro-
ductCd-1118862074.html.
4
Micro-services are specially designed mobile-enterprise services that are lightweight and optimized to
serve the mobile user.