We recently reported about how the global growth of tablet and smartphone usage is leading the charge in what is known as the consumerization of IT. The following numbers portray the scope of  this consumerization of IT trend.  

As the population of the world in 2012 passes 7 billion the number of cellular subscriptions worldwide is approximately 6 billion. The number of cellular mobile broadband subscriptions worldwide is approximately 1.2 billion.

By 2016, smartphones and tablets will put real computing power in the hands of a  billion global consumers.

CIOs and IT departments are just begining to prepare for the fact that mobile is not simply another device for IT departments and helpdesks to support. 

Mobile becomes the manifestation of a much broader shift to new systems of engagement. 

These systems of engagement help organizations empower their customers, partners, and employees with context-aware apps and smart products. 

According to Forrester, in order to maintain a competitive edge CIOs must step up and work with other executives to establish an "office of the chief mobility officer" to implement an enterprise wide mobile strategy. 

This team will coordinate the business and technology investments under a "design for mobile first" policy that delivers four immediate benefits:

1) Fuel profitable growth with stickier offerings and mobile self-service.

2) Move faster along the mobile learning curve.

3) Aggregate mobile project budgets to fund needed engagement technology.

4) Grow from an IT group focused on systems of record to a business technology group focused on systems of engagement.

In this sense CIOs must align their IT departments and businesses to develop a formal mobile strategy to match the increasing use of mobile devices and applications to foster communications between the organization and their customers, partners and employees.

The report,  "Mobile Is The New Face Of Engagement" by Forrester, estimated that one billion consumers worldwide will own a smartphone or tablet by 2016. This growth is expected to fuel mobile self-service via mobile apps.

Mobile self-service helps organizations engage with their customers, partners and employees, and “empowers” each party.

According to the report by 2016, 200 million employees will bring their own devices, the mobile apps market will reach $55 billion and business expenditure on mobile projects will grow by 100%.

This growth should lead CIOs to establish the office of the chief mobility officer (CMOO) and mobile architecture team.

The office of the CMOO will have 10 to 30 business and technology staff, where each member should possess skills in experience design, financial planning, policy development, process analytics, program management, supplier oversight, and understanding back-end systems and middleware architectures.

The office of the CMOO, supported by a mobile architecture team, will be responsible for balancing the needs of business owners building mobile apps against the technology requirements to service those apps. In addition, CIOs should create a mobile architecture blueprint for their organizations.

The mobile architecture team sets out the technology issues that IT must resolve for mobile apps to work, and works in conjunction with the mobile engagement guide which is established by the CMOO.

The mobile architecture team would be responsible for finding new funding approaches for back-end investments from mobile project budgets as it creeps into the tens of millions of dollars. An example used in the report is the European bank, which borrowed against the mobile project budgets for 12 months to fund the capital spending.

The team would also be responsible for leading the adoption of Cloud and as-a-service solutions, which Forrester said is driven by the mobile shift.

The Forrester report warned that organizations run the risk of being plagued by disruptions if they do not implement a thorough mobile strategy across the enterprise.

These disruptions may include the follwoing problems:

1. In coordinating data, access and applications across multiple channels.

2. Servers and infrastructure that are unable to handle the surge in activity volumes.

3. Applications poorly constructed for user engagement.

4. Design and development of processes misaligned with mobile requirements.