This post on the talk by Charles Masarik is by Karen L. Johnson. An alumna of J&J, she led a cross-functional team to create and deliver the first assessments and audits of eBusiness, Privacy and Internet Security.

One hundred-forty strong (and undeterred by vacations or the beckoning Jersey shore), Princeton Regional Chamber members gathered on Thursday at the Forrestal Marriott, where they

• witnessed the acceptance of a $500,000 check from the chamber’s foundation, a landmark event benefitting nonprofits,

• welcomed 11 new members, evidence of the vitality of the Chamber and

• heard a stimulating perspective on mobility for business by a 26-year veteran of the IT industry, Charles (Chuck) Masarik.
Masarik is the Senior IT Manager for Global HR Solutions at Johnson & Johnson. He oversaw development of the integrated workflow and service delivery platform and technology solutions that enable the J&J Enterprise Employee Service Center to service and support 120,000+
employees and is the process of developing their mobile strategy. He is the IT lead for the J&J Corporate EBS mobility strategy and has been the domain lead for Global HR Enterprise Architecture, representing more than $35 billion in asset value. Yet he still keeps his tech edge: he’s currently developing an HR app to enable HR documents (docs) to be scanned and forwarded to the HR data system and eliminate manual processes.

Customer-focused as he is, Masarik opened his talk “Mobile Business Case & Strategy” by polling the audience: How many mobile devices did they have on them? Most persons in the room had several, and he then pulled out three of his own.

So what’s Mobility and why is it important? Broadening the discussion from the room to the world or moving up the scale, Masarik noted there are 6 billion mobile subscriptions globally – 86% of the world’s population. If PC growth was exponentially fast, mobile phone is growing faster still…and it’s estimated that in 2015, 183 billion apps are to be downloaded for your customers, employees, family, friends…and Mobility must be part of your business strategy.

Mobility is everywhere – and the mobile phone? That one device is always on, always connected, always with your audience at every marketing touch point, giving immediacy,
interactivity, personalized communication, and Social Media integration.

Masarik advised, Look at the focus areas – business value, user experience, technology, and Governance – to determine your mobile maturity: Are you Informal, Tactical, Coordinated or Strategic? Use a cross-functional team to evaluate and prioritize your digital assets and set your
mobile strategy and direction.

Moving to Market Imperatives, Masarik stressed optimizing your content for the unique mobile environment, using Mobility to engage audiences around your brand, and integrating Mobility into your marketing mix.

But beware! No fire-and-forget here! The J&J IT leader reminded us of the increasingly sophisticated mobile users. What’s required is an analytical, customer-savvy, targeted,
strategically-integrated, continually-updated approach where user expectations on the digital experience rule. All the while, you’ve got customer data to protect throughout, so strong security and Governance are critical, both themes to which Masarak repeatedly returned. In other words, missteps here ean losses that can’t be calculated in dollars and cents.

One last note. What was discussed concerning outwardly-facing mobility also applies to inwardly-facing mobility. The days of BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) may be fading, but where it applies, one possibility is to route devices through Blackberry. Masarik gave a nod to Blackberry,
where, he finds, security is infinitely easier than on other mobile devices.

And as he finished the Q&A, on the Cloud and Blackberries, he put his (apparently beloved) Blackberry
and several other devices back in various pockets, still wondering how he acquired so many.

Photo: Chuck Masarik of J&J and Peter Crowley, chamber CEO