Enterprise mobility in the French retail sector

: providing guidance to Microsoft France

Abstract

The recent innovation in the world of IT has forever changed the way different players interact in the market. The questions around IT mobility in the work environment are today more relevant than ever. It is at the heart of most large IT companies to figure out answers to certain core questions for their customers and themselves above all. This study describes the different ways in which mobility comes to be in the work environment and the different issues a company might be facing when adopting a mobility strategy, and analyzing the factors that might be most influential to a large company in the retail sector that wishes to adopt such a mobility strategy. Through qualitative research, we attempt to provide recommendations to Microsoft France to better tackle this issue in such a “blank slate” sector. Our sample of 15 companies is based on what Microsoft France has classified as “large customer” in the “retail industry” on French soil. The results indicate that there is strong potential for Microsoft to penetrate this vertical (albeit not necessarily with phones, which remain the weakest link in the Windows range of devices), and that Microsoft has strong potential to achieve it. Even companies in a sectors that has been historically hard to reach, such as retail, Microsoft with its full stack of products has the opportunity and ability to convince companies to move forward towards a more mobile approach for their IT strategy on a unified platform that guarantees a secure environment.

Date of Award	20 Jul 2016
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	Pedro Celeste (Supervisor)