57 per cent of organisations either do not have, or are in early stage development, of a mobile strategy; 10 per cent have had a fully operational mobile strategy for less than a year; a third of firms have had a mobile strategy for more than a year.

That’s the conclusion of a study conducted by Forrester Research among more than 200 global firms, 40 per cent from Europe, 40 per cent from the US, and 20 per cent from the rest of the world. 

“Despite the fact that mobile is the technology that has reached the greatest ubiquity in the shortest time – more than 5bn connections established worldwide in less than 20 years – the largest companies have not yet moved away from the trial stage,” writes Forrester analyst Thomas Husson in his new report, How Mature Is Your Mobile Strategy?

The report offers a snapshot of where companies are in their mobile evolution. It notes that brands in media, travel, and financial services are the most likely to have the most mature mobile strategy. Mobile is seen as a way to increase customer engagement, satisfaction, and loyalty, not generate direct revenues: 52 per cent of firms see increasing customer engagement as their number one mobile goal.
Almost one-third of companies don’t have a single executive in charge of defining their mobile consumer strategy, and some 46 per cent of survey respondents reported that one or fewer employees work full time for their company’s mobile efforts globally. But 70 per cent of firms will increase their mobile budget in 2011, with one in four companies doubling or tripling their mobile budget.

“While firms are making an effort to establish a collaborative and qualitative vision for mobile in the future, the majority of them fail to quantify precise objectives, allocate costs, and measure the overall success of their mobile business,” writes Husson.

You can read a blog post by Husson about the report here.