The announcement of the new Apple Watch — particularly its compatibility with Salesforce — has created a significant amount of buzz around wearables in the enterprise.

While there will certainly be executives who want their company’s key dashboards on their wrist, they are a relatively small segment. Wearables have a  much larger potential user base. Here is the conversation we are having with our clients about wearables for the enterprise:

• Wearables won’t be everywhere tomorrow but that doesn’t mean it’s too early to think about applications.
  
  For most companies, consumers (individual employees) will lead adoption, BYOD policies will bring them into the enterprise and spur application innovation, just like the iPhone did for enterprise mobile applications. 
• The current field sales and service use cases for wearables do not make sense for every company.
  
  Approach the opportunity with the same ROI analysis completed for mobile initiatives. If wearables do not make sense right now, investing in building great mobile applications or better user interfaces on laptop specific applications likely does. Of course, if being seen as innovative is part of a company’s brand, there are definitely big rewards for successful experiments. 
• Optimizing the micro-moment is the most compelling wearable opportunity.
  
  The interface is on wrists and faces, rather than in pockets and bags where opportunities may be missed. Pushing notifications to a wearable for basic tasks like approvals, announcements or opportunities to engage with something you are physically close to are all currently within reach. 
• Companies that collect location, activity, or health data will likely be the biggest early adopters.
  
  Companies already track where their vehicles, tools, and people are. Advances in wearables should make tracking easier, less expensive, and reduce reliance on employee owned devices. Companies in the business of monitoring the health of their customers (hospitals, nursing homes, physical therapists, etc.) will continue to expand their investment in wearables. Look for increased investment from companies who would benefit from knowing if their employees are too stressed (Air Traffic Control, the military), or perhaps getting in enough exercise in the off season (pro athletes).
• We will see leaders in customer retention and marketing experimenting with wearables.  
  
  Look for innovative campaigns that incentivise engagement to come out of the most technically savvy and forward thinking organisations.

A big takeaway is to remember that the latest bout of wearables we will see in the market are designed to complement an engaging mobile strategy or application, and not meant as stand-alone devices. So as always think mobile first and re-define those 'micro-moments’ with potential ‘top of wrist’ engagement opportunities.

What changes do you think wearables will inpire in the enterprise? Let me know in the comments below. To learn more about building an engaging mobile strategy in your organisation, download our Guide to Mobile Engagement.