This morning I visited with a significantly larger enterprise client that has divisions that provide services in  mining, oil and gas exploration, environmental impact studies, building engineering, water conservation and more. In our conversation he commented, “My biggest challenge is that we have come to realize we all have all these disparate mobile solutions that service individual business silos, but can not interact with each other. Each division is running their own mobile strategy. Some have mobile apps, some are still on spread sheets, others have no mobile solution but considering and I just learned we currently have two MEAP solutions running. And we haven’t even discussed the mobile device issues. While we are all benefiting individually, it’s a mobility mess.”

In my experience companies who have rolled out mobile solutions have deployed them in an opportunistic fashion. Typically a field manager has caught the mobile vision early. Through his ingenuity, tenacity and budget maneuvering has implemented a mobile solution specific to his group. The positive impact of his mobile solution inevitably catches the eye and envy of other departments who eagerly clamor to adopt mobile solutions.

While this approach provides a strong, quantifiable internal use case for mobile solutions it often leads to a reevaluation of the first mobile solution. Especially, if the first mobile implementation only addressed a specific business need, was limited in scope, didn’t plan for the broader needs of the company and was not scalable.

Developing a strategic plan is critical for the on-going adoption of enterprise mobile solution. The key is understanding “why you are going mobile“. Evaluate what you trying to accomplish from an enterprise level all the way down to the individual level. Then develop a strategy that addresses this across the enterprise. Companies need to focus on the following key areas

1. Identify key business processes that will benefit from mobilization.
2. Determine how individual mobile projects integrate with a central mobile management, backend databases and security infrastructure?
3. Establish security policies for data accessibility, network accessibility, application distribution, device management, BYOD policies, etc.
4. Identify supported mobile devices; SmartPhone, TabletsPCs, Rugged devices
5. What supporting hardware is needed? Mobile Printing, GPS, RFID, etc.
6. Determine if mobile apps will be available on different mobile form factors; SmartPhone, TabletPCs, Rugged devices, etc.
7. Identify mobile user roles. User will roles determine data accessibility, security rules, appropriate device options.
8. Determine if mobile roles are transactional, informational or collaborative
9. Identify if mobile business processes and user roles are B2B, Internally driven or B2c
10. How many mobile users are targeted?
11. How will deployment and support of mobile users scale over-time?
12. What mobile architecture do you need to have in place?
13. How will mobile apps be developed, deployed and managed? Who will oversee this?
14. What types of apps will be supported? Custom-built, off-the shelf, modified mobile app templates, HTML5 mobile apps
15. Determine how success will be measured

Yes enterprise mobility brings new challenges and opportunities. Investing the time to conduct a full enterprise mobility assessment and developing the appropriate strategic mobility plan is critical for long-term sustainability and scalability of mobile solutions in the enterprise.

Like my client said, “We’ve been dabbling in mobility long enough. It’s time to get serious and unify our mobile strategy and get out of this mobility mess.”

Jody Sedrick

Forbes has a great article about how Nordstrom and Home Depot have adopted mobile POS devices enabling employees to check out customers anywhere in the store. Employees at Apple’s retail stores have been armed with mobile iTouch devices for several years that enable employees to scan a barcode and check out a customer immediately.  Companies like Nordstrom and Home Depot are seeing increased sales because they can expedite purchases as the customer is trying on clothes, makeup, cordless drills or circular saws. No more waiting in line “thinking” about your purchase. Using Mobile POS employees can capture the buying moment and reap the benefits for the retailers.

Some interesting tidbits

• Nordstrom’s first quarter sales increased 15.3% since implementing Mobile POS devices.
• The average number of items sold per sale increased
• The average sales price per sale increased

We are seeing similar trends in the adoption of mobile work order systems like ZenTouch in the service Industry.

Driving service business with mobile work orders

With a mobile work order system on an iPhone, Android or Rugged PDA service technicians have full access to services, parts and prices to quickly create an estimate or service ticket for a customer. One customer reported he has seen a 17% increase in service techs availability to take additional service calls just by implementing a mobile work order system. Spread that across 8 technicians – that’s a big impact on our business.

Another customer reports, “Customers seem to trust a digital system that breaks down costs for services and parts rather than watching me rifle through a stack of papers. I can present a complete service ticket, review the recommended services, add or delete items and allow them to approve service immediately.” In the event a customer decides to wait to initiate a service call to talk with their wife/husband, review finances, check their calendar, etc. a technician or estimator can save the estimate and schedule a call back with the customer. Now all estimates and work orders are accessible via a mobile device with a simple search.  Technicians can access past estimates and immediately revisit the estimate, email it to the customer or convert it to a work order on the spot.

Clearly efficiency gains are being recognized on both ends of the spectrum by implementing Mobile POS or Mobile Work Order Systems.  These efficiencies are enabling retailers like Nordstrom and Home Depot to drive business at the point of interaction.  Service industry leaders are experiencing identical results.  By improving the customer experience the decision to buy is expedited and mobile enabled businesses are reaping the benefits.

Jody Sedrick

Google has started to unveil a new/old thing.  This week I saw a video showing what Google Glass might or could look like at: http://www.intomobile.com/2012/04/04/google-project-glass-could-androidpowered-augmented-reality-glasses/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

The idea of glasses with built in augmented reality technology has been around for years. But it seems more like the next wave of reality is on the verge of hitting the consumer market.  As we become a more and more tech savvy society we are less likely to reject new ideas like “smart glasses”  or wearable devices. We have all seen the si-fi movies that have predicted our current technologies like tablets and cell phones and then said “that makes sense”.  The use of glasses is just the next wave of UI to keep us not only enamored with tech but helping us interact with technology more efficiently.

Google hopes the glasses will appeal to people who want information automatically in front of their eyes. No longer will you be hassled to take your phone of your pocket to take a photo, answer a call, send a text message or look up directions.  All this can be can be handled via your glasses and voice command.

I like the idea of wearing my smartphone instead of pulling it out of my pocket every time i need to do something.  The big downfall is the use while driving, I see this as a major obstacle to the glasses.  The no texting laws are in place to deal with the distractions a phone can have on a driver. I cant imagine having a second viewable pane in front of my eye while navigating a tight curve or heavy traffic.  One other down side might be the weight of them, glasses are relatively light but add the smartphone to your frames and wow your ears would feel it.  On the other hand if the glasses were an extension of your current phone and you could connect them via Bluetooth that would be a great option.  All in all there will be people who will love them and those that will hate them but as technology moves more and more in the direction of user comfort it can only make it better as far as i am concerned.

Rod Puzey

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Zenware is a Boise Idaho based company that specializes In custom mobile software development, custom iOS development, custom Android development, ipad software development, iphone software development, custom web development, web hosting and Saas based work order management software.