Coca Cola Consolidated and Enterprise Mobility

I just listened to an overview of a recent mobility project that Coca Cola Consolidated did using the system integrator Energy4U and the MEAP vendor Syclo.  The solution integrated with SAP.  It was basically a mobile shipping, inventory and warehouse application.

A few interesting points, 1)Coca Cola Consolidated are mobility veterans in some parts of their organization with over 25 years of mobility experience, but they outsourced this project to a mobility vendor and a system integrator, and 2) the project only took 8 weeks.

Coca Cola Consolidated selected Energy4U and Syclo as their mobility implementation team because mobility was not their core focus.  They wanted to outsource this effort to an experienced team with SAP expertise.

The success of the project was credited to productive on site visits where processes and requirements were accurately documented, trained experts and a good MEAP vendor.  It also helped that there was a very experienced Energy4U mobility team that were skilled veterans of developing on Syclo's Smart Mobile Suite.

Venky Govind of Coca Cola Consolidating said they wanted a mobility vendor that would be responsible for supporting all of the current and future mobile operating systems and devices, and keeping the MEAP (mobile enterprise application platform) updated.  They did not want that responsibility in-house.

This solution was replacing a manual paper driven process.   The mobile app replaced the paper forms and simplified the entire process while automating the data collection and integrating it directly with SAP.

*************************************************************

Kevin Benedict, Independent Mobile Industry Analyst, Consultant and SAP Mentor Volunteer

Visit MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Join the SAP Enterprise Mobility and Sybase Unwired Platform Groups

Read The Mobility News Weekly

Full Disclosure: I am an independent mobility analyst, consultant and blogger. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

Mobile Expert Interview Series: Energy4U's Florian Ganz, Part 2

This is Part 2 of this intervew with Energy4U's Florian Ganz.  You can read Part 1 here.

Kevin: Can you tell us about some of your recent SAP enterprise mobility projects?

Florian: Certainly.

Power Plant Maintenance Project:

We are working with one of the big utility companies in Germany. The project involves the power plant maintenance processes. The company is an existing SAP user and we are replacing their 1st generation mobility solution that has poor performance and was not able to carry all required offline data.

The customer uses the SAP Plant Maintenance module. Energy4U is implementing Syclo's mobile solution and integrating it with SAP Plant Maintenance. The customer will use both laptops and rugged handheld computers (Psion Teklogix rugged devices including RFID). They will start with 20 mobile users and expand to 100.

The key to winning this project was the ability to deliver a proof of concept within only two weeks.

Utility Project in Italy:

This project was sold by SAP's sales force and involved the solution SAP Workforce Scheduling and Optimization from ClickSoftware.

This SAP user wanted to centralize the dispatch of hundreds of service technicians to increase efficiencies by optimizing routes and reducing travel times and expenses. The SAP sales team brought in ClickSoftware's solution and Energy4U, a Siemens business, to do the implementation.

The project started in May and integration testing will start end of this month (October). The mobility component will quickly follow. The service technicians will use a combination of laptops mounted in their vehicles and PDAs.

Large Pharmaceutical Company:

This SAP customer had a first generation mobile solution that suffered from poor synchronization performance and overall SAP integration problems. They came to Energy4U for a mobile solution that would work with SAP Plant Maintenance and could handle over 100,000 equipments and functional locations (SAP objects) in the asset management database on the PDA in an offline and online mode.

The customer is using SAP Plant Maintenance and SAP Materials Management. They wanted a service technician dispatch system (they chose a solution developed by Energy4U) that worked with SAP. They needed a solution that could work both offline and online. The customer selected Motorola's ES400 ruggedized smartphone to use in the field.

Besides these three projects, we are working with various other customers to ensure that their mobility efforts are successful.

You need more information? Feel free to get in contact with Florian: SERVICES@energy4u.org.


***************************************************
Kevin Benedict, SAP Mentor, SAP Top Contributor, Mobile and M2M Industry Analyst
Phone +1 208-991-4410
Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict
Join SAP Enterprise Mobility on Linkedin:
http://www.linkedin.com/groups?about=&gid=2823585&trk=anet_ug_grppro

Full Disclosure: I am an independent mobility consultant, mobility analyst, writer and Web 2.0 marketing professional. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

Mobile Expert Interview Series: Energy4U's Florian Ganz, Part 1

Florian and I have been attempting to schedule an interview for sometime now, but he is always on a train to Switzerland, Italy or going out to dinner with big shots in Munich. What a life! I am happy I was able to catch up and get his insights into the SAP enterprise mobility market.

Florian worked at SAP AG in Germany from 2002 through 2008 and was involved in many early mobility projects with SAP. It was during this time that he got to know my good friend from PricewaterhouseCoopers, Dr. Ahmed El Adl.

My Advice to Mobile Applications Vendors, Part 6

This is Part 6 in this series on My Advice to Mobile Application Vendors. 

Today SIs (Systems Integrators) are wondering about their role in the SAP enterprise mobility ecosystem.  They have traditionally played a significant role in SAP implementations, but what about mobility?  I had the opportunity to exchange emails recently with Florian Ganz, a systems integrator, with Energy4U a Siemen business in Germany.  You many find his experiences and thoughts insightful on this subject.

Florian entered the world of SAP mobility while working at SAP AG.  It was 2005, in the middle of SAP's mobility puberty.  He was given the challenging task of trying to fix SAP's early mobility projects and their escalating issues.  The experience was invaluable, as he quickly became exposed to just about every challenge large enterprises could have with mobile applications.  He traveled to almost every continent and spent time with over 35 SAP customers.

In 2008, in the midst of SAP's dark ages in mobility, Florian was introduced to SAP Co-Innovation and mobility partner Syclo.  Syclo had a MEAP (mobile enterprise application platform) and pre-developed mobile solutions that were certified on SAP.  Many of the challenges that Florian had worked on at SAP were already resolved in the flexible and scalable solutions from Syclo.  About this time Florian left SAP AG to help start a new business unit focused on mobility at Energy4U.  His experience with SAP, and his new found knowledge of Syclo, enabled them to quickly close new mobility business with companies like RheinEnergie.

Energy4U has now implemented over six large enterprise mobility projects using Syclo's mobility solutions.  In addition, they have also implemented many other custom mobile applications.  Florian says,"There are many vendors and implementers in the SAP mobile eco-system, but only a few understand both topics (SAP and mobility).  The majority lack the SAP, mobility and integration skills that are required."  He believes that the key to their success as systems integrators in the mobility space is the fact that most of his team has many years of experience in both enterprise mobility and SAP (I thought it was because his team reads my blog articles!!!).

He is currently very interested in learning the details about the SAP/Sybase roadmap.  He has seen many SAP strategies in his time that did not work, so he is more than ready for a plan that will.

I hope to interview Florian in the near future and get some more details regarding his projects. 

So Florian's advice, as gleaned from his email:  Have in-depth SAP knowledge, years of enterprise mobility experience and deep SAP integration skills.  Also, there was value in having experienced all the pain that SAP mobility projects suffered in the early years.

Read the rest of the articles in this series:

• My Advice to Mobile Applications Vendors, Part 1
• My Advice to Mobile Applications Vendors, Part 2
• My Advice to Mobile Applications Vendors, Part 3
• My Advice to Mobile Applications Vendors, Part 4
• My Advice to Mobile Applications Vendors, Part 5

***************************************************
Kevin Benedict, SAP Mentor, SAP Top Contributor, Mobile and M2M Industry Analyst
Phone +1 208-991-4410
Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Join SAP Enterprise Mobility on Linkedin:
http://www.linkedin.com/groups?about=&gid=2823585&trk=anet_ug_grppro

Full Disclosure: I am an independent mobility consultant, mobility analyst, writer and Web 2.0 marketing professional. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.