AT&T FamilyMap App Treating Your Kids Like a Truck

AT&T has announced the release of their new application called AT&T FamilyMap App. It is a GPS vehicle tracking solution, except it is attached to your kids. Rather than mounting a GPS unit under the dashboard of your vehicle, it is inserted into your child's pocket or backpack.

Fleet managers (i.e. moms and dads) can logon to a website to see the locations of their kids, monitor their comings and goings and time spent at each location. In this article I describe why fleet managers use these applications, but I am not sure I want to attempt to describe why a parent would use it. I have my own kids that just might stumble across this article.

In this article I wrote several months ago, I provided a list of 39 reasons a business might want to invest in GPS fleet tracking. However, I need your help coming up with a list of similar reasons parents should invest in GPS kid tracking.

I look forward to your comments.

***************************************************
Author Kevin Benedict
Mobility Consultant, Wireless Industry Analyst and Web 2.0 Marketing Consultant

http://www.netcentric-strategies.com/
www.linkedin.com/in/kevinbenedict
twitter: http://twitter.com/krbenedict
http://kevinbenedict.ulitzer.com/
http://mobileenterprisestrategies.blogspot.com/

***Full Disclosure: I am a mobility and Web 2.0 marketing consultant and as such I work with, and have worked with, some of the companies mentioned in my articles.
**************************************************

FedEx, GPS Fleet Tracking, Mobile Applications and Complaints

In this article on the blog called Trimble Fleet Tracking and GPS, FedEx's inability to estimate their time of delivery to a time window of less than 6 hours is discussed. It is interesting to ponder what technology and business process challenges FedEx must have to not be able to improve upon this.

I wonder how much lost productivity there is as a result of not knowing when a delivery will arrive, and being required to wait most of a day for it. With LBS (location based services) available, it seems that FedEx could alert the recipient when they were 1 hour from delivery, or within a 3 mile radius.

I wonder if it would work for FedEx to announce they would be parked at a certain central location for 15 minutes and you could drive there to pick-up your package early in the morning, rather than wait all day for it. Just wondering....

***********************************************
Author Kevin Benedict
Independent Mobile Strategist, Sales, Marketing and Business Consultant
www.linkedin.com/in/kevinbenedict
http://kevinbenedict.ulitzer.com/
http://mobileenterprisestrategies.blogspot.com/
***********************************************

GPS Fleet Tracking for Added Sales

I passed a blue Sears Appliance Repair van with a white satellite dish on the roof yesterday and it reminded me of their business strategy. The white dish serves as both a satellite uplink and GPRS link to the Internet. The vans are basically mobile WiFi centers. They are able to be tracked via GPS and they are able to provide some significant benefits for the service technicians that drive the vans.

The vans have both satellite uplinks and GPRS connectivity so when there is poor wireless connectivity, the van's communications can automatically switch over to the satellite uplink technology and continue communicating. This is a relatively expensive option, but Sears reports that it is worth it. What is the value proposition?

Sears reports that providing each of their service technicians with live access to CRMs (customer relationship management) systems, customer records, warranty information and product catalogs helps them sell more products and services at the point of work - the customer's home. They have measured these sales and report solid ROI.

The ROI is not what might have been expected. The relatively expensive communication system that each van has is equally used for GPS fleet tracking and to increase sales and improve onsite customer service.

It is important that GPS fleet tracking vendors and users think about the whole business process and the customer interaction when contemplating ROIs. Sometimes the ROI comes from a broader set of business drivers that initially assumed.

***********************************************
Author Kevin Benedict
Independent Mobile Strategy, Sales and Marketing Consultant
www.linkedin.com/in/kevinbenedict
http://kevinbenedict.ulitzer.com/
http://mobileenterprisestrategies.blogspot.com/
***********************************************