Mastering Enterprise Mobility with SAP - In Australia and New Zealand

Sydney Harbor 2011

I am so excited to be able to meet up with old friends, and meet new friends in New Zealand and Australia over the next two week!  I will be speaking at the Mastering Enterprise Mobility with SAP series of conferences.  Here are the locations:

1 November - Hilton Auckland

5 November - Hilton Brisbane

7 November - Swissôtel Sydney

9 November - Crown Promenade, Melbourne

There is so much happening now days to discuss - SMAC (social, mobile, analytics and cloud) are just some of the interesting and compelling trends.  Mobile strategies is still the big challenge and we have plenty to cover there as well.

I would love to meet up and record some video blogs of lessons learned and stories of implementations if you are willing!

See you there and "Good Day Mate!"

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Kevin Benedict, Head Analyst for SMAC (Social, MOBILE, Analytics and Cloud), Cognizant

Read The Future of Work

Visit MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Join the Strategic Enterprise Mobility Linkedin Group

Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I am a mobility analyst, consultant and writer. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

Mastering Enterprise Mobility with SAP in ANZ

I am honored to have been invited to speak at a series of 4 one-day conferences in Australia and New Zealand in November, 2012.  The conference series is entitled, Mastering Enterprise Mobility with SAP and consists of 17 international and local mobile experts sharing their insights.  It looks like a great program!

Topics include:

• Developing Your Enterprise Mobility Strategy (ME)
• Getting Mobile Solution Design Right
• Security Management, Governance and Compliance
• Communication Infrastructure and Device Management
• Understanding the SAP Roadmap and Products
• Developing the Business Case for Mobility
• Succeeding with Change Management
• Support and Administration of Mobility Projects
• Reporting, Analytics and Mobile BI
• Technical Connectivity and Continuity

Australia is such a beautiful and interesting place to visit.  I have had the privilege of visiting and speaking in Australia many times and have developed great friendships and worked on some very interesting mobility projects there.  It is always an interesting day when your routine includes avoiding 15 foot deadly snakes while on the job - see this photo sent from a friend who works for a utility company in Australia.

Mobile applications for field services in Australia are often used in remote locations in the outback where service technicians work at night, around the large mines, and have to travel great distances in isolated and rough environments.  These mobile apps often have a special focus on safety for the service technician.  I have seen apps that report missing service technicians if they don't report in on schedule, etc.

One service technician told me he runs into very dangerous snakes all the time.  He worked for a large equipment rental company that supplies mines.  It seems some of the equipment makes perfect homes for dangerous snakes.  Wow!  I just try not to slip in the shower in the morning.

The New Zealand conference will be a real bonus, as I have not had the opportunity to spend time there, although I have worked on several mobility projects with New Zealand companies.   Here are the dates of the conferences in mm/dd/yyyy format:

• Auckland, NZ on 11/01/2012
• Brisbane, AU 11/05/2012
• Sydney, AU 11/07/2012
• Melbourne, AU 11/09/2012

I look forward to meeting up with all my friends and making new friends on this trip!

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Kevin Benedict, Head Analyst for SMAC (Social, MOBILE, Analytics and Cloud), Cognizant

Read The Future of Work

Visit MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Join the Strategic Enterprise Mobility Linkedin Group

Full Disclosure: I am a mobility analyst, consultant and writer. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles. These are my personal opinions only and do not necessarily represent those of my employer.

Mobile Expert Video Series: Australian Post's John Moy

John Moy works for the Australian Post, an SAP customer, and he is an enthusiastic student of mobility.  He was kind enough to grant me a video interview this week in Sydney.  The Australian Post currently has a handful of customer facing mobile applications, and they are looking to expand.  Here is a current list of what they have available on mobile applications:

• calculate postage costs via the postage assessment calculator tool
• search for a postcode
• view and track parcel items
• locate any Australia Post retail outlet
• find a nearby street posting box
• pay a variety of bills online.

I spoke to one of the mobility guys at SAP recently, and he shared that there are potentially thousands of valuable mobile applications that can and should be integrated with SAP systems.  I believe there are many uses for mobile applications, but I may want to argue about whether they all deserve stand alone mobile applications.  It seems to me that many of these mobile "apps" could really be one application with capabilities to support many business processes from the same mobile application or client.   

Here is my interview with John that I recorded in Sydney, Australia at the Mastering SAP Technologies conference.



I want to thank John for sharing both in person and on his tweets. You can follow his tweets on Twitter @jhmoy.

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Kevin Benedict, Independent Mobile and M2M Industry Analyst, SAP Mentor Volunteer
Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict
Join the SAP Enterprise Mobility Group on Linkedin
Read The Mobility News Weekly
Read The Mobile Retailing News Weekly
Read The Field Mobility News Weekly
Read The Mobile Money News Weekly
Read The M2M News Monthly
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.

How Many Mobility Platforms are Enough?



Kevin Benedict and Australian Post's
John Moy (on the right).

I spoke to John Moy from the Australian Post about his many mobility projects this week.  They have all kinds of interesting mobility applications that are customer facing apps.  I recorded a video interview with John that I will publish here as soon as I get a good high speed Internet connection.  The mobile applications he mentioned were the following:

• Postage calculator
• Package tracking
• Locations of post offices

During our discussions John asked a very good question.  He asked, "Does SAP/Sybase have a mobility platform for customer facing applications?"  I thought about this and said, "Good question!"  There are certainly ways to connect customer facing mobile applications with SAP data and processes, but is there a true platform for customer facing applications?  How would you have answered that question?


I would tell you if I knew.


Customer facing mobile applications need to be compelling in order to compete, and for customers to be motivated to use them.  They need to have incredible UIs (user interfaces) and great value.  John and I would have asked this question of the Sybase folks had they attended, but instead we were left to form our own conclusions.  That is a risky venture.

Another good question John asked was, "Will one mobile platform be able to support all of our needs?"  I believe large enterprises may need more than one.  Especially if they have mobile consumer apps.  In the retail and CPG space, there are marketing campaigns, loyalty programs, mobile money, coupons, rebates, specials, catalogs, location based services and social networking components to all of the above.  I have not seen anything in this area from SAP or Sybase yet.  This may be an area where companies may need to work with a specialty mobile platform.

Whitepapers of Note

The Business Benefits of Mobile Adoption with SAP Systems
ClickSoftware Mobility Suite and Sybase Mobility Solution
Networked Field Services
Mobile, The Next Big Thing for Business

Webinars of Note

Implementing SAP Enterprise Mobility - 10 Lessons Learned
Barcode Scanning in Mobile Apps
Five Ways to Optimize the ROI of your Mobile Solution
SAP Mobilization - What You Need to Know

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Kevin Benedict, Independent Mobile and M2M Industry Analyst, SAP Mentor Volunteer
Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict
Join the SAP Enterprise Mobility Group on Linkedin
Read The Mobility News Weekly
Read The Mobile Retailing News Weekly
Read The Field Mobility News Weekly
Read The Mobile Money News Weekly
Read The M2M News Monthly

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.

Enterprise Mobility in Australia

Mastering SAP Technologies
March 21-23, 2011

I will be in Australia speaking on enterprise mobility at the Mastering SAP Technologies March 21-23, 2011.  I will be the keynote speaker on Monday, March 21st at 10 AM, and will lead a session on Tuesday, March 22nd at 2:10 PM.  I would love to meet up with any folks interested in discussing enterprise mobility while I am there.  Also, if you would like to schedule time with me either before or after the event let me know by contacting me here.


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Kevin Benedict, SAP Mentor, 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.