Simple Mobile Applications Can Offer Real ROIs

The International Telecommunication Union reported in 2009 that 28% of people in Africa have mobile phones but only 5% have the internet.  The report also said that mobile phone subscriptions in Africa were increasing by 50% per year.  As a result of this rapid growth, mobile application developers have been creating simple mobile applications for African businesses that utilize SMS rather than mobile smart phones with data plans.  There are some lessons to be learned.

In a recent CNN article entitled, "Mobile App Developers Tackle Africa's Biggest Problems," the author writes about developers creating powerful and beneficial mobile applications that work with simple and limited 140 character text message inputs.  One example was a mobile application that enables dairy farmers to request the average price of a unit of milk in certain areas.  The text message queries a database that returns an answer.  This may seem to be a very simplistic application, but it means a huge amount to the dairy farmer.  Without access to information on the local market prices for milk, the dairy farmer can be convinced, out of ignorance, to sell his/her product for less that the market price.  Armed with knowledge, the dairy farmer can negotiate for a fair price.

Another example given was a mobile wireless fish sensor in a lake that alerts local fisherman via text messages of the presence of fish.  For the local fisherman whose income depends on being a successful fisherman, this could be a very useful mobile application.

The lesson I learned from these examples is to not undervalue the usefulness of simple mobile applications.  My background is in the MEAP space where we developed thick client mobile applications that were mini-ERPs on ruggedized Windows Mobile devices.  Our MEAPs and mobile applications required large and expensive development efforts.  They were certainly useful and appreciated by our clients, but it does not always require that level of development to provide real value.

Some segments of the mobile workforce could benefit from simple updates, key data provided at the right time, and the ability to query on key data and incremental efficiency improvements.  Mobile micro-applications definitely have their place.

In the SAP ecosystem you are starting to see an increasing number of mobile micro-applications from SAP partners like Vivido Labs, Leapfactor, Sky Technologies.  These applications are designed to replace specific paper processes and enable the mobile workforce to accomplish more while traveling.  I have been given some previews and I believe that Sapphire 2010 will be remembered as the Year of Mobility in the SAP ecosystem.

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Kevin Benedict
Author of the report Enterprise Mobile Data Solutions, 2009
Mobile Strategy Consultant, Mobile Industry Analyst and Web 2.0 Marketing Expert
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 an independent mobility consultant and Web 2.0 marketing expert. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

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SAP Mobility Challenge, Part 5

I have heard much discussion lately on the subject of mobile micro applications in the SAP ecosystem. These are described as light weight mobile applications that do simple things like:

• Expense reports
• Alerts
• Approvals
• BI reports
• Etc.

There are literally hundreds of these micro-apps possible. The challenge is how does a SAP customer manage them? Does the mobile user really want 17 different little SAP micro-apps on their smartphone?

I see these mobile micro-apps as short term innovations that will quickly consolidate into a mobile enterprise application platform (MEAP). The SAP user ultimately wants one icon on their mobile dashboard not 17. This icon launches a menu system that can include 17 menu options with mobilized business processes. More options can be added through an opt-in function.

The MEAP vendors will rapidly create micro-apps and then quickly consolidate them on to their platforms. The big challenge for MEAP vendors is how to quickly create good MEAPs and get enough market exposure and success to be sustainable in the long run. MEAPs should include:

• Rapid application development environments with excellent visual design tools for customizing and creating new mobile enterprise applications.
• Powerful integration tools for connecting and synchronizing with a variety of backend database applications and environments.
• Mobile user and mobile device management dashboards and tools for the IT help desk.
• Support for all the major operating systems and popular mobile devices.
• Integrated workflow engines that enable business processes and workflows to be extended out to mobile environments.

Let's think about the IT decision making process. Mobile workers may be using mobile micro-applications from 9 different mobile software vendors. There will be much overlap in features and functionality. The IT department will eventually start standardizing, consolidating and simplifying. It won't be long before the IT department starts requiring all mobile micro-applications to come from one or two MEAPs that have good frameworks and offer solid enterprise quality features.

MEAP vendors face a number of challenges:

1. Developing solid MEAPs quickly.
2. Getting SAP approval and partnerships in place.
3. Developing many mobile micro-applications to cover the simple and niche requirements and preventing other companies from gaining a mobility foothold within the SAP ecosystem.
4. Gaining thought leadership, mindshare, influence and brand recognition quickly within the SAP customer base.
5. Educating the market on the requirements for a true enterprise quality MEAP.
6. Pricing their solutions to gain market share quickly - this is a viral marketing event.
7. Defending against a strategy of mobile chaos within the enterprise.
8. Providing a roadmap and strategy for an orderly and quickly expanding enterprise mobility strategy.
9. Arguing that any developer can develop a mobile micro-application, but only the experts can develop an enterprise quality MEAP.

The current strategy for most MEAPs seems to be to mobilize a vertical SAP business process quickly and then expanding in all directions. That means the current SAP MEAP partners are and will be colliding. Let the sparks and fun begin!

The companies that I view as SAP oriented MEAP vendors that are currently listed as SAP partners are:

• Sybase
• Sky Technologies
• ClickSoftware
• Syclo

There are a number of additional companies like Pyxis Mobile and Vivido that are moving into this space and many systems integrators with their own emerging mobile micro-apps and MEAP strategies. It will come down to enterprise quality MEAPs, thought leadership and mindshare.

If you are interested in discussing these topics in more detail or scheduling one of my in-depth two day workshops on these subjects please contact me.

Related Articles:

• SAP Mobility Challenge, Part 1
• SAP Mobility Challenge, Part 2
• SAP Mobility Challenge, Part 3
• SAP Mobility Challenge, Part 4

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Author Kevin Benedict
Mobility Consultant, Mobile Industry Analyst and Web 2.0 Marketing Expert

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 an independent mobility consultant and Web 2.0 marketing expert and as such I work with, and have worked with, many of the companies mentioned in my articles.
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Advice for Mobile Start-Ups: Working with SAP, Part 3

Mobile micro-apps seem to be the hot topic now days at SAP. These are small mobile applications for iPhones, Android, Blackberry and Windows mobile. These applications can be limited and provide access to one part of one SAP application and business process, or expose an entire business process. For example, travel requests and expense report approvals can be part of a business process that is exposed in a mobile micro-apps.

In the case of an Expense Report approval, a manager can be alerted to an expense report that needs approved before it can be paid. The manager can access the report through the micro-app on his/her iPhone, review it and approve or reject it. There is not much to these applications, but they are novel today and will continue to evolve into more powerful mobile applications.

SAP has some big ambitions about adding mobile users to their systems. They are encouraging these kind of mobile micro-applications to extend functionality to more users. They would even like to see ways that consumers (i.e. the masses) could access appropriate and relevant business processes within SAP systems -think tracking shipments, ordering products, checking University schedules, interacting with financial services companies, etc, on mobile devices.

Here are a few of the challenges with mobile micro-applications that should be considered:

• How do you manage mobile micro-apps in a large enterprise?
• Since mobile micro-apps can be developed for just about any part of any SAP business process there could quickly be dozens or even hundreds of mobile micro-apps springing up.
• Does the enterprise open the doors to supporting all popular mobile devices, or does the enterprise try to standardize so micro-apps can be easier for IT to manage?
• Many mobile micro-app vendors are considering SaaS business models. This means mobile micro-app users could be expensing these costs, rather than running them through a formal budget process. Is that a problem? Who approves it?
• What criteria is the IT department of a large enterprise going to use in order to select quality mobile micro-app vendors? By their nature mobile micro-apps can be developed by very small software development companies without a lot of experience or infrastructure.
• Some vendors of mobile micro-apps provide application development environments that enable non-programmers to develop mobile micro-apps. This is very cool, but now you have the potential of business users importing and exporting data from SAP database systems. Some DBAs would have a problem with that.
• I can see the scenario where an SAP user downloads and installs 5 different mobile micro-apps onto their device. If these micro-apps were from different vendors, there could be 5 different GUIs, different mobile middleware involved, different security systems, different integration methodologies, etc.

I love the idea of mobile micro-apps that provide the mobile workforce with access to appropriate SAP business processes for the purpose of working more efficiently. The point of this article is not to deter mobile micro-app vendors or enterprises from implementing them, but simply to suggest there are a few things that should be considered.

One strategy is to use a MEAP, mobile enterprise application platform. MEAPs provide a framework for managing many different mobile applications using a standardized methodology, using standardized development environments, standardized security, standardized synchronization methodologies, standardized integration processes and leveraging application code across multiple mobile devices. An example of a MEAP is Sky Technologies.

This article is part of a series entitled Advice for Mobile Start-Ups: Working with SAP. Part 1 and 2 of this series can be found at the links below:

Advice for Mobile Start-Ups: Working with SAP, Part 1

Advice for Mobile Start-Ups: Working with SAP, Part 2

Advice for Mobile Start-Ups: Working with SAP, Part 4
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Author Kevin Benedict
Independent Mobility Consultant, Wireless Industry Analyst and Marketing Consultant
www.linkedin.com/in/kevinbenedict
twitter: http://twitter.com/krbenedict
http://kevinbenedict.ulitzer.com/
http://mobileenterprisestrategies.blogspot.com/
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