An Interview with World Traveler and BI Expert Mico Yuk

I was thrilled to catch business intelligence expert Mico Yuk at her home office in Atlanta, GA., as she travels so frequently.  She is the founder of BI Dashboard Formula.  In this interview we discuss the state of business intelligence and the impact of real-time and SMAC (social, mobile, analytics and cloud) on BI.  Enjoy!

Video Link: http://youtu.be/Fa_jX4-zMSo?list=UUGizQCw2Zbs3eTLwp7icoqw

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Kevin Benedict

Writer, Speaker, Senior Analyst

Digital Transformation, EBA, Center for the Future of Work Cognizant

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Learn about mobile strategies at MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com

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

Mobile Expert Video Series: Romeo Elias

I had the privilege of interviewing mobility and BPM expert and the CEO/President of Interneer, Romeo Elias on their company's products and strategies for providing a cloud based enterprise mobility solution.  Enjoy!

Video Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cwygz5F80nI&feature=share&list=UUGizQCw2Zbs3eTLwp7icoqw

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

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Learn about mobile strategies at MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com

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

Enterprise Mobility, Disinterested Workers and Globalization

I am in the United Kingdom this week teaching mobile strategies and meeting with different businesses.  Today I met with two different companies and then spoke at an evening mobility event. It was a long but interesting day.

I had two different discussions today with companies that asked, "How do you convince your workforce to embrace enterprise mobility?"  Both of these companies are in the services industry and are faced with an aging workforce that is less than enthusiastic about new mobile technologies, innovation and business transformation.  This is a hard question to answer.  How would you answer it?

My only real answer is to educate the workforce and management on the realities of global competition.    Few companies work in a vacuum.  Few companies are so powerful that they can dictate economic mega-trends.  Most companies face competition, and competitors are most often looking to take your customers, jobs and money.

One mega-trend is "time-space compression."  Time-space compression occurs as a result of technologies that seem to accelerate speed and reduce distances.  Companies are striving to operate in a real-time environment with real-time communications, mobility, visibility, real-time data collection and real-time business analytics.  These trends require enterprise mobility.  If a company ignores these mega-trends, or does not adapt to this reality, their workforce may soon regret it.

If you are interested in learning more about mobile strategies, I invite you to join me and Mike Karlskind, VP of Service Optimization Strategies with ClickSoftware for a live webinar, Tuesday, December 18th at 11 AM EST where we will discuss "The Role Big Data Plays in Real-Time Enterprises, Mobile Strategies and Field Services."  Register Here!

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Kevin Benedict, Head Analyst for SMAC, Cognizant

Read The Future of Work

Visit MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility

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

Mobile Expert Video Series: Corey Adams

I was able to catch up with a new SAP Mentor, Corey Adams this week in Brisbane, Australia at the Mastering Enterprise Mobility with SAP conference.  Corey is a BI Team Leader for Frucor Inc, a non-alcoholic beverage and energy drink company.  In this interview he shares how using mobile BI solutions on iPads have provided Frucor with competitive advantages.  Enjoy!

Video Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vz5xm0RTcxM

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Kevin Benedict, Head Analyst for SMAC, Cognizant

Read The Future of Work

Visit MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility

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

Mobile Expert Video Series: SAP and SMAC Compilation

SMAC - social, mobile, analytics and cloud are the hottest topics in the SAP ecosystem right now.  This segment of the Mobile Expert Video Series is a compilation of the latest opinions of SAP folks on this subject.

Video Link:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6ErWJCgRCw


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Kevin Benedict, Head Analyst for SMAC, Cognizant

Read The Future of Work

Visit MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility

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

Mobile Expert Video Series: Jens Koerner

In this segment of Mobile Expert Video Series, I had the opportunity to interview SAP's Product Manager for the Mobility Platform, Jens Koerner.  We discuss mobile middleware both on-premise and in the cloud.  We also talk about Afaria (MDM) in the cloud.  If your head is in the clouds, this is the episode for you.

Video Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9mSvFFRpCXs

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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.

Enterprise Mobility, Risk Management and Remote Job Sites

This week I am at SAP's TechEd in Las Vegas.  Please give me a shout-out if you are here and would like to meet up and discuss mobile strategies!

I had the opportunity to spend time with a large international construction company last week.  This construction company does a lot of work in remote locations in Africa, the Middle East and in Latin America.  In fact, this construction company was the one that flew in drilling equipment that was used to rescue the 33 Chilean miners a few years ago.  They work on massive projects.  Projects that can involve hundreds of millions of dollars. 

The CIO of this large construction company shared with me that the secret to being successful at managing massive and remote projects is visibility and risk reduction.  Money can be lost very quickly on large projects, and if managers are not aware of the losses things can get out of control fast.

The CIO added that most construction companies couldn’t compete with them on large projects because they do not have the enabling infrastructure, processes and methodologies in place to handle the complexity and risk management.  He added that mobile solutions are a critical ingredient.

Large and remote projects often do not have communication infrastructure available, so the construction company must bring in their own.  They set-up communications, and then wirelessly connect all of their ERP and management systems to the remote job shack or trailer – sometimes in the middle of the jungle or desert.  Mobile devices are then used within these environments to manage operations via data collection, alerts, queries, and reports.

Visibility, and the speed in which managers have visibility to problems, is the determining factor to successful management in these environments.  Managers need to know about problems immediately so they could be fixed immediately or a Plan A can be switched to a Plan B or C.

The key take-a-ways from this conversation were the following:

• Mobile solutions are required to effectively management remote job sites and operations.
• The ability to effectively manage remote jobs requires real-time visibility via mobile solutions.
• The inability to manage in real-time is a barrier to entry to many companies.  Mobile solutions, the right infrastructure, back-end systems and a faster operational tempo are competitive advantages.
• Having the ability to communicate in real-time, collect, process, analyze and report on data quickly enables companies to reduce their risk exposure and take on larger projects.

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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.

Determining Anticipated ROIs for Enterprise Mobility

Over 90% of companies today believe enterprise mobility is "very important" to "critical" to their company’s future success according to a recent study I completed.  Yet identifying ROIs is still a major challenge.  It seems intuitively people recognize enterprise mobility is a revolution that will change competitive landscapes, but they are still unsure as to exactly how it will impact their company.

I propose that we as individuals understand how mobile technologies have changed our own lives, and  believe the same will happen in our businesses.  The challenge is that mobile technology can provide big changes - real-time data, real-time visibility, real-time analytics, real-time alerts and notifications, real-time KPI monitoring, real-time workforce tracking, real-time job status and real-time schedules, unified and 360 degree views of our operational areas, etc, and these capabilities can change entire processes, businesses, industries, service level agreements, customer interactions, and entire business models.  How do you measure that?

These are big changes that will take some study to fully understand their impact on each of our own unique industries and markets.

Click to Download the Complete and Free Report

Because enterprise mobility can impact everything about a business, the business must work with the IT teams to determine anticipated ROIs and mobile strategies.  How do you measure competitive advantages and better, faster decision making?  How do you measure the anticipated impact of providing better and faster customer service?  How do you measure doing business at a faster tempo with mobile technologies?

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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.

Sitting On the Plane Talking about Enterprise Mobility

If you have the chance, avoid sitting next to me on a plane. I like to talk, and I particularly like to talk about enterprise mobility.  Last night an unfortunate Accenture consultant sat down next to me. He was on a call with his project team that was working on a large BI (business intelligence) project.  I got so excited just listening to the acronyms roll off of his tongue.  I could hardly wait for him to hang-up the phone so I could jump in and talk with him in the brief seconds before he could pull out his Bose sound canceling headset.  I succeeded.

He shared his background, 15 years working for Accenture, focused on BI in the Fortune 100, travels every week.  I told him my background and shared my enthusiasm for enterprise mobility and mobile strategies.  He turned and looked at me, and said as only a geek could do, "I hate mobility."

He went on to say he is constantly asked to give presentations on mobile BI.  The problem is, they never buy his solutions.  This puzzled me.  Why would Fortune 100 companies have so much interest in mobile BI, but never close a deal with Accenture?  What do you think?

In my recent 2012 Mid-Year Enterprise Mobility Survey, the survey respondents said they expected to get ROIs from improved decision due to receiving real-time data and reports.  In my previous 2011 survey, real-time BI reporting also was ranked a top three in priority.  So we can see that companies believe it is very important.

The priorities were ranked from 1 to 10.  One is the top priority.

In the case of the Accenture consultant, however, his clients express a keen interest without buying.  He then went on to ask me, "Companies don't really buy mobility do they?"  I hesitated.  Then answered, "Of course they do.  They are buying at record levels from nearly all mobility vendors that I interview." 

I have some opinions, but I would like to hear from you.  Why would Fortune 100 companies be keen to learn, but not buy mobile BI from the unfortunate consultant that was seated beside me on the plane?

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Kevin Benedict, Mobile Industry Analyst and Mobile Strategy Consultant

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Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Join the Strategic Enterprise Mobility Linkedin Group

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

Mobile Expert Video Series: Adam Enterkin

On the Northeast corner of Hyde Park in London, England in Kony Solution's UK office.  While I was in London last week I caught up with Kony Solution's VP of Sales for EMEA, Adam Enterkin and asked him about his strategies and Kony Solution's business model.  I hope you find this interview interesting.

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Kevin Benedict, Mobile Industry Analyst, Mobile Strategy Consultant and SAP Mentor Alumnus

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.

Enterprise Mobility, Re-usable Code and Private App Stores

Gil Bouhnick

A few years back when I was the CEO of a mobile enterprise application company, I spent a lot of time asking my PSO (professional services organization) the question, "Haven't we developed that before?"  The answer was nearly always, " Yes, but it won't work on this project."  That is not the answer a CEO wants to hear.

The dream I had was to own a library of reusable code or objects that I could build once, and leverage on hundreds of future mobile projects.  This week I read an article by my friend Gil Bouhnick, about ClickSoftware's new ClickAppStore.  This is the model I had always wanted.

It is not an app store for the public, it is a private app store for your internal developers and consultants.  Here is how ClickSoftware describes it, "The ClickAppStore is designed to allow IT people, system implementers and administrators do more with their ClickMobile product by downloading and embedding business apps inside one powerful mobile foundation called ClickMobile, and run them on any popular device out there from iPhones and Android smartphones to tablets, rugged PDA’s and laptops."

This isn't going to help IT departments that don't use ClickMobile, but it offers a huge efficiency for those that do.  ClickMobile is integrated with SUP (Sybase Unwired Platform) and plays nice with SAP.  The ClickAppStore solution that Gil is writing about and promoting in his article is designed to help companies develop the majority of their mobile apps by using visual configuration tools, wizards, drag & drop style editors etc, and downloading pre-build business apps front he ClickAppStore.

I am thinking through the requirements here...  This must have taken a lot of strategy sessions before this was built.  I love the notion!

The concept of a mobile app store for use internally is another important part of a complete mobile strategy.  Again, from a former technology CEO, it will drive you crazy if you have to rebuild and re-invest in the same tools over and over again across your global company.  It makes so much more sense to use a standard IDE (integrated development environment) and MEAP (mobile enterprise application platform) for your custom mobile applications, and then save the mobile business applications into a mobile app store so other internal parties can use them.

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

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.

Kevin Benedict Speaking about Mobile Strategies in Atlanta on April 26th

Motorola Solutions and ClickSoftware are organizing an enterprise mobility lunch event in Atlanta, GA on April 26th from 11:30 AM to 2:30 PM (see details).  I have the honor of being asked to speak at this event.  If you are in the area I would love to meet up and discuss enterprise mobility with you!

I will be speaking on the topics of mobile strategies for the enterprise, mobile trends, analyst views and managing the real-time enterprise.

In addition to my presentation, you will also be learning about:

• Advances in mobile technology, wireless bandwidth, and web services making NOW the perfect time to plan and execute on your company’s mobile vision.
• Creating a competitive advantage through collaboration between peers and across departments.
• Using mobility as the catalyst and enabler for aligning the entire enterprise service policies.
• Defining pre-requisites for tomorrow’s mobile platform to support and connect all mobile employees.
• Selecting a device that meets the needs of the business as well as the demands of the users.

This will be an intimate lunch event and seats are limited so register soon!
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Kevin Benedict, Independent Mobile Industry Analyst, Consultant and SAP Mentor Alumnus

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.

Development Models for Enterprise Mobility

My friend and collaborator Andre Guillemin and I have been pondering different development considerations and models for enterprise mobility.  Here are a few of the models we have been discussing:

Model #1 - one mobile application for use on one mobile device
Model #2 - one mobile application for use on multiple mobile devices using the same operating system
Model #3 - one mobile application for use on multiple mobile devices and multiple operating systems
Model #4 - multiple mobile applications for use on one mobile device
Model #5 - multiple mobile applications for use on multiple mobile devices using the same operating system
Model #6 - multiple mobile applications, multiple mobile devices, multiple operating systems and multiple versions of operating systems

I most often see Models #1 and #2 in environments with purpose built and ruggedized devices that utilize RFID or bar code scanners.

Model #2 is often found when the same application needs to run on two or more different ruggedized mobile handheld computers, but all on the same version of the same operating system.

Model #3 is often seen in line of business apps.  You have a specific ERP or business app, and a specific business process that is extended out to mobile devices. The mobile app is only intended to be an extension of the one process, but used on different mobile devices and operating systems.

Model #4 is often used when the company has invested heavily into one kind of mobile device.  This is often found when a company has a large inventory of industrial grade mobile handhelds.  Once the mobile device investment is made, the company wants to maximize the ROI, so they look for ways to mobilize additional business processes that they can deploy to the device to maximize their return.

Model #5 is a often found in companies that have all Blackberry, Android or all Windows Mobile devices.  This model is rarer these days.  The advantage is lower development, training and support costs when all users and developers are trained and familiar with the one OS.

Model #6 is the predominant model of mobile apps intended for use on smartphones today, but it is also the most complex to manage.  If you have 5 mobile applications, supported on 4 different operating systems (12 different operating system versions), and running on 25 different mobile devices, then you have the potential for several hundred different combinations that must be maintained.

Since model #6 is the model of today and the near future - mobile platforms, frameworks, IDEs (integrated development environments) and MAM (mobile application management) tools are essential for successful enterprise mobility deployments.

Did I miss any models?  Correct me if I did!

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

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 Video Series: Kony Solutions' Sam Lakkundi

Several weeks ago I had the good fortune to meet up with my long time friend and mobility expert Sam Lakkundi while I was in Orlando, Florida.  Sam and I have been meeting up at enterprise mobility conferences for most of a decade.  He has traveled the world first with Sybase, and now with Kony Solutions as the VP of Mobile Strategies.

Kony Solutions is an interesting company.  They are kind of the new kid on the block in the enterprise mobility space, but they have huge experience in the mobile B2C (business-to-consumer) area.  This experience is serving them very well now because as companies adopt the BYOD (bring your own device) model, they are finding that the B2C and B2E (business-to-employee) models are converging.  If a company decides to support a wide number of mobile devices using many different mobile platforms, then that is basically the same model as B2C.  This plays to Kony Solutions' strengths.

In this interview Sam discusses BYOD models, HTML5, enterprise mobility, mobile strategies, mobile UX, mixed mode development and much more.

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

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.

What's New in HTML5 - Week of March 12, 2012

HTML5 offers some genuine advantages and tools for developers, but it is not mature enough to serve as a tool for business applications, according to David Akka of Magic Software.  Read original content

The basics of establishing user location with HTML5 are covered in this tutorial from developerdrive.com.  Read original content

The iPad 2 ranks as the best device for HTML5 games and apps performance, according to a new report from spaceport.io.  Overall, iOS devices and browsers outperformed Android “across the board”.  Read original content

Mozilla has created a mobile OS based on HTML5, JavaScript and CSS.  Boot to Gecko is an open source web-based operating system for mobile devices and “eliminates the need for apps to be built on platform-specific native APIs.”  For a demo visit, https://wiki.mozilla.org/B2G/Demo.  Read original content

Combining the benefits of HTML5 and native app technologies may be the best approach.  Ashley Streb of Brightcove states that “for cross-platform, content-centric apps, this approach saves both time and money."  Read original content

Is the Java development community ready to embrace HTML5?  Opinion seems to be divided at this point.  Read original content

Sencha has upgraded its HTML5 mobile application framework with the release of Sencha Touch 2.   One of the goals of the upgrade was to “make standards-based Web apps rival native apps on all the top devices and browsers."  Read original content

Although HTML5 has made strides in apps development, Apple customers are still demonstrating their love for native apps.  The iOS app store has exceeded 25 billion downloads.  Read original content

appMobi has announced the release of the beta version of its directCanvas HTML5 acceleration technology.  “HTML5 is the future of the open Web and many people want to take advantage of building games with it on smart devices.”  Read original content

Corel’s VideoStudio Pro is now available in a new “X5” version that provides the ability to generate HTML5 video content that will display in any browser that supports HTML5.  Read original content

Ludei has announced the availability of CocoonJS, a development tool that provides the ability for developers to convert HTML5 games into iOS and Android apps.  Read original content

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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.