Showing posts with label mobile business processes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mobile business processes. Show all posts

Which Mobile Application Company Will SAP Acquire Next?

I was speaking with an SAP executive last month about SAP's partner strategy for enterprise mobility.  The executive said that SAP ecosystem mobility partners would be well served to focus on building vertical industry specific business processes into their mobile applications, as SAP would be focusing more on horizontal business processes.  The executive went on to say that SAP would seek to partner first for vertical expertise and then consider acquiring select companies that showed success and penetration in key SAP markets.

This conversation got me thinking.  Which vertical industries would be the likely targets of mobile applications that SAP might want to acquire?  Could it be one of the following?
  • Oil and Gas
  • Utilities
  • Retail (Location-Based Services, Coupons, Mobile Marketing)
  • Plant Maintenance
  • Chemicals
  • Mining
  • Transportation
  • Facilities Management
  • Enterprise asset management

Compliance Functions for Mobile Applications

In an article I published on The Enterprise Mobility Foundation earlier this week, I spoke of the challenges involved with managing a mobile workforce.  Here is an excerpt: 

"You are tasked with managing a team you cannot see. You are accountable for the safety of your employees in locations you have never been. Your success is based upon your team’s ability to overcome all kinds of technical challenges in remote and distant job sites. You are responsible for your team following company standards, processes and industry best practices without any supervision. You must expertly balance their schedules, qualifications and workloads to maximize customer satisfaction and profitability from a distance."

The management challenges listed above are magnified by distance, remote locations and the lack of management visibility.  Often these challenges are not just about managing.  They can also be about safety, liability, legality, quality and customer SLAs (service level agreements).

A few months back, Gil Bouhnick with Clicksoftware, told me about a mobile application he worked on that incorporated Union rules into a mobile application.  It included a complete set of rules, above and beyond, simple work order management.  This application would look at the tasks required of the service technician and review a database of Union rules to ensure the service technician was not doing anything counter to those rules.  This conversation got me thinking.

Perhaps mobile applications could have an application layer for the following:


  • Safety compliance
  • EPA compliance
  • FDA compliance
  • OSHA (occupational safety and health administration) compliance
  • Legal compliance
  • Union compliance
  • Quality standards compliance
  • Best Practices compliance
  • Corporate standards compliance
  • Sorbanes-Oxley Act compliance
  • SEC compliance
  • Customer Service Level agreement compliance
Of course this list could go on forever, but the point is mobile applications can integrate a "compliance" application layer that could associate different compliance issues with each piece of data and field.  Specific jobs could activate specific compliance rules.  Certain tasks and projects could flag specific safety procedures.  This "compliance" application layer could improve the documentation and implementation of the appropriate behavior in remote workers which in turn makes it easier to management them.

What are your thoughts?  Would this be a useful mobile application layer, or simply a pain for the mobile worker?

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Kevin Benedict, SAP Mentor, SAP Top Contributor, Mobile and M2M Industry Analyst
Phone +1 208-991-4410
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.





http://www.clicksoftware.com/e86e075b-4fca-44c9-bfeb-4efcc978f416/knowledge-center-white-papers-delivery.htm

Extending Mobile Business Processes in Boise

A friend of mine here in Boise, Jon Young developed a very interesting mobile application on Android.  The application is a great example of the concept of extending business processes.

The application works much like the popular RedLaser iPhone application in that it can scan an ISBN barcode on a book cover and then automatically look it up.  The special part of the application is that it looks up the book in the local library system.  It will show the book's status and allow you to reserve the book if available.  You can read more about it on Jon's blog.

Think about this - you see a book that looks really interesting in a bookstore.  You can use Redlaser to look up the price at other locations or use Jon's mobile application to look it up in the Boise Library System, check the status, and reserve it. 

The Boise Library System also delivers the book free to the local library location of your choice and emails you when the book arrives.  This entire process can be completed on your mobile device.

This is a simple example of a very useful business process that was extended to mobile devices.  On Thursday, August 19, SAP and Sybase will hold a press conference to discuss their mobile enterprise strategies.  I will be listening in particular to how they will be extending ERP business processes out to mobile devices.

The SAP Workforce Scheduling and Optimization application by Clicksoftware is a great example of extending business processes out to the mobile workforce.  Here is how SAP describes it - it  helps your service organization run at optimal efficiency: from demand forecasting and workforce shift planning to real-time optimized scheduling, mobile workforce management, and business analytics. The solution helps ensure that your service organization meets objectives and commitments smoothly and efficiently.


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Kevin Benedict, SAP Mentor, SAP Top Contributor, Mobile and M2M Industry Analyst
Phone +1 208-991-4410
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.

Movitas to Provide Mobile Marketing and Communication Services to TravelCom 2010


I know the folks at Movitas and they are developing some very interesting mobile solutions for location centric businesses such as hotels, resorts and conferences.

Collegeville, PA – February 10, 2010: Movitas, the leading mobile communication, marketing and commerce platform for the travel, conference and hospitality industry, has been selected to provide mobile marketing and mobile communication services for the U.S. Travel Association’s premier travel industry conference and trade show “TravelCom 2010” to be held March 9-11 at the Fairmont Hotel in Dallas, TX.

The TravelCom mobile platform, provided by Movitas, will provide information and offers during the show and allow attendees to interact with speakers and exhibitors in real-time, via any type of web-enabled mobile phone. The TravelCom mobile marketing and communications capabilities include an always up-to-date mobile website (featuring the show news of the day, session schedules, Fairmont Hotel floor plans, as well as speaker and exhibitor profiles), integrated social media to enable everyone to interact and experience the show via Twitter and Flickr feeds, and a text message system providing alerts, speaker updates and special offers.

As always, TravelCom covers the entire travel distribution and eCommerce food chain. However this year mobile media strategies are receiving more attention than ever before. For example, TravelCom will leverage mobile technology to allow attendees to influence session content during the show.

“With a stronger focus on online marketing, social media, mobile media and online commerce strategies, we decided not only to tell, but to show TravelCom attendees how mobile can become part of the travel industry’s business processes,” said Ben Isenberg, Chief Operating Officer at Vantage Strategy Consulting, producer of TravelCom. “Everyone involved in the show will get a first-hand look at the future of mobile business and Movitas’ approach to solving some of our industry’s challenges.”

About Movitas
Movitas is a leading mobile communication, marketing and commerce platform for location-centric businesses such as hotels, resorts and conferences. It provides a suite of solutions designed to drive revenue, improve the customer experience, manage mobile marketing campaigns, and deliver mobile business processes. Solutions include content management, messaging, commerce, logistics, workflow, and internet based administrative tools that can integrate into property management (PMS), central reservation (CRS) and point of sale (POS) systems. For more information visit: www.movitas.com. Also follow on Twitter at http://twitter.com/movitas.

About TravelCom
TravelCom is the only eCommerce conference designed by the travel industry for the travel industry. TravelCom elicits the most actionable, practical and current insights from the industry’s most senior thought leaders and speakers. Their expert knowledge offers insight and research into the entire travel distribution and eCommerce food chain; including distribution, strategy, marketing and technology tool sets. TravelCom is owned by the U.S. Travel Association and is being produced by Vantage Strategy. For more information visit www.travelcomexpo.org.

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Author Kevin Benedict
Mobility Consultant, Wireless 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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Interviews with Kevin Benedict