Kevin Benedict's What's New in HTML5 - Week of September 23, 2012

Here are the comments, opinions and actions taken by both supporters and opponents of HTML5 that I have found this week.  It is never a dull discussion.

Native apps tend to have a smoother look and feel, more polish, and are able to leverage elements of their native operating system to feel more deeply integrated into the device.  However, building for multiple platforms and devices is expensive while web apps, built in standards-based technologies such as HTML5 and CSS3, will work on devices across a range of sizes by being adaptive and responsive.  Read Original Content

Brendan Eich, the chief technology officer at Mozilla, admits that HTML5 still faces standardization issues, and by continuing to lead development of essential HTML5 standards, Mozilla will actually make developers' lives easier.  Read Original Content

The much-publicized quote from Mark Zuckerberg, stating that the biggest mistake Facebook made was betting too much on HTML5 doesn’t tell the entire story.  The full quote, on Facebook software engineer Tobie Langel’s blog is:  “When I’m introspective about the last few years I think the biggest mistake that we made, as a company, is betting too much on HTML5 as opposed to native… because it just wasn’t there. And it’s not that HTML5 is bad. I’m actually, on long-term, really excited about it. One of the things that’s interesting is we actually have more people on a daily basis using mobile Web Facebook than we have using our iOS or Android apps combined. So mobile Web is a big thing for us.”  Read Original Content

While stating that the company believes HTML5 has been “very over-hyped”, Intel software executive Renee James goes on to say that Intel is “committed to making sure HTML5 remains open, cross-platform, and has the right performance”.  Read Original Content

Adobe has made an effort to have its tools work on multiple platforms - PCs, tablets, and smartphones - using HTML5 and dynamic layout reformatting tailored to each device type.  The company is now promoting free “Create the Web” events to show off new tools and services for HTML5, CSS3, motion graphics, web development and more.  Read Original Content

appMobi has announced the launch privateStack, an HTML5-based, app development and cloud services platform that will enable businesses to develop their own cloud stack for mobile apps for business operations.  Read Original Content

Donald MacCormick in BI Dashboards provides a video of an HTML5 dashboard prototype in action.  Read Original Content

Facebook software engineer Tobie Langel outlines the HTML5 flaws that Facebook encountered including a lack of tooling in mobile browsers, scrolling performance problems, and technical problems such as stuttering and GPU buffer exhaustion.  Read OriginalContent

Xamarin CEO Nat Freidman believes the mobile industry is moving too fast for HTML5 and Web standards-based development to keep up, and he feels a lot more developers will start to build natively.  An IDC analyst states “We are now in a bit of a disillusionment phase for HTML5 as early adopters push the boundaries of the capabilities and sometimes fail”.  ReadOriginal Content

This article from HTML5 Goodies explores the changes with HTML5 Semantics – HTML5 tags that have been removed and new HTML5 elements.  Read Original Content

Jadu will offer its mobile app publishing platform Weejot.com free to every school, college and university in the U.K. to enable students to improve their programming skills using HTML5 and JavaScript.  Read Original Content

Serdar Yegulalp writes in Information Week’s Byte newsletter that although he “can’t stand” programming in HTML5, he sees it thriving in the long run, because it’s the most widely-recognized starting point. HTML5 “doesn't give the most powerful base to build on, but it provides the lowest barrier to entry, and one of the fastest ways to get something into people's hands”.  Read Original Content

A collection of 10 useful infographics about HTML5 is provided in this article by Jacob Gube in Six Revisions.  Read Original Content

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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

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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.

Competitive Decision Making and Enterprise Mobility

The late US Air Force Colonel, and great military strategist John Boyd talked a lot in his workshops about "competitive decision-making."  He taught that individuals that could think better and faster than their opponents had a great advantage.  I agree with Boyd, and believe that implementing mobile solutions in the enterprise can facilitate this advantage.

Last year's report by the Aberdeen Group titled Mobility in ERP 2011 also touched on this point with three specific statements:

1. Getting the right information, to the right people, so they can make the right decisions is the driving force behind mobilizing the workforce. 
2. Why is there a need for mobility?  Much of it is related to volatility.  The need to be able to react as quickly as possible to issues without being tethered to a desktop.
3. Mobile solutions should provide workers with information to make good and timely decisions.

Aberdeen Group describes the value of mobile solutions as - it helps you make "right, good and timely decisions, and to react as quickly as possible to issues."  That sounds like competitive decision-making to me.

How do you put these kinds of values into an ROI for enterprise mobility?  Boyd said, "How one thinks is critical to your success in competition.  Well trained and well-educated people, who think well and quickly are the most important assets."  I suggest that mobile solutions and up-to-date information shared on mobile devices can help well-trained people react quickly to issues.

Boyd further taught that competitive decision-making enables the benefit of compressing time and using it as an ally.  What he meant was the ability to get more done in the same amount of time.  "Advantages in observation and orientation (OODA) enable a tempo in decision-making and execution that outpaces the ability of your competition to react effectively."  Advantages in observation and orientation can be providing by having real-time data exchanges, real-time business analytics, and connect mobile apps.

I ask the difficult question again, "How does one show an ROI on enterprise mobility solutions by providing quicker, faster, better thinking?"

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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.

Mobile Expert Video Series: Latecia Mills

I must confessed to rarely having a female mobility expert included in my Mobile Expert Video Series, so today I am particularly happy to publish a video interview that I conducted a couple of weeks ago with a 20-year veteran of enterprise mobility Latecia Mills, VP of Global Services and Support with DSI.

DSI has been in business for over 30 years, and they have been implementing mobile solutions for over 20 years.  It is not every day that I get to interview someone with that much real-world experience.  DSI grew out of the heavy duty warehouse management and manufacturing industries, and this year they made it onto Gartner's Magic Quadrant for MADPs (mobile application development platforms).

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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.

Mobile Expert Video Series: Moshe BenBassat (Mobile AI and Context Aware Apps)

Did you have a chance to watch Dr. Moshe BenBassat's video last week where he discussed his background working with NASA, ballistic missile defense, the Army and Air Force logistics, and how he uses that experience today to develop mobile applications?  It was very interesting!

In this video, which can be considered a Part 2 to last week's, he discusses the use of artificial intelligence, contextual aware and predictive applications for the services industry.  Again, a very intriguing notion.

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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 Apps for Almost Everything

On Monday, August 27, 2012, The Wall Street Journal published The Technology Journal Report dedicated to mobile apps.  The report included some very interesting numbers that I want to share:

• The average smartphone user will download 37 mobile apps this year
• 36 billion mobile apps will be downloaded in 2012
• 136 billion mobile apps are predicted to be downloaded in 2017
• The average smartphone user in the USA spends 94 minutes per day using mobile apps
• The average smartphone user in the USA spends 72 minutes per day using browsers
• There are 650,000 apps available in the Apple App Store
• There are 600,000 apps available in Google Play

In addition to these numbers the article identified many different categories of mobile apps:

• Find Shopping Deals
• Remember Everything
• Find a Restaurant
• Get Fit and Stay Fit
• Go to the Movies
• Take a Trip
• Parenting
• Educating Your Preschooler
• Find a House
• Manage Your Money
• How a Remote Meeting
• Teach Math and Science to Kids
• Prepare a Meal
• Keep Track of Your Kids
• Meet Up with Friends
• Manage Your Passwords
• Read Books, Magazines and Newspapers
• Watch Movies and TV
• Take, Enhance and Share Photos
• Learn to Play Music
• Gardening
• Find a Date

I'm amazed at how thoroughly mobile apps have become a part of our personal and work lives.  I travel a lot.  I use mobile apps continuously.  Even though I have been working in enterprise mobility since 2000, I never stop being excited at cool new apps and impressed with their utility.

This past summer my family traveled with me on my Eggs with Benedict Mobile Strategies speaking tour in Europe.  We utilized the AirBNB app to arrange apartments to stay in.  We loved it!  We used our mapping functionality any time we were confused as to our exact location.  We downloaded maps to our iPhones and iPads while on WiFi connections so we could avoid international data roaming charges.  We researched all of our travel destinations using tablets and smartphones.  We kept track of each other across many different cities so we could meet up at the right places and times.  We did our banking from mobile apps and the mobile web.  We found great restaurants.  We reviewed the Underground schedule in London and bought train tickets all via our smartphones.  Mobile apps and the mobile web have completely changed our travel experiences over the past decade.

The vast amount of information at our finger tips is mind boggling.  It thrills me to think that the best information I can find on the Internet, is available even in the poorest regions of the world via the mobile Internet.  Whenever, I or a family member feels ill, we can quickly look up great medical advice.  Again, this medical advice is available now worldwide.

I travel, write, speak, teach, report, conduct research and interviews all using mobile devices.  My business travels with me.  I use the mobile app TripIt to organize my travels.  I use the mobile Skype app to see and communicate live with my family while I am on the road.

Mobile apps and the mobile web have revolutionized our personal lives, and it is doing the same with complete business processes and industries.  Every company needs to recognize the impact enterprise mobility, the mobile web and mobile apps will have on their industry and their competitive landscape.  It is not just a passing fad.

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Kevin Benedict, Mobile Industry Analyst and Mobile Strategy Consultant

Visit MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Join the SAP 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.

Mission Critical - Mobile Device Management and Control

Have you ever thought about how a company should manage battery life on a smartphone when they support a BYOD IT environment?  Think about it, a person brings their own smartphone to work that only has 10% battery charge, they drive 40 miles out to a job site and their battery dies. They have a dead device when they should be updating work orders, inventory levels, schedules, job status and new product sales.

I am personally impatiently waiting for the release of iPhone 5, because my iPhone does not hold its charge any longer.  By about 1 PM, my battery is getting low.  I am lucky I don't need to use it to take product orders and scan bar codes throughout the rest of the afternoon.  If this impacted my productivity, and I had an employer, I wonder if they would ask me to go out and buy a new personal device?

Click to Download

In many industries and businesses it is not enough to simply hope your workforce manages their personal mobile devices efficiently and reliably, as the business is too dependent upon it.

MDM (mobile device management) systems are intended to help a company manage mobile devices.  There are many MDM solutions available on the market, but many cannot remotely control and access a mobile device, and that is critical.  A few like Soti (www.soti.net) enable remote access and control of mobile devices and this enables the IT helpdesk to efficiently trouble shoot and manage mobile devices to ensure efficient use through out the day.  Soti can even monitor your battery use, and automatically optimize your devices use of the battery.

In a scenario where the business depends upon the efficient and reliable use of a mobile device, it is critical that the company have management control of the mobile device.  This, however, can present some complexity.  In some countries this is not legal.  In businesses where there are unions, the unions may not approve, and your employees may simply not permit it.  These complexities may influence entire industries and geographical areas to insist on company owned mobile devices.  This does not remove all complexities, but helps.

In businesses where company owned mobile devices are supported, MDM vendors like Soti, can collect data on the various manufacturers' device specifications, and then document their performance against the specs. This is very important.  If a manufacture says a battery should last for 1,000 charges before it is replaced, data can be collected on each device to monitor when it was charged and predictions can be made as to when more batteries will need to be purchased.  In addition, the collected data can be used to hold manufacturers accountable to their specs, and the data can be compared with the performance of other mobile device manufacturers.

Some MDM vendors have mobile clients that can turn even the most powerful consumer grade smartphone into a purpose built mobile device by controlling and limiting access to only the work apps.  For example, a new Android phone can be limited to only a credit card swiper, bar code scanner and work order management system with SMS.  All the other apps that are available will not be seen or accessed.  This gives businesses the ability to buy off-the-shelf smartphones and use them strictly for business.

The down side of this scenario is that the mobile workforce would likely be all carrying two different mobile devices, one for work and one for their personal use.  This is not ideal, but may be the reality until something more clever comes along.

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Kevin Benedict, Mobile Industry Analyst and Mobile Strategy Consultant

Visit MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Join the SAP Enterprise Mobility

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.

Mobilized Objects, M2M and Mobile Strategies

A good friend of mine is a civil engineer.  He works on many tidal flat and water way projects.  He was telling me about driving 2 hours north of Seattle to collect data from one water level sensor.  The data collection took one minute.  He then drove 2 hours back to Seattle.  For this one data collection activity, the cost was a 4 hours of time from a senior engineer, fuel and lost opportunity costs.

I shared with my engineering friend that there are M2M communication systems that utilize embedded wireless chips that could simply message him the data from the water level sensor using wireless technology.  He thought that would have been a brilliant idea!  Although a brilliant idea, it would have costs far more to set-up (mobilize the object) with a M2M system than it cost him to drive there and collect it for one sensor.  However, if he had 1,000 sensors that needed monitoring, the costs savings could have been enormous.   M2M systems need volume to generate a good ROI, but if there is volume there can be great strategic advantages and ROIs to be had.  Think about the endless possibilities!   What do you need to collect data on in the field?  What systems, equipment or sensors can you collect data on automatically and have wirelessly messaged to you?

In my mobile strategies workshops, I talk about the concept of "mobilized objects."  These objects can be all kinds of things you may not have considered mobilizing in the past.  Mobility is more than communicating on a smartphone with your mobile workforce.  It can be any data collected remotely and wirelessly sent back to a central management system.  Let me list a few "objects" that you may want to mobilize and collect data on in the field:

• People - Attendance//Qualifications/Experience/KPIs
• Job Status/Schedules
• Locations
• Vehicles
• Parts
• Inventories
• Equipment
• Equipment transportation
• Location and availability of vendors and subcontractors
• Job site access
• Job site security
• Inspections and Permits

All of these items may need to be monitored and data collected on them.  This data can be communicated by a human, or in many cases a remote sensor could collect it automatically.

A field service manager that wants visibility to his/her operations for optimal planning and scheduling purposes may appreciate the ability to look down at their iPad and see the location of all of their people, the status of the jobs each are working on, the qualification each have, the parts and equipment each need to complete the job efficiently and the availability of any sub-contractors or permits needed.  All of this data flowing in from the field can help a manager plan and optimize the productivity of his/her workforce.

Bar code labels and scanners can update information about parts, inventories and equipment checked in or checked out from the warehouse.  GPS tracking systems can update fleet and workforce management systems as to the location of vehicles, equipment, trailers and people.  Work Order Management systems can track the job status and schedules of service technicians and other mobile workers in the field.

M2M (machine-to-machine) communication systems can enable companies to monitor remote sensors across large geographical areas efficiently.  These are used extensively by large fleet managers to monitor vehicles, fuel consumption, location and engine performance.  Utilities monitor their smart grids and their electrical distribution systems.  Irrigation systems, canal systems, pipelines, remote security systems, and thousands of other remote systems also need monitoring.  An M2M system can provide automated data collection, and real-time alerts and notifications.

Mobilizing your workforce may be the first step, but step 2 is mobilizing your objects.  If you missed my interview with SAP's Sanjay Poonen, SAP is also focused on M2M today.

Mobility and M2M are ways of collecting data and sharing data to help people and machines make better decisions.  All enterprises should be taking some time to understand the sources of all the data they need in order to conduct business in the most efficient and productive manner possible.  Where does the data originate, and how can you make the data collection process easier, faster and more efficient?  After considering the source and collection of the data, ponder how if can be integrated with your back-end systems, analyzed and the results shared with the right people at the right time in the field via mobile devices.

This unified 360 degree view of the world can provide your management team with a "Network Centric Operational" environment.  Where everything is networked together to provide real-time visibility and situational awareness.  This is how you can efficiently manage the real-time enterprise.

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Kevin Benedict, Mobile Industry Analyst and Mobile Strategy Consultant

Visit MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Join the SAP Enterprise Mobility

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.

Kevin Benedict's What's New in HTML5 - Week of August 19, 2012

Every week as I read articles, press releases and news about HTML5 developments, I am struck by how divergent the views are about the role of HTML5 in the enterprise.  I really think your views depend on your background.  If you are a consumer oriented mobile app developer, native is the only way to go.  If you are an enterprise oriented developer, then HTML5 is great.  What do you think?

Now for the news...

Microsoft has announced that the Pulse news app is now available on the Web and built entirely from HTML5, JavaScript and CSS3.  The new Web app shows that “future-Web technologies are rapidly approaching a state where they can easily re-create native app experiences in the browser”.  Read Original Content

To ensure as many visitors as possible can access their website, the Consortium of Foundation Libraries has developed an HTML5 mobile site in addition to their Flash-based website.  (See http://m.sophiaguevara.wix.com/html_cfl for a preview of the site.)  Read Original Content

ReelSEO provides a list and details about popular HTML5-capable video players and destination sites.  Read Original Content

Health crisis info and support site CaringBridge has launched a new interactive HTML5-based website which combines user-generated content with pre-designed video in order to create a new, custom video experience for each user.  Read OriginalContent

Magic Software's UK Managing Director, David Akka doesn’t believe HTML5 is currently suited to enterprise mobile applications.  “There is a lot of hype around HTML. Although it has improved over the last 15 years, it is still highly dependent on web browsers - with all the implications of that.”  Read Original Content

DevCon5’s HTML5 Summit will be held October 3-5, 2012 in Austin, Texas this year in conjunction with ITEXPO.  Read Original Content

HotelTonight’s chief technology officer Christopher Bailey and EyeforTravel’s Ritesh Gupta discuss HTML5 technology for the travel industry in this article “HTML5: Hype or Hope?”.  Read Original Content

This HTML5 article by Jos Dirksen illustrates how to render open data based onto a 3D globe, walking the reader through an infographic.  Read Original Content

A new HTML5 website gives Nintendo fans the opportunity to play classic games on their iPhone browser; however, performance is an issue with some of the games.  Read OriginalContent

As of August 15th, Android will no longer offer Flash for Android devices, making way for HTML5 to take over video on mobile browsers.  Android users with Flash will continue to receive security updates, but that is the extent to which Adobe will continue to support the plug-in. Flash will no longer be available in the Google Play store.  Read Original Content

This tutorial details how to use the Mobile Photo Album JQuery plugin for developers to build JavaScript galleries for mobile devices.  Read Original Content

A recent report from BI Intelligence highlights the pros and cons of native apps and HTML5, giving HTML5 the advantage in distribution and cost, and native apps the advantage in features, user experience and monetization. BII believes that HTML5 will win for the future.  Read Original Content

appMobi is guaranteeing developers will make money creating HTML5 apps by

offering complete access to their development tools and cloud services and only charging for apps that are profitable.  Read Original Content

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Kevin Benedict, Mobile Industry Analyst and Mobile Strategy Consultant

Visit MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Join the SAP Enterprise Mobility

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.

What Do Mobility Consultants Really Think?

Earlier this week I wrote an article titled, "What Do Mobile Technology Vendors Really Think?", which covered technology vendors' responses to my "2012 Mid-Year Enterprise Mobility Survey."  This article is reviewing the answers from enterprise mobility consultants and comparing and contrasting them with the mobile software vendors' answers.

Q: What are your biggest challenges to implementing enterprise mobility today?
A: #1 answer - Developing an enterprise-wide mobile strategy, #2 - Determining anticipated ROIs, and #3 - Finding qualified mobility experts to assist with implementations.

The first two rankings were the same between mobile technology vendors and mobile consultants, but finding qualified mobility experts was a bigger problem for mobility consultants.

Q: Where do you expect to find the biggest ROIs as a result of implementing mobile solutions?
A: #1 answer - Increased productivity of mobile workers, #2 - Real-time data collection and reporting from mobile workers, #3 - Improve decision making by receiving real-time data.

Mobility consultants share the same answer #1 as mobile technology vendors, but consultants placed "Real-time data collection and reporting from mobile workers" as their 2nd highest ROI and it was #4 for mobile technology vendors.  Improved customer service was #3 with mobile technology vendors, but ranked #5 for mobility consultants.

Q: How important is it to select a standard MADP (mobile application development platform) before developing mobile solutions for your company?
A: Mobility consultants ranked it #3 - Very Important

Mobility consultants ranked it 3 - very important, and mobile technology vendors ranked it similar at 2.9.

Q: How important is mobile security to your company's mobile strategy?
A: Mobility consultants gave it a 2.7 score which is between "Somewhat Important" and "Very Important"

Mobility consultants and mobile technology vendors rated it nearly the same.  Mobile technology vendors gave it a 2.8.

Q: How important is HTML5 or HTML5 hybrid apps to your company's enterprise mobility plans?
A: The answer was 2.6 out of a 4 - with 1 being "Not Important" and 4 being "Critical." The 2.6 weighted average is between "Somewhat Important" and "Very Important" on the scale.

Mobile technology vendors gave it a 2.8 rating, slightly higher in importance than mobility consultants.

Q: How difficult is it to find third-party consulting talent with the right expertise in enterprise mobility?
A: The answer was a weighted average of 2.3 out of 3 - with 1 being "Not difficult" and 3 being "Very difficult."

Mobility consultants rated it slightly higher (2.3) in difficulty that did mobile technology vendors (2.2).

Q: How important do you believe tablets will be to your enterprise mobility plans?
A: The weighted answer was 2.8 out of 3 - with 1 being "Not important" and 3 being "Very important."

Mobility consultants rated it slightly lower than mobile technology vendors (2.9).

Q: How important is enterprise mobility to your company's future success?
A: The answer was a weighted average of 3.2 out of 4 - with 1 being "Not Important" and 4 being "Critical."

Mobile technology vendors rated it higher in importance at 3.5, than did the mobility consultants.

In summary, the answers were very close between mobility consultants and mobile technology vendors with the exception of where they anticipated finding the biggest ROIs.

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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.

Mobile Expert Podcast: Unvired's Srinivasan Subramanian

In this 18 minute audio podcast, Srinivasan Subramanian from Unvired and I discuss all kinds of issues related to enterprise mobility, mobile strategies and cloud mobility.  The audio is not perfect, but the content is good.  Grab some popcorn, or jump on the treadmill and I hope you enjoy!

Here is the link in case the audio player does not appear in your browser:  https://www.box.com/shared/aa55e7e5adf5c521504c

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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.

What do Mobile Technology Vendors Really Think?

I am writing an analyst report based upon the survey data from last month's 2012 Mid-Year Enterprise Mobility Survey.  Thanks again for everyone that took it!  I filtered the data to learn the opinions of those that identified themselves as mobility vendors.  I find these answers very interesting because mobility vendors talk to a lot of people, as a result, their opinions are often a reflection of what they hear in the market.

Q: What are your biggest challenges to implementing enterprise mobility today?
A: The number 1 answer was, "Developing an enterprise-wide mobile strategy."  There was a tie for the next 2 between, "Determining anticipated ROIs" and, "Educating stakeholders on the potential impact of enterprise mobility on the business."

Q: Where do you expect to find the biggest ROIs as a result of implementing mobile solutions?
A: The number 1 answer was, "Increased productivity of mobile workers."  The number 2 answer was, "Improved decision making due to real-time data."  The number 3 answer was, "Improved customer service."

Q: How important is it to select a standard MADP (mobile application development platform) before developing mobile solutions for your company?
A: This answer surprised me.  The ranking was from 1 to 4, with 1 = Not important and 4 = Critical.  The weighted average answer was 2.9.  It seems there are a lot of mobile app developers that are developing apps without a MADP involved.

Q: How important is mobile security to your company's mobile strategy?
A: The answer (a weighted average) was 2.8 out of a 3 - very important.  As these are mobility vendors answering, you would expect them to believe in the importance of mobile security.

Q: How important is HTML5 or HTML5 hybrid apps to your company's enterprise mobility plans?
A: The answer was 2.8 out of a 4 - with 1 being "Not Important" and 4 being "Critical." The 2.8 weighted average is between "Somewhat Important" and "Very Important" on the scale.  It seems vendors are still still hedging their bets.

Q: How difficult is it to find third-party consulting talent with the right expertise in enterprise mobility?
A: The answer was a weighted average of 2.2 out of 3 - with 1 being "Not difficult" and 3 being "Very difficult."  It seems there remains a shortage of experienced talent around enterprise mobility.

Q: How important do you believe tablets will be to your enterprise mobility plans?
A: The weighted answer was 2.9 out of 3 - with 1 being "Not important" and 3 being "Very important."

I hope you found this information useful.  Stay tuned for the full report.

Are you following me on Twitter @krbenedict?

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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.

30 ROI Ideas for Mobilizing Field Services

I was reviewing my notes from past mobile strategies workshops I have conducted for field services organizations and thought some of my notes might be useful.

First, what are service companies trying to achieve with mobility?  Here is a summary:

1. Increasing productivity – more average service calls per service technician in a day.
2. Improving management visibility into work done in the field
3. Efficiencies in communicating information between the office and the remote service technician or job site.
4. Efficiencies in planning and scheduling work based upon qualifications, location, parts and experience.
5. Reducing fuel costs.
6. Reducing travel times.
7. Reducing overtime
8. Using least cost employees and contractors
9. Increasing productivity – more average service calls per service technician in a day.
10. Increasing onsite product and service sales.
11. Increasing collections with mobile invoicing, mobile printing of invoices and onsite collections.
12. Improving inventory control and management - visibility to parts needed, the location of inventory and parts used on each job or service ticket.
13. Reduced risks by reminding service technicians of safety hazards and safety procedures on the job.
14. Improved customer interactions 

The following list drills down into more specific areas:

1. Eliminate time spent in the office re-typing data collected in the field
2. Eliminate time spent on the phone dispatching service tickets or work orders - both the time of the dispatcher and the time of the service technician: Dispatch electronic service tickets direct from your work order management system in the office with the mobile device of your service technician.
3. Save time finding each work location: Send driving directions, or links, in the electronic work order that work with the GPS and mapping software in the mobile device.
4. Avoid the high fuel costs incurred delivering paperwork to the office and picking it up: Synchronize the data direct from the field to the central database application.
5. Avoid the time cost transporting paperwork from the field to the office: Synchronize the data collected from the field with the push of a button.
6. Save time and provide better customer service by providing real-time access to enterprise parts, orders, and inventory data while in the field: Enable mobile access to customer history, product documentation, warranty information, inventory information, time sheets, work schedules and much more.
7. Save time with field data collection by using barcode scanners and barcode labels, or RFID readers and RFID tags on assets: A quick scan with a handheld computer can automatically display all stored information related to the asset for quick review, edits and additions.
8. Save time and reduce admin costs by creating and scheduling new service tickets direct from the field:
9. Provide immediate invoicing for faster collections and better cash management: Allow field tech to print the invoice on a mobile printer at the job site.
10. Save time and postage costs: Print the invoice and leave it with the customer at the job site, rather than wait and bill later from the office.
11. Document proof of work completed to reduce invoice disputes: Leave a GPS audit trail of where work was performed and include a time and date stamp. Digital photo evidence of before and after work is also useful.
12. Reduce the introduction of errors: Paper based systems are inherently slow and error prone due to human interaction, copying and re-typing. The more human hands that touch a paper form and add or edit data, the more chances that errors can be introduced to the data which will cause invoice disputes, inaccurate records and confusion.
13. Reduce administrative costs by ensuring complete data is sent from the field, as incomplete or inaccurate field data can take hours of work to track down and correct: Send data from the field and ensure it is complete with data integrity features on the mobile devices.
14. Reduce administrative costs by avoiding errors and misinterpretations due to poor or misread handwriting: Create electronic forms with pre-made options, check boxes and lists, and by using onscreen digital keyboards.
15. Reduce administrative costs by ensuring the accuracy of data: Validate answers in the mobile software application on the handheld PDA.
16. Reduce time on the phone and dangerous note taking while driving: Push documents directly from the office to the handheld.
17. Save time and fuel by providing electronic dispatch and least cost routing: Use vehicle and/or handheld GPS tracking to view your workforce locations. Smartphones with GPS functionality can display the location of the field worker to help managers better organize service responses.
18. Save time by developing estimation and job analysis mobile apps that can help field users make quicker and more accurate decisions and job estimates.
19. Save time in the field by automating business processes in the mobile apps: Mobile apps can be configured to perform all kinds of automated business functions, queries, computations and analytics.
20. Enforce quality work habits: Automate “best practices” into your mobile apps and provide visibility to managers.
21. Automate quality and best practices - Activate the appropriate business process based upon the data entered: A specific answer can trigger the required business process in mobile apps.
22. Reduce inventory loss - Avoid undocumented inventory usage and unbilled time: Enforce real time data entry before clock out or work order completion.
23. Improve job estimates: Require clock in and clock out on projects to document and analyze the accuracy of work estimates.
24. Improve technician training: Train new service technicians and inspectors with audio memos or video clips in the handheld computer application.
25. Reduce disputes by documenting deliveries and work with digital signatures, date and time stamps and barcode scanners on the handheld computer.
26. Save travel time and fuel cost finding parts: Query available inventory in nearby company vehicles.
27. Increase profit per customer: Use information in mobile apps connected to CRMs to up-sell more products and services while onsite with the customer.
28. Provider quicker and more accurate estimates: Query latest shipping status, schedules or inventory levels via smartphones or tablets while onsite with customer.
29. Increase warranty revenues: Include updated customer information on mobile devices so the service technician can sell warranty and maintenance plans, new products and upgrades.
30. Dispatchers with real-time visibility into job progress and status can more efficiently dispatch least-cost service technicians (contractors vs. employees).

In order to achieve true situational awareness with a real-time 360 degree view of your operations, you will need a number of systems to be tied into your mobility platform.  Here are just a few ideas:

• CRM
• Work Order Dispatch system
• Scheduling system
• Workforce optimization (workforce and resource planning needs)
• GPS Tracking
• Enterprise Asset Management
• HCM (Human Capital Management) System
• Inventory systems
• Real-time Business Analytics
• Etc.

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

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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.