Advice to Mobile Start-ups: Working with SAP, Part 1

I was invited to spend time on SAP's rain soaked campus in Palo Alto, California last week and met with people from several different groups to discuss mobile computing, mobile strategies and how mobile start-ups can best partner with SAP. This article reviews some of those discussions.

One of the first points to understand is that SAP LOVES mobility. In December SAP announced that one of their key focuses for 2010 would be mobility. I wrote about SAP's announcement here in December. What this means is SAP is looking for partnerships with mobile software companies that will extend the reach of their core software to more users. Let's talk about what that means.

SAP is one of the largest software companies in the world and traditionally they have focused on selling to the largest global companies. They have been successful in this strategy, but even with their successes, they still have relatively few users in each of their customers' operations. Some estimates have it at about 445 users per customer on average. That may sound like a lot of users, but many of these companies may have tens of thousands of employees.

SAP's strategy now is to look for solutions and partnerships that will expand the value of their core systems to employees within their customers' operations that are not traditionally SAP users. This is a key point for mobile software companies to understand.

If you imagine the glassy surface of a pond and how it looks when a rock is thrown into it. The rock lands with a splash and a series of circles form. The inner circle is the smallest and represents SAP's current users within an enterprise. Each surrounding circle is bigger and covers a wider area and represents more possible users. These are the circles SAP wants to move into and where they want to add value. If you, as a mobile software company, can help them do that, then they are interested.

Let's explore how to expand the circles. What do we need to know?

1. Who needs access to SAP system data, but is not sitting in a cubicle with SAP access today?
2. Who collects SAP system data that is not currently a SAP user? They may be collecting data on paper forms today and re-keying the data into SAP at another time.
3. Who are the mobile employees at a SAP customer? What are their roles and what data do they need to view and collect while on the road?
4. What supervisors need access to SAP anywhere and at anytime?
5. What managers need SAP management reports while on the road?
6. Is there SAP system data that needs to be shared externally with extended multi-enterprise supply chains via mobile devices? You don't want your supply chain partners to view all of your system data, but are there alerts, updates, reports, etc., that should be shared via mobile devices?
7. Should the logistics department have mobile "proof-of-delivery" applications in the hands of their truck drivers?
8. Should plant maintenance managers have mobile inspection applications that feed SAP?
9. Should service technicians be using mobile service tickets that feed SAP or an SAP partner's work order management system?
10. One SAP customer has over 600 food processing inspectors worldwide. This inspection data needed to be collected and stored centrally. While this may not be a core SAP application, it shows that SAP customers often have a large number of mobile data collection requirements that can be turned into management reports and provided to traveling managers.

All of these applications are adding new users to the SAP family. If you can add new users to the SAP family, then you will have the ear of the entire SAP sales organization.

Part 2 of this series can be found here, Part 3 here and part 4.

If you would like to discuss this subject in more detail please email me here. If you would like to follow my discussions and be alerted to new Mobile Strategies for Businesses' articles, then you can add me to your RSS reader or twitter account @krbenedict.

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Author Kevin Benedict
Independent Mobility Consultant, Wireless Industry Analyst and Marketing Consultant
www.linkedin.com/in/kevinbenedict
twitter: @krbenedict
http://kevinbenedict.ulitzer.com/
http://mobileenterprisestrategies.blogspot.com/
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Advice for Mobile Start-Ups: Find Your Market Aggregation Points

Mobile start-ups often struggle with how to get their message, product and company brand in front of their target markets. They quickly realize that the expense of marketing their solutions directly to each end user is cost prohibitive. How then can they effectively market their solutions in a cost effective manner?

Mobile start-ups need to first identify their target market, and second identify the "market aggregation" points. In the image above, look at the red dots. Those are the market aggregation points. Those are the points where the mobile start-up needs to be marketing. Why? That is where their audience can be found. The eyes and ears of their target market are tuned to that location.

Mobile start-ups should focus all of their efforts and financial resources on the red dot - market aggregation points. Often it costs no more to invest resources in the red dots, than it does to target each end user - end point.

If you are targeting SAP Mobility, then you will want to look for locations that aggregate that market. Where can you find the eyes and ears of the SAP market? If you are focused on field service automation, where is that market aggregated? If your solutions are exclusively for SAP ERP for iPhones, then where is your market aggregated?

Where are the red dot market aggregation points for your market?

If you would like to discuss this topic in more detail please contact me.

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Author Kevin Benedict
Independent Mobility Consultant, Wireless Industry Analyst and Marketing Consultant
www.linkedin.com/in/kevinbenedict
twitter: @krbenedict
http://kevinbenedict.ulitzer.com/
http://mobileenterprisestrategies.blogspot.com/
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Advice to Mobile Start-Ups: You are a Publishing Company Like it or Not!

I am a consultant to mobile start-up companies and an expert in the area of Web 2.0 marketing. I have successfully built mobile software companies from the ground up. I have made just about every mistake one could make, and learned how to overcome and avoid them in the future. I now work with mobile start-ups to help them implement the right Web 2.0 marketing strategies to build their sales pipelines in their targeted markets.

I advise my clients that like it or not they must become an Internet publishing company. Why? Unless they have millions of dollars or euros to burn on expensive pay-per-click campaigns, conferences, call centers, flights, hotels and rental cars, they are going to need to leverage the Internet and all of the free Internet tools available to build their sales pipeline, reseller channels, brand and partner communities.

Using the Internet requires the consistent production and publication of rich and valuable content that is useful and desired by your target audience. It needs to be updated daily or weekly and it needs to be found by your audience. You must first find and attract an audience that values your content, and then motivate them to return over and over and to provide you with their contact information. You must first become a trusted and dependable information asset to them, and then they will become fans, prospects and finally customers.

How do you become a valuable asset to your target audience? You must provide them with information that will improve their business by fixing their problems, reducing costs and/or increasing their sales. Here is the challenge. Mobile start-ups are busy places. They often have engineering geniuses, but few have the time or interest to write expert content to share with the public. Writing is hard work and time consuming. As a result, few start-ups consistently publish and expand their footprint on the web by utilizing Web 2.0 marketing strategies.

Mobile start-ups, however, must recognize that publishing prized and valued content that is read by their target audience is not a luxury, but a requirement now days. Setting up the processes, resources and systems to write, publish, promote and syndicate rich content on a daily basis must be part of every mobile start-up's business and marketing plan.

If you would like to discuss this subject in more detail please contact me.

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Author Kevin Benedict
Independent Mobility Consultant, Wireless Industry Analyst and Marketing Consultant
www.linkedin.com/in/kevinbenedict
twitter: @krbenedict
http://kevinbenedict.ulitzer.com/
http://mobileenterprisestrategies.blogspot.com/
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Advice for Mobile Start-ups and Mobile Developers

There are a lot of business and technical issues to consider and points to ponder if you are developing a mobile software application to use internally or to sell, or are creating a start-up mobile software company. I have a lot of personal experience in this area and have documented much of it in over 475 blog articles on this site.

To save the reader time searching through the entire blog library, I have collected a few of the articles especially relevant to those starting new mobile application projects and new mobile start-ups.

• Mobile Software Application ROIs for Mobile Service Businesses
• Mobile Software SDKs and Toolkits for Handheld PDAs and Smart Phones
• Hosted or Non-hosted Mobile Software Applications for Handheld PDAs and Smart Phones
• Mobile Workflows in the Field, SAP and Other ERPs
• SAP and Mobile Applications for Field Services
• Questions to Ponder before Starting a Mobile Software Development Project for Handheld PDAs, iPhones and Smartphones

The following link goes to a another blog article that lists many additional resources for mobile start-ups - Mobile Handheld PDAs and Mobile Software Application Resources

If you would like to discuss any of these subjects in more detail, please email me.

***Note, readers can search on specific mobile subjects within these 450 plus articles by using the Blog Search function at the top of the page.
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http://mobileenterprisestrategies.blogspot.com/
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