Competing with Mobile Technologies

Tough competitive markets can be a call to improve and innovate for many services businesses. It can be that extra push, that motivation we need to conduct some introspection. It is these times that require reviewing how we are doing business today with a critical eye on how we can accomplish more with less (increasing productivity), improve customer service and reduce inefficiencies. Mobile Technologies can play a significant role in all three areas.

The following list identifies a few of the many areas where mobile technologies commonly can help a services business become more competitive.  As you read through this list, think about other areas in your unique business where mobile technologies would offer value:

1. Efficiencies in communicating information between the office and the remote service technician or jobsite
2. Efficiencies in planning and scheduling work based upon job status, location, parts and supply inventories and expertise
3. Reducing fuel costs
4. Reducing travel time
5. Reducing redundant data entry activities
6. Increasing productivity – more average service calls per service technician in a day
7. Increasing service contract sales
8. Increasing equipment upgrade sales
9. Increasing collections and reducing DSO (day sales outstanding) with electronic invoicing, and the swiping of debit/credit cards via mobile devices
10. Improving inventory control and management - visibility to parts needed, the location of inventory and parts used on each job or service ticket
11. Reducing risks by ensuring safety procedures are followed
12. Improving management visibility into work done in the field to ensure quality services

These 12 ideas, of course, are just the start.  They are just some of the most obvious. In times of rapid growth, inefficiencies are often overlooked in a rush of new sales and business growth. However, when competition increases, it is a good time to re-evaluate business processes in order to eliminate the inefficiencies, and improve productivity and customer service.

It is not a luxury to invest in enterprise mobility.  Enterprise mobility is here for the rest of your career, and the future of many companies is dependent on how they embrace and take advantage of mobile technologies.

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

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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.

Kevin Benedict's What's New in HTML5 - Week of September 9, 2012

This week I spoke at the ClickConnect 2012 conference.  While attending I listened to the product guys/gals at ClickSoftware discuss their mobile application development platform called ClickMobile Touch which is a development platform for HTML5 based enterprise mobility apps.  While some may question the value of HTML5 for the enterprise, ClickSoftware is not one of them.

ShoutEm has unveiled a development platform for the creation of HTML5 mobile web apps with much of the same functionality as native apps.  Read Original Content

It doesn’t have to be “native vs. HTML5” for mobile apps if developers take a hybrid approach.  The hybrid app will be built individually for each mobile platform, but developers can add layers of HTML5 to run on top of native code in order to take advantage of each platform's best features.  Read Original Content

HTML5 Goodies presents a tutorial on how to create a simple Windows 8 game using HTML5, JavaScript, WinJS and libraries from CreateJS.  Read Original Content.  The HTML5 Development Center can be found at:  http://www.htmlgoodies.com/html5/index.php#fbid=ZNEP4ORbKct

Indian online entertainment store Hungama.com is launching a new HTML5 version to enable users to listen and stream on all iOS, Android and Windows 8 platforms (the service already exists for BlackBerry and Symbian interfaces).  Read Original Content

Developer Horia Dragomir discusses the challenges of writing HTML5 apps and games for mobile devices in this interview in InfoQ.  (Both video and transcript of the interview are available.)  Read Original Content

Amazon is adding a Cross-Origin Resource Sharing capability to its S3 Simple Storage Service, allowing developers to implement HTML5-based drag and drop uploads, show upload progress and update content without running a custom proxy server between their web app and S3.  Read Original Content

Chinese search engine Baidu has launched a new Android browser featuring a new HTML5 and JavaScript engine which scored an impressive 482 out of 500 on the HTML5 Browser Test.  Read Original Content

Conde Nast has overhauled its British Vogue website (vogue.co.uk), with a new site built in HTML5 and CSS3,”ensuring it adapts to both the small screens of tablet devices, on the largest of desktop monitors, and all sizes in between”.  Read OriginalContent

The new Free HTML5 Video Player and Converter app solves cross browser compatibility issues by enabling the creation of videos once for playback in all HTML5 compatible browsers.  Read Original Content

appMobi has launched two new cloud-based services for hybrid HTML5 apps, openBuild and storeView.  openBuild enables developers to compile HTML5 code into a distributable “hybrid” app and storeView, for PhoneGap and hybrid HTML5 app developers, aggregates and displays detailed app analytics in a single dashboard.  Read Original Content

Distribution, monetization, platform power and network effects, and functionality are reasons the apps vs. HTML5 debate is important.  A new report from BI Intelligence explains these reasons and what an HTML future will look like for consumers, developers, and brands.  ReadOriginal Content

A new infographic in Tnooz provides information to help organizations with the question of whether to build a mobile app or a mobile website.  Read Original Content

HTML5 has a future, but is currently losing as far as mobile devices are concerned as it’s out-performed by native apps, says David Meyer in this article, “Why HTML5 is in Trouble on the Mobile Front”, in ZDNet.  Read Original Content

According to Tom Petrocelli in his article “Big Differences in Mobile Support for the Social Enterprise” in CMSWire, HTML5 is the lowest common denominator for reaching all platforms and HTML5 support will be on the rise and will be “a core part of the Social Enterprise feature set”.  Read Original Content

appMobi has launched a new free remote debugging tool for HTML5, JavaScript and CSS3.  debugMobi simplifies remote debugging on mobile devices with a configuration-free, hosted version of the open source tool Web Inspector Remote that developers can access from anywhere on the Internet.  ReadOriginal Content

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Kevin Benedict, Mobile Industry Analyst and Mobile Strategy Consultant

Visit MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com

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: Gary Delancy

A few weeks ago I had the privilege of sitting down and talking with a 20-year enterprise mobility veteran, Gary Delancy, VP of Product Development at DSI.  Twenty years ago mobility was mostly relegated to warehouse management.  Since then DSI has become a power house enterprise mobility company in many different industries, including a strong presence in manufacturing environments.  This year, for the first time, Gartner has included them in their Magic Quadrant for MADP (mobile application development platforms).  They also have a long history of integrating enterprise mobility with M2M (machine to-machine) environments.

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Kevin Benedict, Mobile Industry Analyst and Mobile Strategy Consultant

Visit MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com

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.

Kevin Benedict's What's New in HTML5 - Week of August 26, 2012

Last week I downloaded the new native application version of Facebook mobile for my iPhone.  I must admit that I like the native application far better than the HTML5 version.  The HTML5 version was jerky, slow to load, and scrolling up and down the news feeds was rough.  The native version is much smoother and faster.  The winner of the Facebook mobile challenge is definitely the native application version. 

Now for the news...

According to the article “HTML5 vs. Flash for Gaming and Internet” from Gamer Syndrome, HTML5 is quicker and simpler than Flash and its benefits greatly outweigh the limitations.  Read Original Content

Research from InformationWeek Reports reveals that 74 percent of organizations have or will build custom mobile apps, and 52 percent of those building native apps say that until HTML5 matures, they can’t get the functionality they need in a browser app.  Read Original Content

The Dolphin Browser beta has passed the second of three hurdles in the Ringmark test designed by Facebook.  The test checks support for a wide range of HTML5 features. [Kevin Comment] this may no longer be relevant.  Read Original Content

SkyMotion has launched an HTML5-based web app that uses geolocation, radar observation, motion tracking and other technology bring the user precise up-to-the-minute knowledge of precipitation at their exact location. [Kevin Comment]  I like this! Read Original Content

Is HTML5 replacing the App Store?   While falling short on delivery of heavily animated or specialized experiences the user may expect, HTML5 brings a cost savings in both development and distribution.  Read Original Content

At the New York Times’ recent TimesOpen HTML5, Apps and JavaScript event, Terry Ryan from Adobe presented an update on what Adobe is doing around HTML5.  A slideshow of his presentation, “Adobe & Modern Web Development”, is available here - http://www.slideshare.net/tpryan/adobe-and-modern-web-development  Read Original Content

Fort Payne Alabama’s Times-Journal has unveiled a new HTML5-based mobile website, stating they used HTML5 “to produce a website that is optimized for mobile devices without the limitations that have prevented users from being able to look at certain sites on smartphones or tablets”.  Read Original Content

Web video consultant Lisa Larson-Kelley presents a high-level view of Flash, HTML5, and native app solutions, along with a clear strategy for playback across the widest variety of devices and platforms in this video, also downloadable as a PDF file.  Read Original Content

Adobe’s Muse HTML5 tool has been upgraded with added capabilities for planning, designing and publishing original HTML pages with built-in support for contact forms.  The upgrade also adds support for HTML5 animations created with Adobe edge.  Read Original Content

Transportation company Quality Distribution Inc., is utilizing HTML5 to enable employees and affiliates to access business applications via their mobile devices.  Read Original Content

Gartner’s recent Hype Cycle report (http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=2124315) shows HTML5 currently climbing the “peak of inflated expectations”, then it’s forecast to drop into the “trough of disillusionment” before climbing the "slope of enlightenment" in five to 10 years.  IDC, however, reported in March of 2012 that 79 percent of developers plan to integrate HTML5 in one form or another into their mobile apps in 2012.  Read Original Content

Robert Reinhardt of VideoRx provides a tutorial on “How to Optimize Video for HTML5 and Flash” in this video that can also be downloaded as a PDF file.  Read Original Content

Centigon has introduced the new version of its GMaps Mobile HTML5-based business productivity app for Apple’s iPad.  Read Original Content

w3schools.com provides free online tutorials on HTML5 features, elements, forms and more.  ReadOriginal 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 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.

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.

The Latest Developments in Mobile Marketing Apps

 

Mobile marketing is a big growth area and advertisers are very excited.  For the first time advertisers have the opportunity to show you amazingly enticing products and services on small screens while you are driving very fast down the freeway in traffic!  

In the past, this driving time was wasted with drivers simply staring at the road and glancing periodically at their mirrors.  In the trade, advertisers called this driving time, “the dead zone” since drivers were distracted and not paying attention to advertisers' promotions. 

The ROI for mobile advertisers can be incredible, even after you account for customer churn due to traffic accidents.  Mobile advertising can be made both time sensitive and location aware so drivers feel an intense urgency to respond immediately if they have any hope of taking advantage of it.    

All of the sales, promotional and product details can be included right on the mobile device screen for drivers to read.   Be sure to include the details in order to avoid any confusion or misunderstandings with drivers.  

Hurry!  However, before you pass that slow truck ahead of you, change lanes or exit, please read the fine print.  The sale only lasts 15 minutes and requires pre-approved financing at 27% interest!"

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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.

Finally the Tide of Rugged Android Devices Begins

In my opinion, Microsoft blew it when they left the rugged mobile device manufacturers hanging for years with no meaningful upgrades or upgrade path to the Windows Mobile 6.5x operating system.  They sentenced the ruggedized device industry to compete against the iPhone, iPad and Android consumer devices.  This meant service organizations worldwide started considering the merits of switching to consumer devices, with new operating systems that had many more features rather than upgrading to new ruggedized mobile devices.

Otterbox and other rugged case manufacturers were definitely the winners of this Microsoft orchestrated industry trend.  They produced many great ruggedized cases that added device protection and gave buyers confidence that using consumer devices in rugged environments was worth the risk.

Today, however, the tide of rugged Android devices is starting to enter the market as demonstrated by this marketing piece from Honeywell that I received in the mail today announcing the new rugged Dolphin 7800 EDA running on Android.  Here is how they describe it, "Honeywell’s new Dolphin® 7800 Android™ rugged EDA pairs the intuitive Google® Android™ operating system with remote device management capabilities and invaluable security features, making the device enterprise ready."

For a time the Android operating system was difficult to secure, since every device and device manufacturer seemed to have their own version of it, but the MDM (mobile device management) or MAM (mobile application management) vendors have seemed to resolve much of that challenge now as this piece from the MDM/MAM vendor Soti suggests, "SOTI, a leader in cross-platform mobile device management, is announcing that its unique MDM solution provides advanced and consistent management for all Android devices, regardless of the device manufacturer."

I have spoken with and interviewed many rugged handheld manufacturers over the past few months and most if not all have rugged Android devices in development.  I believe that going forward service organizations will soon be able to get the latest Android operating system features in the rugged device of their choosing.

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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.

Biggest Challenges Implementing Enterprise Mobility

I closed the 2012 Mid-Year Enterprise Mobility Survey today after excellent community participation!  I want to thank everyone for their time in completing it!  I will now start writing up the formal report, but in the mean time I will leak some of the results for you here.

One of the survey sections was titled, "What are your biggest challenges to implementing enterprise mobility today?"  Here are the some of the results:

Finding a budget (for enterprise mobility)?
23% said Not Challenging
53% said Somewhat Challenging
24% said Very Challenging

Developing an enterprise-wide mobile strategy?
8% said Not Challenging
43% said Somewhat Challenging
49% said Very Challenging

Selecting the right mobile platform?
29% said Not Challenging
43% said Somewhat Challenging
28% said Very Challenging

Finding qualified mobility experts to assist with implementations?
18% said Not Challenging
45% said Somewhat Challenging
37% said Very Challenging

Selecting the right mobile security platform?
29% said Not Challenging
46% said Somewhat Challenging
25% said Very Challenging

Choosing the right mobile app development strategy and tools?
21% said Not Challenging
44% said Somewhat Challenging
35% said Very Challenging

Choosing which mobile operating systems to support?
35% said Not Challenging
47% said Somewhat Challenging
18% said Very Challenging

Determining the right ERP integration strategy?
27% said Not Challenging
42% said Somewhat Challenging
22% said Very Challenging

Determining anticipated ROIs (from enterprise mobility implementations)?
16% said Not Challenging
45% said Somewhat Challenging
39% said Very Challenging

Educating stakeholders on the potential impact of enterprise mobility on the business?
13% said Not Challenging
50% said Somewhat Challenging
38% said Very Challenging

Stay tuned for more results....

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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.

Kevin Benedict's Video Comments - The Real Time Enterprise and Enterprise Mobility

In this segment of Video Comments, I discuss the new ways of thinking that are necessary in a world of real-time enterprises that requires real-time data, enterprise mobility and "competitive decision making."

***Get the free Mid-Year Enterprise Mobility Survey Report by taking it today!
Survey link - http://survey.constantcontact.com/survey/a07e64mo7lmh4g6ur76/start
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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.

mHealth and Mobility - Crowd Sourced Healthcare

I wonder sometimes if we Americans wouldn't be better off simply bypassing partisan politics and the healthcare industrial complex, and developing our own crowd-sourced healthcare program that fully utilizes mobile, M2M, cloud and big data technologies and brings them together to offer optimized healthcare services.  Perhaps we should join together into technology centric cooperatives and hire our own healthcare providers?  Perhaps technology is the answer to this problem.

Perhaps we could develop a program where each of us could be matched up with a CHP (cloud-based healthcare provider) that would provide us with smartphone apps and any additional wearable (M2M) devices that would enable him/her to monitor our health and provide guidance in the comfort and efficiency of our own homes.  When health issues arise, our CHP would manage our treatment by sending us to local labs and service providers that would perform tests and upload the results to our EHR (electronic health record) for our CHP to analyze and provide recommendation.  The analysis and treatment decisions would involve the use of big data.  This would ensure our treatments are data driven, not pharmaceutical rep driven.  Each of our health issues would then have its own cloud-based workflow and decision tree backed-up with the data that supports each plan or decision.  We could reference this health issue workflow from anywhere.

Consultations with our healthcare provider could most often be done via video conferencing on the smartphone app.  Why waste hours driving and sitting in waiting rooms for consultations.  Yes, you may lose some face-to-face value, but I think convenience and efficiency makes up for a lot of routine face-to-face encounters.

Kevin: "Doctor, I think I have a sore throat and fever."
Doctor: "You do."
Kevin: "It will probably go away on its own if I wait a couple of days, right?"
Doctor: "Right."
Kevin: "Thanks.  Can we do this over video conferencing next time?"

I personally see a different physician's assistant or doctor nearly every time I go into the doctor's office.  My visits are most often consultations and could be done equally well in a video conferencing session. 

Each of us, and any healthcare services provider could access our EHR (electronic health record) with permissions and update it.  We could access our own EHR from our smartphone app.  I would love to have a personal healthcare dashboard.  I could then graph how I have gained weight over the past 20 years.  I would need that graph on a line chart, as a pie chart would simply be mean.  We could also set healthy lifestyle goals that our CHP could monitor and help coach us on.

Early in my IT career I worked for a large electronics manufacturer in Boise, Idaho that had their own in-house medical clinic for their employees.  It was wonderful.  I have since always wondered if that model could be replicated in neighborhoods, or co-ops of some kind. 

Perhaps someday soon, technology rather than politics will get it done.

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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.