Field Mobility and M2M News Weekly – Week of August 19, 2012

The Field Mobility and M2M News Weekly is an online newsletter made up of the most interesting news and articles related to field mobility that I run across each week.  I am specifically targeting information that reflects market data and trends.

Also read Enterprise Mobility Asia News Weekly
Also read Mobile Commerce News Weekly
Also read Mobile Marketing News Weekly
Also read Mobile Health News Weekly
Also read Mobility News Weekly

The use of RFID wristbands in hospitals and health care facilities is on the rise due to the many benefits the technology offers for both the patients and health care personnel.  Read Original Content

Deutsche Telekom has announced the launch of a new M2M developer community which provides developers with access to APIs, programming guidelines and software development kits for building and selling M2M apps.  Read Original Content

Location management, cloud services and tablet-based options are included as part of the enhanced Field Force Manager and Fleet Control solutions from Verizon Wireless.  Read Original Content

Since 1995, Syclo has enabled hundreds of companies in 37 countries and industries supercharge their businesses with mobility.  This newsletter is sponsored in part by Syclo.

Truecount has developed a solution for retailers unsure of how to begin implementing RFID technology for their business.  “RFID in a briefcase", or RFID 2-GO, provides all of the necessary RFID hardware and software (except for tags), packed into a compact carrying case.  Read Original Content

GPS provider MapmyIndia has launched CarPad 5, a combination GPS navigator, smartphone and 3G tablet that runs on the Android OS.  Read Original Content

A GPS app, ZabKab, allows users to “hail” a taxi from their mobile device and their location is sent to ZabKab app-equipped taxi drivers looking for passengers.  Read Original Content

The BarCode News provides detailed information and reviews on barcode readers and scanners in this article, “Bar Code Hardware - Barcode Scanners and Barcode Readers”.  Read Original Content

Mobile SAP Apps for Sales Order Capture and Delivery

Banks Holdings Limited (BHL), a SAP customer, is one of Barbados' most successful public companies and the island's largest beverage conglomerate.  BHL has four subsidiaries comprising of two beverage manufacturers, a dairy processing plant and a distribution firm.

BHL has recently mobilized three key SAP business processes:

1. Pre-Selling - The Pre-Selling scenario enabled the capture and confirmation of new orders by the mobile salesforce as they interacted with the end customers, giving them visibility into their individual orders and pricing structures.  By delivering SAP pricing schemas to the mobile device, BHL's sales representatives now have the ability to highlight to customers any volume scale based price breaks and a potential for cross selling opportunities.
2. Dispatch - Dispatch is responsible for managing the inventory required to fulfill the orders being delivered on a daily basis.  Leveraging the SAP FIFO and guided picking processes, the mobile dispatch process ensures the correct stock is not only loaded into the correct delivery truck but also in the most efficient order for the actual deliveries being fulfilled.
3. Delivery - The delivery process is responsible for the Proof of Delivery (POD) process to the end customers. The mobile component not only manages core delivery processes, but also allows for any last minute adjustments to a delivery requested by a customer and the corresponding downstream SAP pricing impacts these changes may have.

BHL wanted a solution that could meet the following requirements:

• The ability to work both online and offline when mobile staff is beyond mobile device coverage boundaries.
• Support for multiple device types such as Motorola’s hand-held devices and printers.
• Integration without the need for complex middleware.
• Flexibility of the GUI interface.
• In-depth SAP experience.
• The ability to extend SAP specific business processes to the point of activity (mobile)
• The ability to utilize existing SAP ABAP skills kept cost of enhancements low as any future changes and enhancements could be performed in-house.

SAP has a number of mobility partners including Sybase, RIM, Sky Technologies, Sylco and Vivido Labs. In this case BHL selected SAP Certified Partner, Sky Technologies for their mobile SAP CRM.

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Kevin Benedict
Author of the report Enterprise Mobile Data Solutions, 2009
Mobile Strategy Consultant, Mobile 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. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.
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