SAP, Pacific Gas and Electric and ClickSoftware

SAP Workforce Scheduling
 and Optimization

I have been reading recently about how the U.S. military is consolidating data centers around the world.  They want to reduce costs, but also have quicker and faster access to data in a unified view.  This morning I read with interest a case study on how Pacific Gas and Electric had similar goals and ambitions and what they did to accomplish them.
 

In the past PG&E coordinated crew schedules within the SAP project management application, and had dispatcher teams at each of their 67 local PG&E offices.  However, to improve on the efficiency of the scheduling, PG&E decided to consolidate the dispatching teams to work out of two regional remote management centers in Concord and Fresno, California.

Kevin's Mobile Retailing News Weekly - Week of January 17, 2011

Kevin's Mobile Retailing News Weekly is an online newsletter that is made up of the most interesting news, articles and links related to mobile retailing applications and mobile marketing applications that I run across each week. I am specifically targeting market size and market trend information.

IMPORTANT! In the upcoming webinar, Implementing SAP Enterprise Mobility in Fortune 500 Companies-Ten Lessons Learned (January 25 and 27), Smartsoft Mobile will share the top ten lessons learned from implementing SAP enterprise mobility solutions in Fortune 500 Companies. If you are a systems integrator or an end user, you will value from learning what works and what doesn't work in deploying mobility solutions. This webinar will also include an overview of the enterprise mobility industry in 2011 by SAP Mentor Kevin Benedict.

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The results of a new report on U.S. consumers suggest retailers may want to focus advertising dollars on mobile shoppers, as more Americans are turning to their mobile devices and the mobile web to make purchases.

http://www.creativedepartment.com/news/advertising/mobile-shopping-exploding-us-new-report-finds-173900

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While 2010 saw the emergence and popularization of a number of novel marketing techniques and devices, 2011 is expected to be the year businesses both large and small begin to grasp and make full use of these trends.

http://www.nebsmarketingstore.ca/news/business-marketing/marketing_projections_and_predictions_for_2011$1062.html

Data Overload in a Mobile and M2M World

Massive Real Time Data Feeds

Last February American helicopters were involved in a deadly attack that resulted in many Afghan civilian deaths.  Investigators have pointed to data overload as the cause.  The drone operators were simultaneously receiving dozens of secure text messages from the troops, radio exchanges with analysts and live video feeds from drones.  All of this information was coming in real time at such volume that the operators were not able to process it quickly enough and bad decisions were made and executed upon.

Military officials are trying to determine what they can do to fix or improve the weak link in the data processing chain, which is the human link.  In earlier blog articles I have shared that there were similar findings in the Gulf of Mexico accident and resultant oil spill this past summer.  Hundreds of sensors on the oil rig were reporting data in real time, predicting trouble.  The problem was that the data was coming in at such volume that humans were not able to process and understand the full meaning of it in time to prevent the tragedy.

Mobile Expert Interview Series: Syclo's Jon Schmidt



Syclo's
Jon Schmidt

Between flights around the world (172,000 United air miles in 2010), 4 children ranging from 2 months (baby Finn) to 23 years, and a record breaking sales year at Syclo, it has been hard to catch up with Jon for an interview.  However, where there is a will there is a way and we got it done earlier this week.

For inclusion in this article, I asked Jon for a photo and I think he sent me one from 1993.  This photo does not appear to be from a person with a 23 year old child and 2.7 million total United air miles.

Note:  These are not Jon's exact words, rather my notes from our interview.

Kevin: What mobile device(s) do you regularly carry?
Jon: iPhone (work), BlackBerry Pearl (personal), laptop for power points, iPad for mobile everything.  I like the iPad because it can be up in 2 seconds.  Immediacy is critical. 

Kevin: What industries do you see adopting mobility today?
Jon: Two years ago it was mostly utilities and oil and gas companies.  Today, all industries seem to be buying including; Telco, CPG (consumer packaged goods), electronics, shipping companies, mining, etc.  New and young employees will expect to have company supported smartphones and connectivity with business applications.

Kevin’s Mobility News Weekly – Week of January 10, 2011

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

Also read Kevin’s Mobile Retailing News Weekly
Also read Kevin’s Mobile Money News Weekly

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IMPORTANT! In the upcoming webinar Implementing SAP Enterprise Mobility in Fortune 500 Companies-Ten Lessons Learned, Smartsoft Mobile will share the top ten lessons learned from implementing SAP enterprise mobility solutions in Fortune 500 Companies. If you are a systems integrator or an end user, you will value from learning what works and what doesn't work in deploying mobility solutions. This webinar will also include an overview of the enterprise mobility industry in 2011 by SAP Mentor Kevin Benedict.

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Juniper Research's latest report claims mobile advertising revenues for mobile games will increase tenfold between 2010 and 2015. Juniper estimates that ad-spend in mobile games was $87 million last year, but will rise to $894 million by 2015.

http://www.mobile-ent.biz/news/39983/Juniper-predicts-894m-of-mobile-games-ad-revenues-by-2015

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Forty-six percent of iPad users indicate they are more productive and use their iPad daily. In fact, 13 percent of these users say the iPad is mission critical for their job.

http://community.citrix.com/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=158564368

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RIM recently provided the first hands on demonstration of the PlayBook, a seven inch touchscreen tablet that will go head to head with Apple's iPad when the Wi-Fi only version ships, likely in March.

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE7050VJ20110106

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Taiwanese smartphone maker HTC Corp. saw its fourth quarter unaudited net profit more than double from a year earlier, driven by strong growth in handset shipments.

Implementing SAP Enterprise Mobility in Fortune 500 Companies

Mobile Retailing Applications

On January 25th and 27th I will be the opening act for two webinars on the subject of Implementing SAP Enterprise Mobility in Fortune 500 Companies - Ten Lessons Learned.  I would invite you to join me and the development and implementation experts from Smartsoft Mobile who will be sharing experiences and lessons learned from their deployments.  There are two dates for this webinar, so you can register for the one that works best for your schedule.  You can register here.

The folks who will be joining me on this webinar from Smartsoft Mobile were actually involved in the design, development, deployment and support of these mobile enterprise applications.  Smartsoft is an SAP Services Partner and they have developed mobile solutions for a number of large SAP customers now.  They have also developed multiple versions of mobile retailing applications and can share what they learned in version 1.0 and implemented in version 2.0.

I hope you will join us and bring your questions!

Register here - http://www.smartsoftmobile.com/moreinfo

 

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Kevin Benedict, SAP Mentor, Mobile and M2M Industry Analyst

Phone +1 208-991-4410

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict 

Join the SAP Enterprise Mobility group 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.

Kevin’s Mobile Money News Weekly – Week of January 10, 2011

Kevin’s Mobile Money News Weekly is an online newsletter made up of the most interesting news, articles and links related to mobile payments, mobile money, e-wallets, mobile banking and mobile security that I run across each week. I am specifically targeting market size and market trend information.

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Square, the mobile payment start up from Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, announced today that it has raised a new round of funding that values the company at about $240 million.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2011/01/square-keith-rabois-mobile-payments.html

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Mopay Inc., a payment service provider for online merchants, forecasts considerable momentum and movement in the global mobile payments industry in 2011. The massive growth of the market in North America, increased consolidation and lower transaction costs are the top trends that will have a significant impact on the blossoming mobile payments industry in 2011

http://www.mobilecommercedaily.com/mobile-payments-industry-to-experience-monumental-growth-in-2011-mopay/

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Last year, only 4.1 percent of mobile phones shipped had near field communications capabilities. That number is expected triple to 13 percent in 2014, according to ISuppli.

Twitter and Tweet Convert - Kevin Benedict

Twitter Conversion

It's true.  I am but a recent convert to Twitter.  Since I typically write obnoxiously long articles, I had a difficult time understanding the value of a technology that limits itself to 140 characters.  I have now, however, seen the light and the light is an iPad app.

I use the iPad application Flipboard.  Flipboard and Paper.li are two applications that convert RSS feeds, tweets, Facebook and other content into online newspapers or magazines that are easy to read.  I am very impressed with Flipboard's ability to show the original tweet, and automatically open up the tiny URL link and display the content in the online newspaper format. 

I was simply too impatient to read through a list of tweets with enticing titles about world changing mobile technology, and not be able to see the content without waiting for the link to open in a browser and display the content.  In Flipboard it is a one step process.  All the tweet links are automatically opened and displayed in the newspaper.  BEAUTIFUL!

Mobile Expert Interview Series: Leapfactor's Lionel Carrasco

Leapfactor's Lionel Carrasco
and Luis Cabrera

I had the opportunity to spend some time on the phone with Leapfactor's founder and CEO, Lionel Carrasco, recently.  For readers not familiar with Leapfactor, they are an SAP partner that provides mobile solutions for the enterprise market.  Here are some short descriptions of their solutions:

• LeapApps, a set of cross-industry micro apps that deliver actionable information to white-collar workers in the field, including everything from approvals, alerts and business indicators to mobile intranets and collaboration tools.
• LeapShell, a proprietary Software Development Kit (SDK) that allows the platform to be wholly adopted by developers, partners and IT departments.
• LeapCentral, the cornerstone of Leapfactor’s infrastructure. Leapcentral is the device, user and application-management cloud-based infrastructure that enables Leapfactor to deliver a cost-effective and scalable mobile platform.
• LeapAgent, the interface with enterprise systems that acts as a Chinese wall separating IT systems from the services and content that Leapcentral accesses.

Lionel updated me on events at Leapfactor since I last saw them in May at Sapphire. Here are my notes from our conversation:

Kevin: Lionel, what is new at Leapfactor since May?
Lionel: We formally opened operations in Brazil this summer.  We hired an experienced SAP veteran to be our country manager.  Although 90 percent of our focus is in the USA, Brazil is an amazing market and has a big economy.  We also set up operations in Mexico.  We hired the former President of SAP Mexico to be our country manager.

Ninety Percent of IT Managers Planning New Mobility Applications

Yesterday Ian Thain from Sybase reported these findings from a recent Kelton Research survey:

• Ninety percent of IT Managers surveyed are planning to implement new mobile applications.
• Nearly one in two believe that successfully managing mobile applications will top their priority list.
• Twenty-one percent are looking to introduce 20+ mobile applications into their organizations.

This is BIG news!  Earlier this week in an interview with T.L. Neff from Pyxis Mobile, T.L. also reported that customers are planning multiple mobile application deployments.  What does this mean?  It means good news for companies that are in the EMM (enterprise mobility management) and MDM (mobile device management) market.  This information also matches up with the opinions and predictions that Bryan Whitmarsh from Sybase made in his recent interview.

Products like Sybase's Afaria, Syclo's Agentry Analytics (see short video) and B2M's mProdigy are set to play more important roles in 2011 than in any previous year.

Remember to follow me on Twitter @krbenedict!  I am using Twitter more and more to share interesting articles that I find on enterprise mobility.

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Kevin Benedict, SAP Mentor, Mobile and M2M Industry Analyst
Phone +1 208-991-4410
Follow me on 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.