Enterprise Mobility Asia News Weekly – Week of August 12, 2012

Welcome to the Enterprise Mobility Asia News Weekly, an online newsletter that consists of the most interesting news and articles related to enterprise mobility in Asia.  Asia is predicted to be the fastest area of growth for enterprise mobility between now and 2016.

Also read Field Mobility and M2M 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

According to a research study from Frost & Sullivan, the RFID technology market in the Asia Pacific region is the fastest growing in the world, with the Americas accounting for the majority of RFID revenues.  Read Original Content

The market potential for m-commerce in India is strong and growing, with 757 million unique connections and growing at 8 to 9 million each month.  Read Original Content

Singapore’s infrastructure for mobile payments using NFC technology will be rolled out through NFC-enabled mobile phones in the next several weeks with three types of payment modes.  Read Original Content

Antenna Software provides a complete cloud-based enterprise mobility suite that enables both IT pros and business executives alike to create and manage mobile apps, websites and content across the entire business.  This newsletter is sponsored in part by Antenna Software.

Search firm Baidu of China is focusing on growth in the mobile and e-commerce areas.  The company’s online advertising customer base reached 350,000 by the end of the second quarter of 2012, up 9.7 percent from the first quarter.  Read Original Content

Forrester Research predicts the number of tablets used for office work in the Asia Pacific region will reach 19 million by the end of 2012, growing to more than 83 million by 2016.  Read Original Content

China’s business-to-business e-commerce transactions generated $466.7 billion in the first half of 2012, with the number of companies using business-to-business platforms exceeding 16.5 million.  Read Original Content

According to the Internet & Mobile Association of India, India has the third largest number of Internet users, following China and the United States.  The country has an online population of 150 million, with 63 million using social media such as Facebook and Twitter.  Read Original Content

Mobile Health News Weekly – Week of August 5, 2012

The Mobile Health News Weekly is an online newsletter made up of the most interesting news and articles related to mobile health 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 Field Mobility and M2M News Weekly
Also read Mobile Commerce News Weekly
Also read Mobile Marketing News Weekly
Also read Mobility News Weekly

The market for health related apps is poised to hit $392 million in revenue by 2015 according to Frost and Sullivan. Read Original Content

The U.S. market for advanced patient monitoring systems has grown from $3.9 billion in 2007 to $8.9 billion in 2011 and is forecast to reach $20.9 billion by 2016, according to a study by Kalorama Information. Read Original Content

According to a new research report from London-based Global Data, the global mobile health market was worth $1.2 billion in 2011 and will increase in value to $11.8 billion by 2018. Read Original Content

Antenna Software provides a complete cloud-based enterprise mobility suite that enables both IT pros and business executives alike to create and manage mobile apps, websites and content across the entire business.  This newsletter is sponsored in part by Antenna Software.

Vitals, the New York-based developer of online physician information and ratings resources, is launching its first mobile application to make accessing information easier for smartphone owners. Read Original Content

Both the telehealth and mobile health markets are expected to increase dramatically over the next few years, according to market researcher GlobalData. The industry will grow from a 2011 valuation of $13.2 billion to $32.5 billion by 2018. Read Original Content

A new survey by industry analyst Parks Associates has found that a full quarter of all people who use a smartphone would like to see an application that allows them to communicate better with their doctor. Read Original Content

The telemedicine market is expected to achieve "significant" growth in the next few years, from $736 million in 2011 to $2.5 billion in 2018, according to a new study by WinterGreen Research. Read Original Content

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

Visit MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Join the SAP Enterprise Mobility and Sybase Unwired Platform Groups

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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.

MDM is Not Dead - Ask the Right Questions

In my former career as the CEO of a mobile application company, I remember my professional services team coming into my office one day and asking me to buy licenses of an MDM (mobile device management) solution from a vendor called Soti. My team wanted to be able to troubleshoot new mobile applications on a large variety of different mobile devices.  They wanted remote access to both the device and the apps so they could understand bugs and issues that were reported from the field.  This is still a very useful feature.

Today, however, few of the MDM/MAM vendors adequately support this feature.  In my experience, the ability to have remote access and remote control of a mobile device is very useful.  I recently interviewed a CEO who shared how it had taken several years and many rounds of change management classes to get his field services technicians comfortable and using mobile technology.  In these kinds of work environments, the team deploying the mobile technology is often struggling to understand if reported software bugs are real, a lack of user knowledge, or a mobile device issue.  In these cases it is far easier for the help desk or professional services team to simply take remote control of the device and investigate the issue themselves.

My professional services team found remote access and remote control to be the fastest way to understand and resolve mobile solution issues.  I would strongly recommend that you ensure your MDM/MAM vendor provides this capability, especially if you are working on customized mobile applications.

Another interesting MDM requirement I have seen in many secure and classified work environments involving research, government and military organizations, is the need to control different mobile applications based on the geographic (GPS) location.  For example, when you enter a particular campus your mobile device camera, Bluetooth and audio recording apps are automatically disabled.  When you leave that geo-fenced area, they are again enabled.  This solution combines GPS tracking, geo-fencing and remote device control.

One of my friends, who is an SAP Mentor, shared that her university work site for years would not allow mobile devices to be brought to work because they contained cameras that were not allowed on the secure research site.  That policy evolved to mobile devices needing to have tape over their camera lenses.  Of course, we can all guess how effective that was.

Many of the MDM/MAM vendors today seem only to target today's consumer type smartphones and mobile applications.  However, in many industries with mission critical mobile applications running on ruggedized industrial grade mobile smartphones and handheld computers, there is a need for a much stronger mobile device management solution.

It is interesting to me that many MDM/MAM vendors champion the cause of BYOD (bring your own device) at work but then don't support that environment.  Many of the MDM/MAM vendors still have a very difficult time supporting all Android OS versions and manufacturer's devices.  When you are selecting an MDM vendor, dig deep with your questions in this area.  Find out, in truth, what exact Android devices and OS versions they can support.  It is almost always a limited subset.  Ask if they have the ability to remote access and remote control mobile devices.  If not, that is OK as long as you understand that up front and it fits your needs.  You just don't want to be surprised and disappointed later.

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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.

Mobility News Weekly – Week of August 5, 2012

The 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 Enterprise Mobility Asia News Weekly
Also read Field Mobility and M2M News Weekly
Also read Mobile Commerce News Weekly
Also read Mobile Marketing News Weekly
Also read Mobile Health News Weekly

According to IDC, Android and iOS powered 85 percent of all smartphones shipped in the second quarter of 2012, establishing a new combined high for the mobile operating systems from Google and Apple. Read Original Content

Ninety-three percent of airlines today have "mobile services for passengers" as a top investment priority over the next three years. Fifty-eight percent are investing in major programs, and 89 percent of airlines plan to sell tickets via mobile devices by 2015, a recent SITA report revealed.  Read Original Content

More than $1 billion was wiped out of HTC's market capitalization on Monday and Tuesday combined, after the Taiwanese smartphone maker warned of weaker third-quarter earnings and reported a 45 percent plunge in July revenue.  Read Original Content

ClickSoftware is an SAP mobility partner and the leading provider of automated workforce management and optimization solutions for every size of service business.  This newsletter is sponsored in part by ClickSoftware.

Collectively, Apple and Samsung companies watched their U.S. sales increase by 43 percent from the second quarter of 2011 to the same quarter of 2012, says NPD Group. Over the same time, combined sales for other companies, such as HTC, Motorola, and LG, fell by 16 percent.  Read Original Content

The global smartphone applications processor market showed a solid 55 percent year-on-year growth in the first quarter of 2012, reaching $2.47 billion, according to Strategy Analytics.  Read Original Content

Sales of smartphones in the U.S. were up 9 percent last quarter due in large part to pre-paid phones. The NPD Group shared data showing that compared to the same quarter last year, pre-paid smartphone sales nearly doubled with growth of 91 percent.  Read Original Content

According to an IDC report, 5.4 million Windows Phone devices were sold in Q2 2012, which is 3.5 percent of the total smartphone market. Comparing this to Q2 2011, Windows Phone had a 115.3 percent growth.  Read Original Content