Kevin Benedict Ponders the Future

ClickSoftware and Rugged Working Environments

It is easy to forget about the world beyond the pocket, but it remains out there. There is a large market for mobile devices that must survive the rigors of rain, sand, mud and daily impacts. In the field service automation space, these working environments are the norm. SAP mobility partner ClickSoftware focuses on this area of enterprise mobility, and this means they add features to their mobility suite that others don't.

I had the opportunity to interview Gil Bouhnick from ClickSoftware a few months ago, and he shared that one of their recent projects included building union regulations and rules into the mobile application. Before certain tasks could be requested or started the union rules were considered in the mobile application. How many iPhone and BlackBerry applications have these requirements?

Because ClickSoftware focuses on rugged environments where the field service technician, lineman, or inspector may be working in solitary and remote locations, features have been added to their solutions that would alert the office in case of an emergency. Again, not many BlackBerry or iPhone applications have that requirement.

I have worked on many mobile forms projects in my time, so I appreciate that ClickSoftware has the solution ClickMobile Forms Editor. Mobile forms may seem like a rather simple applications these days, but they can be of enormous value. Let me explain. Mobile forms applications can have branching workflows in them. If an inspection reveals a measurement is XYZ, then it automatically jumps to mobile form page 16 where additional questions are asked. If the measurement was ABC, then it automatically continues to form page 2. These types of automated mobile forms and their workflows can direct the mobile workforce to complete the field data collection task completely and accurately the first time. Enterprise asset management, field services and inspection services all require extensive field inspection work that can benefit from mobile forms that wireless synchronize with the office.

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Kevin Benedict, SAP Mentor, SAP Top Contributor, Mobile Industry Analyst
CEO/Principal Consultant, Netcentric Strategies LLC
http://www.netcentric-strategies.com/
www.linkedin.com/in/kevinbenedict
http://twitter.com/krbenedict
***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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M2M Market Overview Part 2 - Consumer Electronics

I just completed a 40 page analyst report on the M2M industry last week. It is a fascinating market, but I am relieved it is finished. Analyst reports are like taking a four week final exam at the university. If you are interested in the M2M (machine-to-machine) or embedded mobile devices market for consumer electronics, you may want to watch this short video that I recorded on the consumer electronics segment of M2M.

I am now working on an executive workshop to help companies understand M2M and the value for remote asset management. Contact me if you would like to discuss!

One of the things I am watching closely these days is to see if enterprise mobility vendors will add M2M data management to their offerings, or whether they will limit their support to smartphones and mobile computers. What makes this interesting is that M2M/embedded mobile devices are sending mobile data to servers that are increasingly useful and valuable to ERPs (see attached image from http://www.m2mexpo.com/). Where will the line be drawn between mobile enterprise applications and data from embedded mobile devices. One is data from a human, and the other is data sent wirelessly from a machine. It will be fun to watch!

For more information related to M2M see the links below:

Article - M2M Market Opportunities - An Introduction
Short Video on M2M- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ob3C5t_6kAQ

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Kevin Benedict, SAP Mentor, SAP Top Contributor, Mobile Industry Analyst
CEO/Principal Consultant, Netcentric Strategies LLC
http://www.netcentric-strategies.com/
www.linkedin.com/in/kevinbenedict
http://twitter.com/krbenedict
***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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Mobile Expert Video Series: SAP VP of EcoHub, Usman Sheikh

Usman Sheikh is VP of SAP's EcoHub, and I had the opportunity at Sapphire this year to interview him about SAP's ecosystem of mobility partners.

What is the SAP EcoHub? EcoHub is a website and a mobile application that accelerates the process of finding the right solution at the right time and provides a new means to address key questions including:

Have I considered all relevant solutions?
Is this applicable to my business?
Are there success stories in my industry?
Is this partner solution certified?
What are my peers saying?

For more interviews in the Mobile Expert Video Series click here.

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Kevin Benedict, SAP Mentor, SAP Top Contributor, Mobile Industry Analyst

CEO/Principal Consultant, Netcentric Strategies LLC

http://www.netcentric-strategies.com/
www.linkedin.com/in/kevinbenedict
http://twitter.com/krbenedict
***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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Mobile Expert Video Series: Syclo's CEO Rich Padula

SAP has many partners in the mobility industry, but only three co-innovation level partners in the enterprise mobility space. They are:

Sybase (SAP announced their intent to acquire Sybase)
RIM (the BlackBerry folks)
Syclo (EAM - mobile enterprise asset management experts)

At Sapphire this year I was able to interview Rich Padula, Syclo's CEO. I asked him to explain the "co-innovation" partnership program with SAP and what it really means.

Syclo's mobile solutions include pre-packaged and pre-integrated applications that mobilize CRM, ERP and EAM systems to improve communications and data capture.

For more interviews in the Mobile Expert Video Series click here.

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Kevin Benedict, SAP Mentor, SAP Top Contributor, Mobile Industry Analyst
CEO/Principal Consultant, Netcentric Strategies LLC
http://www.netcentric-strategies.com/
www.linkedin.com/in/kevinbenedict
http://twitter.com/krbenedict
***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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Mobile Expert Video Series: Vivido Labs' CEO, Greg Tomb

I was the moderator at several enterprise mobility events at Sapphire this year and following one of the sessions I was able to sit down and interview Greg Tomb, the former President of SAP Americas, and now the CEO of an enterprise mobility company called Vivido Labs. In the interview, he makes three very interesting points about mobility:

Mobility is a way of getting more value out of your existing SAP investment by making it available to those in the mobile workforce.
Mobility can enable business process re-engineering by compressing the time of some business processes from days to hours.
Extending SAP mobility into the hands of those not at their desk, can increase productivity for many users.

Vivido Labs describes themselves as leaders in smartphone enterprise mobility with their Mowego mobile platform and their portfolio of mobile enterprise business applications.

For more videos interviews from the Mobile Expert Video Series click here.