Kevin Benedict Ponders the Future

The Tempo of Enterprise Mobility

I taught mobile strategy workshops in 11 countries last year. In these workshops, one of the first questions I ask is, "What tempo is your business wanting and/or needing to support?" The definition of tempo that I use is "rate of motion or activity." In other words, "Does your business environment require a real-time data and communication environment, near-real-time, or is an hourly or daily tempo sufficient?" These are important questions and they dictate what kind of mobile solution architecture you should be considering.

I helped a large mining company a few years ago to think through their mobile strategy. They operated large underground mines in remote locations. They needed production numbers from the mine to prepare downstream resources to process and transport the mined materials. They needed to know who came to work in remote locations, who was sick, who was on vacation, etc. They needed to know what equipment required repair and maintenance and when that work would impact production. They needed to know the production of each shift.

At the time the mining company contacted me, they were using color coded sheets of dirty paper to collect this data in the mine, and at the end of each shift, the supervisor delivered it to a job shack at the top of the mine and an administrative person would enter the data into a networked software system on a desktop computer.

The mining company wanted to upgrade their processes and communication from once every shift, to a real-time tempo. They wanted instant notification if equipment broke down, and if parts or expert technicians were needed to keep production going. They wanted to know instantly about any safety issues. They wanted to know the production numbers throughout the shift, not just at the end of the shift.

Every business process and industry has an optimal operational and communication "tempo." Knowing what tempo is possible, and how an increased tempo could help improve your operations is critical. Enterprise mobility solutions have the capability of revolutionizing complete industries by increasing their tempo to provide better customer service, respond to issues faster, fix problems before they become bigger, take advantage of opportunities before competitors can respond, and to greatly improve productivity and efficiencies.

Some companies understand the competitive advantages that an increased tempo offers, but others don't. Even today, I have seen companies implementing enterprise mobility solutions and mobile strategies that effectively limit them to a relatively slow tempo for the next three or four years, while their competitors are creating infrastructure and mobile architectures that will enable real-time communications and updates. These companies see value in real-time business analytics, real-time updates, real-time alerts and notifications, real-time GPS tracking, real-time scheduling, real-time CRM data, real-time inventory updates, real-time production information, etc.

What tempo would optimize your business or business process? What will it take to support a faster tempo? Do you have the capability of processing and utilizing real-time mobile data, or would the data be wasted on antiquated back-end systems and and out-data processes?

My recommendation is to understand your current tempo of communication and operations and how an increased tempo could positively impact your business. Identify the bottlenecks in your system that limit your tempo and start removing them. Mobile data sent from smartphones, tablets, mobile handheld computers, M2M, RFID, bar code scanners, GPS, etc, can provide you with real-time data. Your challenge is knowing what to do with it, and how to integrate and process it to improve your competitive position.

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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.

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

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

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

According to a survey from research firm Analysys International, tablet sales in China have increased 63 percent in the past year. Chinese consumers purchased 2.34 million tablets during the second quarter of 2012, with iPads comprising 72.6 percent of the sales. Read Original Content

India’s Tyroo Direct has launched new product offerings for mobile performance to enable advertisers to scale their digital marketing campaigns by being visible on all screen types - web, tablets and mobile. 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.

To meet the demand for high bandwidth mobile broadband access, Huawei will work with China Mobile to deploy WLAN mobile backhaul networks in 17 cities in the Shandong province. Read Original Content

A new study from Adobe reveals consumers in the Asia Pacific region primarily use mobile search due to time spent away from home and not having access to a desktop PC. Read Original Content

RFID technology is being utilized in India to provide the public with schedule-related information and to ensure buses operated through the Vytilla Mobility Hub stay on schedule. Read Original Content

A new mobile marketplace in Singapore and a winner at Startup Weekend Singapore 2012, Carousell, has gone live and the app is available exclusively in Singapore. Read Original Content

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

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

The U.S. market for “advanced” wireless patient monitoring systems more than doubled in a four-year period, from $3.9 billion in 2007 to $8.9 billion in 2011 – at an annual rate of nearly 23 percent – according to a new report from Kalorama Information. Read Original Content

According to a study by Verasoni, the top 150 health-related apps have been downloaded more than 67.5 million times onto iPhones, and more than 59.1 million times onto Android devices. Among these 150 apps, the most popular are related to weight loss. 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

A Vitera Healthcare survey shows that nine of ten doctors would like to be able to use an electronic health record on their mobile devices. In a survey of 240 Vitera customers, most of them office-based physicians, 72 percent said they used mobile devices in healthcare. Read Original Content. Read Original Content

Ford has integrated IMS Health's Allergy Alert app into its Sync AppLink software to allow drivers with an iPhone or iPad to track pollen counts on the road. Read Original Content

According to research by Pew, 88 percent of Americans have a cellphone and about half of those are smartphones. Only 10 percent of Americans have downloaded health-related apps on those devices, a figure that’s remained stable since 2010. Read Original Content

Health monitoring for seniors will bring 36 million wearable health monitors to market by 2017, an increase from 3 million in 2011, according to an ABI Research report. Read Original Content

SAP Enterprise Mobility and M2M in Your Company

Last week I spent some time with SAP's Sanjay Poonen discussing M2M (machine-to-machine) communications. I came away from that discussion excited that SAP was focusing on this emerging market that I have found so fascinating. Most IT departments have been so focused on figuring out how to implement enterprise mobility and support communicating with people using smartphones, tablets and other mobile devices, that they have not yet thought about communicating with mobile and/or remote machines.

Here is an excerpt from the article I wrote last week about my discussions with SAP's Sanjay Poonen on the topic of M2M. "Sanjay and I spent quite a bit of time talking about where mobile security is going, beyond MDM. From MDM to Mobile App Management, to Secure Content Management, to eventually M2M (machine-to-machine) communications. He talked about how this field will have a big impact in SAP’s plans. In fact, Sanjay had just chaired a conference call with about 50 SAP internal people to brainstorm about M2M, and there is a great deal of excitement around SAP’s plans in this area."

Perhaps it is early, but not too early to begin pondering the strategic value of M2M in your company. What machines, sensors, facilities, security systems, vehicles, plant equipment, supplies and materials would it be valuable for your ERP and other systems to automatically communicate with? What automatic monitoring data would be useful for your operations?

Canal and irrigation management systems are regularly using M2M technology today in remote sensors to record and wirelessly transmit water levels, the statuses of gates and to adjust water levels.

Utility companies are one of the biggest users of M2M technologies. Their assets (lines, substations, transformers, pipelines, storage tanks etc) are in remote locations and remote M2M sensors and wireless chips can monitor their statuses and report to a central location.

Fleet management systems also take advantage of M2M. Vehicles report their location, speed, fuel usage, hours of operation, repair and maintenance needs all automatically using M2M. This is machine's sending data automatically to other machines.

Vending machine companies today are widely using M2M technologies that enable their vending machines to automatically report inventory levels and other information from the kiosk or vending machine. You can imagine the savings in efficiencies if the route driver knows in advance exactly what each vending machine needs, and when it needs it to maximize sales and productivity.

Manufacturing plants can be revolutionized by the use of M2M technologies. Can you imagine having a central team managing plants around the world from one location that is receiving and processing M2M communications from all of the equipment in all the plants? Wow!

Large companies can end up having massive amounts of M2M data flowing into the company. The next challenge of course is what to do with it. M2M data looks just like data coming in from a smartphone. The data from a Yes or No answer on a smartphone app, looks just like M2M data reporting the gate is open in yard #3. IT departments need to ensure the data is secure and accurate. They need to monitor and track all of their M2M technologies and wireless embedded chips to ensure they are working properly and the data is good. This data needs to be integrated with the right systems. The systems need to understand what to do with it.

M2M communications can be the front-end data collection mechanisms for many systems. The automated inputs for all kinds of business processes. Big Data technologies and business analytics to quickly interpret the meaning of all the data and to translate it into a form that can help managers make good real-time data driven decisions in the field. These alerts and notifications can be sent to the mobile devices of managers no matter their locations for quick and immediate responses.

M2M systems can reuse many of the same mobile middleware, mobile device management, integration, provisioning and security components that are used for supporting enterprise mobility today. The main challenge will be developing an enterprise-wide M2M strategy, and since this is also the big challenge with enterprise mobility, we may have to wait in line.

ILS Technology is an SAP Partner