Building the Case for Mobile Business (page 1 of 2)

Many companies have realised millions of dollars in annual cost savings by using internet technology for their business applications. Mobile technology offers similar opportunities to reduce costs and provide new revenues by improving business processes, creating competitive advantages, reaching new customers and serving existing ones better. Because of the business benefits associated with mobile technology you can be sure it's clearly marked on your competitors' roadmap.

The Yankee Group found more than 62 per cent of companies plan to launch mobile applications within the next two years. How can you ensure your company will benefit from mobile technology? And how do you measure those benefits? The most productive process for creating a mobile strategy contains three elements:

- Extend the right business processes
- Build an integrated platform
- Define measurable success criteria

Extend the right business processes
Your corporate strategy should drive the use of mobile technology. Determine which business processes or workflows would benefit most from being mobile-enabled first. Many mobile initiatives have been unsuccessful because people didn't understand the uniqueness of the mobile experience and mapped entire applications to a mobile deployment.

One of the most important lessons Oracle learned was to mobile-enable only those processes that guarantee the best return on investment.

Your web-based field service application may include electronic copies of service contracts, contact information, service call history, and inventory status. Does it make sense to mobile-enable all of it? If the strategy is to reduce call centre costs and improve customer service, contact information and inventory status on a repair part are the most valuable to extend to the mobile field force. Begin by focusing on processes you can streamline to cut costs or drive new revenue; for example, email or other personal productivity applications such as calendaring or scheduling. How is your productivity affected when you're away from your desk and you don't have access to these types of applications? Some estimates are in the tens of thousands of dollars per year, per employee in increased productivity. One market research company, iGillottResearch, estimates time savings of three or four hours per week, per employee with mobile email alone.

What kind of process?
Horizontal applications such as personal productivity and messaging are often the first proof-of-concept applications. They can be done on a small scale and offer the fastest return on investment. Much of the technology is available out-of-the-box, or can be hosted, so initial investment is not high. For example, one worldwide technology company integrated a simple two-way messaging field force application in less than 20 days. This means more than 10,000 field engineers can locate nearby spare parts for repairs allowing them to complete more service calls every day.

Determine which business processes or workflows
would benefit most from being mobile-enabled first;
many mobile initiatives have been unsuccessful
because people didn't understand the uniqueness of
the mobile experience and mapped entire
applications to a mobile deployment.

Sales and field force automation are key areas that can be mobile-enabled. Many successful applications mobilise tasks such as simple order entry, customer service call reports, and expense-reimbursement processing to immediately start cutting costs.