Reader Forum: Five unexpected benefits of the mobile enterprise

Editor’s Note: Welcome to our weekly Reader Forum section. In an attempt to broaden our interaction with our readers we have created this forum for those with something meaningful to say to the wireless industry. We want to keep this as open as possible, but maintain some editorial control so as to keep it free of commercials or attacks. Please send along submissions for this section to our editors at: dmeyer@ardenmediaco.com or tford@ardenmediaco.com.
Companies are adopting mobile applications at a brisk pace to help them improve workflow, increase data accuracy or add specific business efficiencies. According to IDC Research, 72.2% of the U.S. workforce in 2008 was mobile, which represents the highest mobile workforce worldwide. By 2011, IDC forecasts that 1.2 billion workers, or one third of the total workforce worldwide, will be using mobility tools.
For many enterprises, mobility is becoming a standard expectation, like Internet access. Employees assume they will have e-mail and access to some corporate applications on their smartphones. Some enterprises, though, are still dragging their feet and asking “Why use limited human and financial resources on a mobility project when what I have isn’t broken?”
Because mobility can add surprising speed and efficiencies to your current business processes. Plus, a mobile enterprise often opens a window to advantages that companies never considered when they scoped out the project and made their original estimation. If you are still skeptical, these companies’ mobile experiences are eye-opening references for adopting the mobile work style.
1. Real-time apps improve customer satisfaction: Happy customers yield repeat business. Typically, mobile access means responding more quickly to customer questions – which customers always appreciate. For the City of Ottawa, however, mobilizing the TransitOnRoute, led to much smoother daily commutes for bus riders.
“The new solution has helped us maintain our good track record in public safety, but the implementation also represents a significant cultural change for OC Transpo,” says Bob Goody, manager of Transportation Operations at OC Transpo. “We can now proactively see bus performance and act on the information to make sure buses remain on-time as much as possible. We’ve also been able to make the overall system more efficient, which means we don’t have to employ as many buses.”
For the City of Ottawa the top line news is that the reduction in capital costs, coupled with a wide range of operational savings across all of OC Transpo, led to a long-term ROI that could potentially reach $11.2 million after 10 years. For the people of Ottawa who are sometimes frustrated by the unpredictability of public transportation, Transit OnRoute helps them get to their jobs and recreational activities on-time more consistently.
2. Mobility secures the best-in-class new hires: Mobility has a wow factor that cannot be dismissed. Announcements about new smartphone releases grab lots of consumer attention, and a smartphone with mobile apps catches the customers’ eyes and makes them feel like they are safely in the hands of an organization at the forefront of technology. The appeal of mobile technology can also attract first-round picks from graduating classes.
After Kindred Healthcare rolled out its point-of-care mobile application to therapists, the healthcare service company realized it had an advantage in acquiring new contracts and recruits. New contracts were coming in from healthcare facilities impressed by the efficiency and accuracy of the mobile apps, and a pool of new talented employees were eager to join the Kindred staff. Rehabilitation organizations must compete for the finite pool of therapy graduates each year, and many of the best students chose Kindred because they perceived the company to be more technically advanced than other healthcare organizations.
3. Pictures are worth more than a thousand words:
You may want to dismiss that camera feature on the smartphone, but device manufacturers are now offering capabilities of 8 megapixel cameras – an increase up from 2 megapixels that were available just a year ago. For many companies, a digital picture is more adept at providing verifiable details than a hurried, written summary.
In the wake of Cyclone Larry, which hit North Queensland in March 2006, Ergon’s 400 field inspectors accurately crosschecked assets on the ground with details in the centralized asset management system database. The team compared detailed information and digital mapping of all of the power poles in the system to damages the power poles received during the cyclone. Inspectors relied on their mobile devices to get GPS location information for each asset and a full maintenance history for each pole. They attached photographic evidence of damage to the pole and synchronized it back to head office, where a decision was made on whether the asset should be condemned or repaired. Having a mobile solution – and digital images – enabled Ergon Energy to rapidly restore power to more than 130,000 customers, while ensuring record-keeping standards were maintained.
4. Personally owned smartphones reduce IT training and help desk resources: For many employees, smartphone devices are exceptionally user friendly. Mobile information workers use the devices daily in their personal lives, and they are very savvy about the different features and functions. Companies that welcome multiple smartphone devices and support a heterogeneous environment are realizing that smartphone users are often less reliant on IT.
When Baloise Insurance introduced mobile applications and smartphones into its environment, IT allowed employees to synchronize the mobile device of their choice with corporate systems and data through a self-service portal with the company’s intranet. Approximately 600 employees registered for mobile access to corporate applications; more than 300 users registered their personally owned iPhones.
“Virtually all iPhone users install the software on their devices without any assistance from the IT department. As a result, we’ve been able to dramatically reduce our IT support costs while greatly enhancing user satisfaction, says Marc Baier, Baloise Insurance’s director of collaboration and workplace services.
IT costs for both engineering and support have been substantially reduced. Approximately 90% of iPhone users require no IT support at all. In addition, the number of calls to the help desk has dropped by more than 50%.
5. Reduced print jobs decreases operational costs:
While we haven’t reached the goal of a paperless office yet, mobility is greatly reducing the need for print manuals, sales documentation and the like that gets outdated as soon as it’s bound. Field personnel, salespeople, marketing groups and others are constantly referring to printed reference materials. Moving that paper online can ensure that the information is up-to-date and accurate. A change to an online document can take less than a day while printed document changes can take a week or even longer.
Online documentation also reduces printing costs. Considering that the typical printing fee for 400 copies of a 25-page manual at Kinko’s is $4,100, companies can quickly see printing costs add up.
A U.K. satellite provider that is a customer of AltLogic moved its field services personnel to a mobile solution so that users would have field documentation at their fingertips. “Our customer … eliminated approximately 5 million pieces of paper per annum, saving about 800 trees every year,” says Robin Borders, technical director at AltLogic.
And don’t forget about the earthquake victim in Haiti who used his iPhone when he was caught in the collapse of the Hotel Montana in Port-au-Prince. He relied on a downloaded medical application to diagnose his injur
ies and to help prevent him from going i
nto shock, and he used the camera to map his surroundings.
The hope is that smartphones in the enterprise won’t need to be life-saving devices, but they can introduce any number of unexpected benefits. When equipped with business apps, smartphones are proving to be more useful than ever imagined.