Over the last 5 years, I have been involved with more than 25 mobility projects that have achieved varied degrees of success, partly due to planning and partly due to implementation.
A common thread through most of them has been more of a managerial than a technical issue and that is that mobility has not been the CIO’s primary focus area. That is understandable, because a CIO is responsible for smooth running of the company’s enterprise systems and ensuring that they keep up with the times. And alas, mobility was considered a nice-to-have add-on but not essential. I met with numerous CIOs between 2005 and 2009 who would say, "Our ERP implementation is still getting stabilized so we will look into mobile solutions later." And those that did take them up could not give them the attention an enterprise system needed.
The good news today, after the huge downturn and thanks to HP and SAP making billion-dollar news on enterprise mobility, is that CEOs have woken up to the fact that the business world has changed and they cannot cling to the past and that mobility is here to stay and should be given closer managerial attention.
A big mistake is to not allot a full-time person, with adequate authority, to be fully responsible for a mobility project. A mobility project often becomes yet another project in the project manager’s responsibilities. A manager in a bank once complained to me, “I have 20 projects under me at any given time, how can I give mobility priority when my core system upgrade is more important?”
India is a large country and most companies want to deploy mobile solutions through out the country. That is a very difficult task because implementation involves field level support such as hand-holding the user in the initial stages of the implementation, management of devices including repairs, replacement, data connectivity, etc. Most software producers are not geared to provide this service. And more importantly, many CIOs may think that it is a trivial issue, especially as a mobile is such an easy device to use and manage. Implementations can fail if sufficient importance is not given to this aspect. And not just importance but sufficient budget too! Did you know, there are companies now that specialize in providing only mobility implementation services including providing handsets entirely as a service?
Here is another big issue with a mobile solution implementation: Do some of you remember when you first introduced enterprise grade solutions, one of the big issues was overloading of the system resulting in poor user response when all planned users got on to the system? Companies then made millions selling load-testing tools! That is now a common issue today in mobility – CIOs tend to assume that a mobile solution will easily scale up, after all a mobile solution is quite simple and straight-forward. Unfortunately, just like any other enterprise system, if the underlying technology platform is inadequate, a true on-line mobile solution will fail under load. I know of an insurance company that implemented a sales solution, not ours I assure you, that croaked when just 400 users were using it concurrently. Naturally that got fixed post-facto at immense cost and resulted in a delayed implementation.
To summarize, in my opinion, there are three important factors that can affect implementation of enterprise mobility projects,
1) Focus needs to be given by the company’s top management, that is the CEO and CIO,
2) Implementation logistics are critical and should be addressed, preferably using a separate service provider,
3) It is important to have a strong technology platform for mobility that can handle load.
Friday, July 2, 2010
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Mobile Applications for Marketing
Marketing through mobile phones has been around for some time now. It mainly consisted of a means to send text messages (SMS) to the target, promoting a product or service or offering a discount when the message is shown at a retail outlet (these discount coupons are called m-coupons). What these mechanisms lack is a means to generate pull from the consumer, that is, an incentive for the consumer to actually search for special offers. In addition, most of these SMS marketing offerings lack subsequent analytics to determine efficacy of the marketing efforts. A service provided by a company called MobiMedia, in India, is the ultimate mobile marketing solution. The consumer is sent an SMS, clicks on a link to download an application that offers an attractive and easy-to-use means to pull m-coupons of interest. The coupons can be presented at a participating retailer where they can be redeemed. Companies using the service can set up their own marketing campaigns and throughout a campaign duration can track consumer actions relevant to the promotions and also generate valuable analytics.
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
Convergence of Visual Data & Mobile Solutions
Many mobile phones today have cameras and quite a few mobile entertainment applications exist, that invoke the camera facility. It is now the turn of mobile enterprise solutions to utilize the camera phone for business use. Applications can control the camera, capture a picture and then pass it along with other information to a central server for processing. All along, the picture is treated like another data item and thus catalogued in a database for easy retrieval later. Mobile photo applications are used by insurance claims inspectors for visually recording a vehicle’s condition, by marketing people to decide on how to place consumer products on retail shelves, by loan sales persons to capture documents; and the list can go on, encompassing any application where a visual record needs to be taken for processing. An innovative application I came across was one where barcodes on redemption vouchers are read, verified and accounted for immediately, with just an ordinary camera phone instead of an expensive portable barcode reader. It is just a matter of time that mobile photo applications will become common-place in the enterprise world.
Sunday, February 21, 2010
CXO’s Guide to Enterprise Mobility – 3
I just could not resist the temptation of giving a few more tips on implementing mobile solutions.
Q: Our ERP vendor has a mobile solution; would we be better off implementing that?
A: That is a decision that can be taken only after you have examined the ERP vendor’s mobile solution with respect to your requirements. A vendor who specializes in mobile solutions would probably be more agile than an ERP vendor, in meeting your dynamically changing mobility requirements.
Q: What is the single biggest issue encountered when implementing mobile solutions?
A: The biggest issue is lack of management focus. Day-to-day operations tend to divert the attention of senior management from a mobility project, because mobility projects are often considered “nice to have” but not essential.
Q: How do we rapidly implement mobile solutions?
A: A senior manager vested with authority should be made responsible for implementing a mobile solution. This person should be dedicated for the job and should have the backing of the company’s leadership.
Q: Our ERP vendor has a mobile solution; would we be better off implementing that?
A: That is a decision that can be taken only after you have examined the ERP vendor’s mobile solution with respect to your requirements. A vendor who specializes in mobile solutions would probably be more agile than an ERP vendor, in meeting your dynamically changing mobility requirements.
Q: What is the single biggest issue encountered when implementing mobile solutions?
A: The biggest issue is lack of management focus. Day-to-day operations tend to divert the attention of senior management from a mobility project, because mobility projects are often considered “nice to have” but not essential.
Q: How do we rapidly implement mobile solutions?
A: A senior manager vested with authority should be made responsible for implementing a mobile solution. This person should be dedicated for the job and should have the backing of the company’s leadership.
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
CXO’s Guide to Enterprise Mobility – 2
In this posting I have addressed more queries that a CXO will have on enterprise mobility.
Q: We are in the throes of implementing a new ERP system. What will be the right time to get into a mobility project?
A: Mobile solutions change the way business is conducted out of the office. Most standard implementations of ERP solutions cater to the processes within the workplace. Hence as mobility is contributing a set of new processes, it can be implemented independently. There is no need to wait for an ERP implementation to be completed, to get the benefits of mobility.
Q: Then won’t the IT team get stretched while implementing ERP and Mobility at the same time?
A: Ideally, Mobility should be implemented by the business department and not IT. There is very little of IT involved particularly as a lot of mobility implementations can be started on a cloud computing model.
Q: What are the issues in integrating mobile solutions with our ERP?
A: Unless real-time data is essential, a batch model for transfer of data to and from the ERP system is ideal, and that is often a non-issue. It will also reduce the on-line load on the ERP system. Integrate in real-time only when required and keep that in mind when selecting a mobility solution vendor.
Q: We are in the throes of implementing a new ERP system. What will be the right time to get into a mobility project?
A: Mobile solutions change the way business is conducted out of the office. Most standard implementations of ERP solutions cater to the processes within the workplace. Hence as mobility is contributing a set of new processes, it can be implemented independently. There is no need to wait for an ERP implementation to be completed, to get the benefits of mobility.
Q: Then won’t the IT team get stretched while implementing ERP and Mobility at the same time?
A: Ideally, Mobility should be implemented by the business department and not IT. There is very little of IT involved particularly as a lot of mobility implementations can be started on a cloud computing model.
Q: What are the issues in integrating mobile solutions with our ERP?
A: Unless real-time data is essential, a batch model for transfer of data to and from the ERP system is ideal, and that is often a non-issue. It will also reduce the on-line load on the ERP system. Integrate in real-time only when required and keep that in mind when selecting a mobility solution vendor.
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
CXO’s Guide to Enterprise Mobility - 1
CXOs and business heads are often in a quandary with respect to investment decisions on mobile enterprise solutions. They have numerous questions that cannot be easily answered because enterprise mobility is not yet a mature practice like e-commerce. In this and the next posting, I will try and address some of these queries.
Q: What are the measurable benefits of mobile solutions to the organization?
A: Mobile solutions improve processes by redefining them and their value can often be computed in advance, but their greater value in improving the way business is conducted is often un-measurable at the micro level. The result will be contribution to an increased top-line and profits, however, the contribution cannot be easily assessed and isolated.
Q: How do we take an investment decision for enterprise mobility?
A: Trust your gut and that of your business head who asks for a mobile solution.
Q: How can we be sure a mobile solution will succeed?
A: A mobile solution is like any other computerized solution in that the benefit it accrues to an organization depends largely on how effectively it is implemented. And the onus of that lies not with the managers down the line but with the top executive management and whether they consider it a priority or not.
Q: How do we choose the right vendor for mobile solutions?
A: That is a tough decision. Just like when you choose a music system for yourself, you have to examine all the qualities of the system, understand the company manufacturing the system and check out customer feedback, not just one or two that could have been fabricated, similarly you need to see the “big picture” when choosing a mobile solutions vendor. At the end of the day, most often, you have to trust your first impression.
Q: Should we not wait for others to try out mobile solutions first instead of being “guinea pigs”?
A: If your competitor gets the benefits of mobile solutions first then you will, most likely, be left behind. Why wait, when you are convinced that mobility will give you benefits?
Q: What are the measurable benefits of mobile solutions to the organization?
A: Mobile solutions improve processes by redefining them and their value can often be computed in advance, but their greater value in improving the way business is conducted is often un-measurable at the micro level. The result will be contribution to an increased top-line and profits, however, the contribution cannot be easily assessed and isolated.
Q: How do we take an investment decision for enterprise mobility?
A: Trust your gut and that of your business head who asks for a mobile solution.
Q: How can we be sure a mobile solution will succeed?
A: A mobile solution is like any other computerized solution in that the benefit it accrues to an organization depends largely on how effectively it is implemented. And the onus of that lies not with the managers down the line but with the top executive management and whether they consider it a priority or not.
Q: How do we choose the right vendor for mobile solutions?
A: That is a tough decision. Just like when you choose a music system for yourself, you have to examine all the qualities of the system, understand the company manufacturing the system and check out customer feedback, not just one or two that could have been fabricated, similarly you need to see the “big picture” when choosing a mobile solutions vendor. At the end of the day, most often, you have to trust your first impression.
Q: Should we not wait for others to try out mobile solutions first instead of being “guinea pigs”?
A: If your competitor gets the benefits of mobile solutions first then you will, most likely, be left behind. Why wait, when you are convinced that mobility will give you benefits?
Monday, February 15, 2010
Presenting Value to the Management
A business head in a bank was convinced that mobile solutions would help his customer-contact representatives out in the field. He knew that the process would get streamlined and his managers would be able to manage the field force with greater efficiency and that significant time and effort would be saved in daily reporting and call tracking. The IT organization conducted live pilot projects and after detailed evaluation selected a vendor for supply of the mobile solution. The business head then prepared a formal request for executive sanction for the investment, highlighting that a 10% improvement in productivity would be expected.
The business head was in for a rude shock when the executive committee rejected the request because the benefits were largely intangible and moreover as the actual field force was employed by external agencies and not by the company, a lot of the benefit would accrue to them and not to the company. This is a situation that happens more often than not in companies contemplating enterprise mobility. Executives taking investment decisions want to see tangible measurable results immediately and not “in the future”. Consequently, vital decisions on implementing mobility get delayed, primarily due to procedures.
Important decisions that will elevate the company’s operations to the next level of service and efficiency, such as deploying mobile solutions, should be taken with some risk on the part of the senior managers. Taking such calculated risks is the hallmark of a progressive management.
The business head was in for a rude shock when the executive committee rejected the request because the benefits were largely intangible and moreover as the actual field force was employed by external agencies and not by the company, a lot of the benefit would accrue to them and not to the company. This is a situation that happens more often than not in companies contemplating enterprise mobility. Executives taking investment decisions want to see tangible measurable results immediately and not “in the future”. Consequently, vital decisions on implementing mobility get delayed, primarily due to procedures.
Important decisions that will elevate the company’s operations to the next level of service and efficiency, such as deploying mobile solutions, should be taken with some risk on the part of the senior managers. Taking such calculated risks is the hallmark of a progressive management.
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