Nov/Dec 2004

Every business with field workers is introducing mobile computing and data, isn't it? Well, no, says Sharon Clancy. Many are still delaying. But the growing pains of early adopters are over, so if you don't come to grips with the technology soon, you could get left behind

If you're beginning to worry that your company might be a laggard when it comes to deploying mobile technology, the reassuring news is that you're not alone. Regular readers of m.logistics will appreciate that during 2004 the pace of adoption of wireless business solutions has been gathering momentum as more companies embrace the benefits of mobile technologies. However, we're still waiting for the predicted big explosion when paperless wireless working becomes the norm.

At first glance, this seems puzzling. The technology is there, proven and increasingly affordable. It has been widely adopted by some sectors including field service and the highly demanding courier industry. The rewards can be measured in tangible terms as a return on investment. So what, if anything, is holding some businesses back? Or is it simply that the boom has been delayed until 2005? To find some answers we've been taking some industry soundings, and asking the technology suppliers for advice on taking those first vital steps.

One consensus is that the mobile sector has reached a classic hiatus. All the early adopters are already using the technology (some are on their second- or even third-generation systems), yet for a variety of reasons, the hundreds of small and medium enterprises who comprise the bulk of the business community are only just starting.

 

These SMEs are now being targeted by the technology suppliers, who say they represent one of the most difficult market sectors to reach because the market is fragmented into vertical sectors, each with different mobile data needs. And within each company, different sorts of mobile workers add to the complexity.

Custom-built or quick fix?

With a wide variety of requirements to be met, one size definitely does not fit all. Some potential users want custom-built applications with tool sets that provide possible links into their ERP systems. Others want a quick-fix out-of-the-box solution for a specific part of their business (such as scheduling engines and despatch applications).

The challenge for users, as always, is to maximise the benefits of a standard application while customising it for your operation. The good news here is that some application sellers have now developed templates for specific industries, so that standard software can meet a higher percentage of business requirements.

This is a relatively new development. In the early days of mobile technology, the focus was on capturing data on handsets in the field and then retrieving it, either in real time or through batch processing later in the day. A live link into a corporate database was unthinkable; automated scheduling of service calls a pipe dream.

Today, wireless technology has developed to the extent where it has the potential to transform many business processes. The difficulty is in knowing where to take the first step.

Telepartner's Graham Erskine says complex purchasing processes and the perceived high-risk of deploying a mobile application are acting as a deterrent for SMEs. "Big companies have IT experts qualified to make judgements, but average-size companies with, say, fifty mobile workers, don't have that level of expertise. The SMEs in the middle of the market are not picking up the message that the risk can be minimised. They are worried about making an expensive mistake, so they do nothing.

"Managers want to be seen as the hero of their organisation, not an idiot. With a managed service, the only up-front costs are the actual handheld devices - which can be PDAs or ruggedised handheld computers. A typical price for a three-year hosted service might be £50,000. That sounds a lot but it is spread over three years. A five per cent improvement in mobile worker productivity in the first year will pay for the cost of hosting."

Even businesses who have embraced ERP or who have IT support departments are playing it cool. "The pain of introducing ERP systems is still fresh in many managers' minds, and mobilising ERP functions is a promise of more pain," says Hugh Roper, managing director of Hugh Symons. "The solution is to deploy discrete mobile applications which don't need an upgrade of the legacy system to bring benefits."

Roper believes that competitive forces will eventually drive wider mobile adoption into SMEs. "Consumers are becoming used to the higher levels of service that mobile applications make possible, whether for a package delivery or for an engineer visit. If your company cannot match those high service levels, you risk losing that customer."

For some companies, the sheer pace of change in a fast-moving sector is a key deterrent. "Managers are worried that as soon as they have deployed a mobile application something better will come along," says Andy Rapley of Orsus. "It will, but remember that in the meantime mobile data has a value in itself to the business against which to offset the cost of the deployment."

Rapley says SMEs find it easy to focus on applications but can ignore the importance of the underlying infrastructure. "Start with the logic of the business process and then think about implementation."

Philip Neame, managing director of Integrated Mobile Data, says companies should resist the temptation to buy a single, slave solution for a specific application, such as CRM or back-office sales management. "The risk is that if you continue to add stand-alone mobile applications you could end up with half a dozen different solutions, none of which integrates with any other." The future, says Neame, is in generic, open solutions such as IMD's mForms that can integrate with multiple applications and databases.

Phillip Rowden, marketing manager at mobile data specialist Cognito, says demands on today's businesses are driving requirements for access to more and more information on the move. "One of the major contributions mobile applications can deliver for organisations is an improvement in the quality of information available, and the ease with which that information can be accessed and analysed. The key point about mobile data, particularly in relation to managed services, is what it enables the business to do that it could not do before."

Rowden says the key is to stay focused on business goals. "Far too often organisations feel pressured to select solutions based on initial cost evaluations, without considering the implications or potential value of the application."

Increases in productivity

"The more complex the deployment, the greater will be the reliance on optimisation and scheduling engines," says Keith New, vice president of m-business at Aspective, which was involved in T-Mobile's successful deployment of real-time scheduling for its network maintenance engineers (m.logistics issue 5 ). "Forward thinking organisations have proved that real-time scheduling dramatically increases productivity and improves customer service. Any company with a field force of over fifty should be considering such an application."

Keith New points out that automated optimisation applications need to be flexible enough to accommodate significant differences between companies in the way field staff work and connect with the back office.

"We are asking the application to take a lot of data on board, including what hours the site is accessible, what skills the engineer must have and what parts and tolls will be required to complete the job. To achieve maximum cost reductions, companies will eventually have to integrate call-centre technology and consolidate customer information databases."

New says a good test of any scheduling application is to ask if it can accommodate the "Sevens Rules": can the tools within the application schedule work to happen in seven minutes, hours, days, weeks or even seven months, if that is what the business needs. "Each of these requirements places different demands on other processes within the organisation," New says. "Incorporating the different layers into an application is difficult, not least because the real world is a lot more complicated and less logical than machines."

Support cost

Roper says that the service aspect of mobile deployments often comes fourth or fifth down the list. "In our experience, it's only when companies are at the stage of trialling twenty or thirty devices before a roll-out to two hundred-plus workers that it dawns on them to wonder how they're going to support the hardware." Support is a cost.

Hugh Roper at Hugh Symons points out that the once a mobile deployment involves over 100 devices, it forms a critical part of the business which has to be supported. "Deploying ten or twenty devices is not rocket science, neither is supporting them in the field. If a device becomes damaged or is lost, it is possible to work around it. Deploying and managing a hundred devices, however, can be a logistical nightmare, and you must have a support strategy."

It was Hugh Symons Managed Services that controlled the mobilisation of Dyson service engineers (m.logistics, issue 13), and Roper believes demand for this integrated approach will grow. "It's not just about bringing together hardware, applications and communications. We use our own SDS software to track devices and SIM cards from the point of purchase."

Roper says companies should check whether there is a device swap-out service, and negotiate uptime contracts. "Users of our 24-hour swap-out get a replacement device within 24 hours. We manage repairs, which means we will exchange devices, giving the field worker a new one while the other one is repaired and sorting out any warranty or air-time issues.

Phillip Rowden agrees that too few companies pay attention to the total cost of ownership. "Ongoing management and support of the applications is paramount. Deploying and supporting new technology for users in the field is a major element of ownership. Most organisations will not have the immediate resource, knowledge or dedicated expertise in-house - and that means considerable expense in terms of recruiting and setting up a helpdesk and support service."