What is Mobile ERP/CRM?
If you have ever tried to work away from your desk, whether
you were managing sales, working on a project, or servicing a machine, you know
that the fun part is doing the actual job and not filling out the forms and
dealing with "Admin." In fact, you may regard Admin as pen pushers, bureaucrats,
or worse.
You, the traveling professional, may come to that conclusion
when you are not supported by your organization's ERP/CRM (Enterprise Resource
Planning/Customer Relationship Management) system when performing your role.
Consequently, you have a hard time communicating validated information and
reconciling the associated paperwork.
Imagine a world where price list distribution is not a major
task, where the inventory in the service van is managed in much the same way as
the central warehouse, and where time registrations are signed by the customer
after each working session.
In such a world there will be fewer paper forms and pen
pushers. Businesses will experience such positive effects as significantly lower
transaction cost, improved cash flow, fewer disagreements with existing
customers, and more satisfied employees.
Mobile devices have existed for decades, but in the last few
years they have developed into affordable computers and powerful, instant-on
devices that come in a multitude of brands, colors, shapes, and forms.
Using this hardware and the appropriate operating system it
is today possible to support such employee groups as sales representatives,
service technicians, and consultants, and to enable them to conclude business
transactions such as orders, service reports, and project registrations when and
where they are created.
Mobile ERP/CRM is about automating existing business
processes and enabling new business processes.
It is claimed that 25% of the workforce is traveling one or
more days a week. While away, many are supported by e-mail, calendar, and
contact information, but very few are supported by information from their ERP/CRM
system.
So mobile ERP/CRM is relevant to a large number of
professionals and that could be the reason why many analysts predict very high
growth in the mobile computing industry.
The past
In the past most attempts were hampered by difficulties in
integrating the mobile computers with the administrative back-end systems and
maintaining the application on the many devices out in the field.
Other attempts have been hampered by customers and solution
developers believing in the illusion created by the mobile phone operators that
one day soon we will all be connected anywhere, anytime.
What does technology allow us to do?
Today, development environments allow software developers to
create business applications based on increasingly powerful mobile devices and
integrated with the administrative back-end systems through advanced and
sophisticated interfaces.
Integrated business-centric mobile platforms offer flexible,
end-to-end support, and integrated development environments with open source
code dramatically lower the threshold for those systems integrators who wish
simply to meet customer needs rather than to invest in bottom-up development of
mobile software.
What makes Windows CE special?
By repeating the openness that made Windows so special in
its time, Microsoft enables a multitude of software and hardware developers to
create mobile solutions that have special appeal to one or more market segments.
What are the true benefits of mobile computers?
No doubt the new devices look really cool, but that's hardly
enough to label them business tools. So why invest in mobile computers?
Today's professionals, sporting chic, super-thin laptops,
are one-eyed kings among the blind. Some carry $3,000 worth of equipment just to
be able to receive e-mails and calendar updates—not particularly clever when the
same effect can be achieved on a handheld for a fraction of the cost.
Printer-friendly version