Think Horizontal

In the previous issue (May 2003, p. 58), I examined a variety of vertical, or industry-specific, markets, and identified the most successful mobility strategies that companies within those markets are currently implementing. Horizontal markets are industry market segments that cut across a wide variety of industries. Typically, these horizontal markets map to common corporate functions such as customer relationship management or sales force automation (Fig. 1). This article will cover various mobile strategies for modernizing these corporate functions that have consistently demonstrated significant return-on-investment (ROI). Some of these strategies use off-the-shelf software, but others require custom development and integration. That might mean an involved development effort (check out PocketPCmag.com Developer Search), or it could be something that you could easily build yourself using a product such as Visual CE by Syware.

Fig. 1. Examples of vertical and horizontal markets.

Communications

From e-mail and text messaging to data streaming and wireless Voice over IP (VoIP), many business scenarios can see productivity or efficiency enhancements from handheld wireless communications technology. Service technicians and system administrators can be notified of a particular issue or technical malfunction and have the opportunity to respond immediately with a resolution. Resource usage and status levels can automatically be streamed automatically to individuals who need that information. Individuals can communicate back and forth regarding just about anything. As far as communications are concerned, the imagination is truly the only limitation. There are some usability issues in the short term, but they will be resolved.

Customer Relationship Management (CRM)

CRM is sometimes used as an all-encompassing term for almost any type of horizontal enterprise software, but for our purposes we will define it as any system that can be used to enhance the relationship with the customer. The most common mobile CRM systems are merely extensions of an existing CRM system through a handheld interface. This could include customer records, communication logs, ongoing requirements, buying trends, or any other type of customer-related data imaginable. Those systems can often provide a relatively significant ROI simply because they are usually fairly inexpensive to implement and deploy. But the most innovative mobile CRM systems are those that leverage features that are impossible to implement in a non-handheld application. Examples include on-site customer survey collection, barcode scanning for product/customer look-up, and mobile productivity trending and analysis.

Field Force Automation (FFA)

Nearly every company that has critical, paper-based mobile processes could benefit from Field Force Automation. For the purpose of this article, we will define FFA as any system that deals with corporate data in a mobile environment by performing Field Data Access, Field Data Analysis, or Field Data Collection. It is very likely that more than half of all successful, ROI-generating enterprise handheld deployments could be considered Field Force Automation systems. FFA is hands-down the current "killer app" of enterprise mobile computing.

Fig. 2. Field Data Analysis: Real-time Analysis of Data and Information Streams.

Field Data Access

Many business processes require access to some form of corporate data. Currently that data might be accessed by looking at a piece of paper, browsing through a reference manual, or calling someone on a telephone. Self-serve, real-time dynamic data access from a Pocket PC in a mobile environment can be extremely beneficial if the data is constantly changing, or if it is often filtered or sorted. Corporate data, reference manuals, equipment service history, performance info, and various statistical values are all common usage scenarios for Field Data Access.