In brief
Over the past few years, mobile terminals have developed into truly universal devices. In the past, functionality was restricted to simple telephony and the management of addresses and contacts, but the success of hardware platforms such as the Apple iPhone show the potential these ever more powerful devices have.
Their constant connection to the Internet, combined with their intuitive usability and powerful system environment, represent not only the basis for a successful establishment in the consumer market, but also offer an excellent foundation for providing the employees of a company with up-to-date information and process chains with new data in real time.
What are the advantages of mobile terminals?
The current generation of mobile terminals offers everything necessary to be able to conduct all business processes from nearly anywhere – even independent of stationary clients. In particular, their permanent online availability and high bandwidth due to a widespread UMTS network enable:
- Flexibilization and acceleration of workflows
- Improvement in data quality due to more current information
- Reduction in process costs due to shorter processing times
- Securing of process chains with qualitatively better data
- Increased innovation capability due to more flexible workflows.
What are the key points to consider when introducing mobile solutions?
The special requirements for the use of mobile applications must be kept in mind. Mobile business needs a powerful technological infrastructure that includes not only the necessary terminals, but also ensures a constant connection to the company network, e.g., based on the company's own WLAN or the public UMTS/EDGE/GSM network. These new external accesses require careful consideration from the standpoint of security requirements, and, depending on those results, may necessitate the installation of special protective mechanisms.
At the application level, end users must gain familiarity with a new medium, and be trained to work with the new devices. Moreover, the special features of online/offline functionality must be taken into consideration during development, along with other problems that may occur, for example, in data synchronization.
How can mobile potential be recognized?
There are basically two approaches to consider when optimizing business processes using mobile business: Either a complete redefinition must take place, which then consistently uses mobile activities, or existing processes must be analyzed and partial areas extended or replaced by mobile activities. While the first approach offers greater opportunities for improvement, successive adaptation is less risky. This allows companies to build mobile process know-how step by step, take the latest technological advances into account, and ensure user acceptance through an evolutionary process.
Mobile business potentials can be recognized by separating individual process chains, examining individual activities, and evaluating the data processed by them according to the following questions:
- Where does the data come from?
- Is mobile data entry or processing feasible?
- What amounts of data are processed?
- Where do stationary solutions create bottlenecks?
If local areas can be identified, they can be (partially) replaced by mobile applications as an example, and then used to increase acceptance.
The construction of the mobile infrastructure can run parallel to this.
Custom solutions
A series of technological questions need to be answered before implementing mobile terminals. Besides the mobile infrastructure, these include topics like the capabilities of mobile terminals, and choosing the right hardware and development platforms for custom solutions.
The most important examples are currently the iPhone, Android, Blackberry, and .NET, and it is important to identify the best device platform based on concrete requirements. In addition to the hardware, the different approaches provided by different software development platforms must also be weighed in the selection, and their advantages and disadvantages considered.
Consist provides you with solution options
Mobile business represents a great opportunity for companies to adapt their business processes to the dynamic requirements of modern industrial society on the employee and customer side, thus increasing productivity and service quality.
Consist can help you with process analysis, and offers independent consultation and complete support in the implementation of your mobile strategy.
