Enterprise Mobile Tips and Tricks

Download a copy of the free eBook Enterprise Mobile Tips And Tricks. This book covers a wide spectrum of information pertaining to enterprise mobile projects. To support the widest variety of reader formats, the index contained in the book has been kept as simple as possible. However to get a good idea of what is covered, the full table of contents is listed below:

Introduction

• What is this book about? 
• What is enterprise mobility? 
• Key concepts 
• Categories of enterprise mobility 
• HTML5 or Native 
• Online or Offline 
• Who is this book written for? 
• History of mobile computing 

Why a mobile enterprise 

• Starting the mobile journey 
• Mobile business case 
• Drivers and Principles 
• Gathering requirements 
• Benefits of enterprise mobility 
• Employee Self Service 
• CRM / Sales 
• Service / Plant Maintenance / Asset Maintenance 
• Stock Take 
• Proof of Delivery 
• Mobile Training & Documentation 
• Mobile Inventory/ Warehouse Management 
• Retail Loyalty Application 
• Customer Self Service Application 
• Calculating the ROI 
• Benefit Calculations 
• Cost Calculations 
• Risks 
• Mobile Tender 
• Request for Quote 
• Evaluation and Selection 

Mobile Project 

• Project Initiation 
• Prototyping and/or a Proof of concept 
• Design & Blueprint 
• Business Process 
• Mobile Application Screens 
• Data Model 
• Integration 
• Infrastructure 
• Communications 
• Security & Authentication 
• Device Selection 
• Requirements Traceability 
• Building the solution 
• Testing 
• GUI, Screens, & Integration 
• Mobile Devices 
• Communications 
• Infrastructure & Performance 
• Authentication & Security 
• Roll-out 
• Data Migration 
• Training & Change Management 
• Final Prep, Pilot, & Rollout 

Mobile as Usual 

• Support 
• Managing Change 
• Measuring Benefits 
• Glossary & Acronyms

Multiple formats of the book are available from Smashwords additionally you can download it from Apple, Google, and Amazon. I'd love to get some feedback for inclusion in the next version.

The Top 10 Enterprise Mobility Top Tens

A quick little blog to share a collection of information relating to Enterprise Mobility. Everyone likes top ten lists so here is my list of the Top 10 lists covering Enterprise Mobility!:

• The Top 10 Enterprise Mobility Blogs
  Wow Kelly Rice is great. A good indication is this list of useful blogs.
• Top 10 Enterprise Mobility Myths Busted
  A great collection of tips by Chris Marsh
• Top 10 Mobile Apps in Enterprise
  Excellent research resource outlining results on the importance of mobile apps by Tony Rizzo
• Bill Clark's Top 10 Enterprise Mobility Trends
  Quick video showing some of the hottest trends in mobility
• 10 Enterprise Mobile Device Security Websites
  Thanks Dummies
• Top 10 Threats to Enterprise Mobility
  Slide Show with detailed explanation
• Top 10 ways to optimize your network for mobility
  Well thought through list by Joel Vincent
• Top 10 tips from Berlin Mobile Enterprise App Revolution
  A great collection of information relating to mobility trends.
• Top 10 Considerations when choosing a mobile platform
  Great platform independent advice.
• Top 10 Tech News Sites
  Collection of places to find out the latest news

No reason that this has to remain the ten top 10. If you are aware of any other great resources please let me know and I will add them to the list :)

Enterprise Mobility more than just Hardware and Software

Recently I presented at CEBIT and explained why Enterprise Mobility is more than just hardware and software. For those of you who couldn't attend here is an overview of the presentation:

Intro
Enterprise Mobility is not new, it has been around for many years in one form or another. There are plenty of early adopters out there and experienced exponents will tell you that Enterprise Mobility is more than just software and hardware. Enterprise Mobility is a journey undertaken by business to realise the benefits of a mobile workforce.

Why Mobilise?
Enterprise Mobility is about getting efficient use out of your mobile workforce and the technology available to them. People who perform work away from the desktop use information and they collect data. This data is then used back in the organisation as information. So efficient management of the data/information cycle leads to Less Bad and More Good.

Less Bad
Leveraging Enterprise Mobility has the power to remove a lot of waste from an organisation. One example is a beverage company that delivers drinks to its resellers. Their process involved printing the paperwork for the truck run, loading the truck, delivering the goods and handing a carbon copy of the invoice to the customer for signature and taking payment. Now this sounds ok but of course what happens in real life is that sometimes the goods were damaged, or loaded on the truck wrong, or the customer changed their mind, or a 1000 other things went “wrong”. This of course lead to truck drivers getting out their pen and calculator and manually adjusting the invoice. Once back at the depot there would be a reconciliation nightmare both for cash and for inventory. Now replacing this process with a mobile solution that included barcode scanner, a mobile printer, and a secure credit card payment system meant that all allowed adjustments could be made on the spot and the backend system updated automatically.

More Good
Enterprise Mobility isn’t just about getting rid of the bad things. It’s about increasing good things. Processes like Field Service and CRM are greatly enhanced by a mobile solution. When Sales Reps or field workers have a plan on a piece of paper they cannot adapt quickly to changes. With a mobile solution information can be shared more easily. Between the different people in the field and with the planners back in the office. Work can be more collaborative, accurate, and timely.

Mobile Challenges - Hype
There is no doubt that there are a lot of statistics around about mobility. In fact around 90% of statistics about Mobility say mobility is fantastic. I’m sure you are all familiar with a variety of quotes about statistics one of my favourites is “There are 2 kinds of statistics, the kind you look up and the kind you make up”. Sometimes statistics are quite useful but I’d keep a watchful eye open and always ask the question what does it mean for my business?

Justification
The art form of benefits calculations and business value. It's easy to be swayed by stories of large cost savings or increases in throughput. As an advocate of mobility I believe you can get good business value from mobile initiatives. But you need to do your due diligence. Understand the benefit areas can be wide reaching and include things like reduction in ongoing training and change management. Mobile initiatives can often form the bridgehead for future mobile work and this can be challenging to factor in.

New Technology
Mobile technology can require learning a new language with a whole set of its own acronyms and terminology. HTML5, MEAP, MDM, MDAP, etc, etc. Adding to the confusion an acronym can mean one thing in the mobile arena and something completely different to another audience. I remember having a conversation with someone awhile back about MDM. They thought I was discussing Master Data Management while I was happily referring to Mobile Device Management. The challenge here is of course: "What's the right solution?"

Rapid Change
There is plenty of evidence of rapid change in software and hardware in the mobile arena. Not long ago everyone was using a Nokia, then a Blackberry, now maybe an iPhone or Android device. In a few years who can say Google Glasses or Fujitsu Slates? Change of course is not limited to hardware and software but is most relevant to business process and the way mobile technologies are used.

The Mobile Journey

As with other business change there is beginning to the mobile journey but more often than not no end. Once a new technology and process is introduced new ideas will flourish and the cycle will continue. From steady state to new needs, and requirements.

Business Case

To stay in business it’s important to consider how funds are spent. Organisations of different sizes and types go through a business case process with more or less rigour. Some organisations may be capital heavy and invest in large equipment or plants. In these cases IT spending may be seen as a small insignificant part of the overall investment plan. For others money spent on IT is core to their DNA. Regardless of the company type there are always competing initiatives for funds. As well as getting a place in the investment hierarchy a business case has a number of benefits:

• Socialises concepts and aligns vision (Needs)
• Sets scope and boundaries (Requirements)
• Defines the costs and benefits (ROI)
• Acts as a reference for future stages of the mobile journey

While a business case for a mobility project can be treated in a similar fashion to any other business case. Here are a few tricks and traps to look out for:

• New technology is not well understood
• Replacing paper processes may have greater benefits than replacing an existing system
• A mobile application could form part of marketing / advertising spend
• Mobility investments often establish the basis of multiple projects

Product Selection
As mentioned in the challenges a lot of Enterprise Mobility relies on new rapidly changing technology. People often ask me why they should invest in product Y when last week product X was the next big thing. This is similar discussion that many people have around choosing a new mobile phone. Should I wait for the next model? This is another reason why that business case is so important. With an understanding of the drivers and benefits areas you can feel confident in making a decision that will archive your business goals. NASA doesn’t pick the latest mobile technology to go into their mars lander programme. They have a list of requirements and the pick the best fit for these requirements within their budget constraints.

Of course there are a number of technical solutions to mobilising an enterprise so if the technology is new to you consider some of the following:

• Industry events (get some insight, network, and talk to experts)
• Similar non-competitive companies (perhaps another geography)
• Web & Social (plenty of people willing to help)
• Existing partner network (your solutions partners may have expertise)
• Research firms (such as Gartner or the newer crowd sourcing alternatives)
• Back end connectivity (ensure your technology integrates)
• In house talents (mobility is an exciting area for many people)
• Platform or point solution (does your case allow for future expansion)

Realisation
The realisation phase of a mobile journey is where the rubber hits the road. The scope of this phase can vary widely depending on the business case, the product selected, and the implementation approach. Ensure that before too much rubber has hit the road all involved parties agree on the way forward. There maybe a big difference between leveraging an existing cloud solution and a more traditional waterfall driven software project. Regardless of how agile (or not) the project is each will (or should) have a a degree of:

• Design/Confirmation
• Build/Implement
• Test/Train
• Pilot/Deploy

During realisation is of course a key time to be referring back to that business case and most specifically the requirements. Oh and if you're looking for a great result never forget the importance of business and IT change management.

Support

One of the easiest traps to fall into is to leave support to the end of the journey. It's important that support and supportability requirements are baked into the business case. Supporting mobile applications and hardware has a couple of added complexities that traditional desktop support may not have to contend with:

• Unreliable communications
• Bleeding edge technology
• Frequent change
• BYOD
• Many layered fault determination

If you have considered support up front then hopefully you have a solution that includes tools to empower your users and the support team. Finally a couple of points on the importance of baking Change Management into the entire journey. From an IT sense consider how to handle software/hardware updates and the impact of change to other systems. From a business perspective consider the people, the process, and how mobility changes the game.

A Clear Pulse

Some years back while working on a project I was asked to provide a monitoring/performance tool that would enable the support desk to proactively monitor the end-to-end network performance of the mobile workforce. The requirement included the ability to temporarily track the network performance of one or more existing users. And to use standalone devices or emulators to continuously monitor performance.  It measured round trip time of a data payload through the following components:

• Device (Motorola, HTC, and laptops)
• 3G Network (or wifi if so connected)
• Firewall
• Middleware/Relay
• Back End System (SAP)
• and back again!

At the time this performance tool was built as a one off for the customer. So I was excited to hear from Shara Evans at Market Clarity. Shara is passionate about the telecommunications industry and has a wealth of knowledge in this space. Market Clarity is the Australian and New Zealand partner for Mobile Pulse who won a 2013 FierceWireless Fierce 15 Award. Mobile Pulse enables the collection of location and time based network performance information across operating system and device platforms. It collates the information into a powerful dashboard for analysis.

Network performance changes over time. Different operating systems and device models may achieve different network performance due to software patches and hardware intricacies. When a subset of mobile users have a problem how can you effectively pinpoint the cause? With a tool like Mobile Pulse you can:

• Understand telco performance for your mobile user groups
• Understand wifi performance for your mobile user groups
• Differentiate performance between carriers
• Differentiate performance between operating systems
• Differentiate performance between device models
• Gather data for improvement discussions and negotiations with Telcos

This kind of tool enables a better user experience, reduced cost of support, a proactive approach to troubleshooting, and empowers you with the facts rather than relying on Telco provided coverage map. To find out more have a look at the services Market Clarity provides including:

• Research Publications
• Custom Research & Consulting
• Telecoms Infrastructure Database
• GIS Based Demographic Analysis
• Strategic Advice
• Research Database Extracts
• Benchmarking
• Market Tracker
• Tender Management
• Training & Seminars

For full information refer to Market Clarity's website or contact Shara.

The History of Mobile Computing

Mobile computing is the culmination of a number of technological advances that have occurred in parallel. Key aspects that have led to the current explosion of mobile computing include general computing, user interface, display, communications, storage, battery, and culture. I've collected some of the key milestones into the above timeline for consideration. (You can click the image to open a larger version). Please let me know of any items worthy of inclusion or alteration.

Mobile computing is used when there is a need for computing power away from a desk or office environment.  Initially this became evident in military and advanced transportation scenarios. For example when calculating ballistics in ships and submarines or to help carry out checklists on spacecraft. These days with mobile computing being ubiquitous everyone can use the power of mobile computers to assist with business and personal tasks.

Between the abacus and the pocket calculator there weren't a lot of leaps directly in mobile computing. However the complimentary technologies where falling into place to support the current mobile computing that we enjoy today. Also I find interesting that throughout the years inspiration in the form of science fiction predicted or prompted advances in technology. For example Star Trek is credited as inspiration for the development of the mobile phone. Famously the film a space odyssey 2001 was referenced in law suits in relation to the development of the tablet computer.

Now with growing power and sophistication mobile computing is often discussed in terms of being the new desktop or the new internet. For more thoughts on this and other topics please refer to my blog on the future of mobile computing.

One Fujitsu at CEBIT

Thanks to Fujitsu Australia's involvement in CEBIT many people have a new and wider perspective of Fujitsu's products and services. Located prominently, right beside the entrance to hall three. Fujitsu had a high visibility booth modeled around the Fujitsu infinity logo. A great example of "One Fujitsu" the exhibition showcased products and services from across the Fujitsu group, this included:

• Fujitsu servers
• Storage
• Desk-based computing
• Mobile computing
• Tablet and slate computing
• Scanners
• Business and Application Services
• Enterprise Mobility
• Cloud and Hosting solutions

Here's a quick overview video encouraging people to visit the booth. Fujitsu also had fantastic participation and involvement from partners including:

• I Know IT,
• PROSCAN,
• Open Channel Solutions
• San Systems.

Leading up to the event social channels such as Twitter, Linked-in, and blogs where engaged to increase awareness and encourage participation.

The CEBIT social team and partners actively re-tweeted Fujitsu's involvement which spread the message further. Throughout the three days Fujitsu partners including SAP and I Know IT helped spread awareness by live tweeting information from the event. Additionally Fujitsu and partners educated a wide audience with more than 30 presentations.

Presentations where well attended and included the following topics:

• Why Cloud, Why Now?
• Scanning and Archiving
• A DIY Cloud in Kit Form?
• Mobility - More than Mobile Apps
• Fujitsu and the DC PODFactory

With more than 30,000 attendees there where many enthusiastic and interested visitors. One visitor that would be familiar to many was Senator Stephen Conroy, pictured below with the Fujitsu Group's Executive Director of Sales Mike Inge.

An Enterprise Mobility Journey

Enterprise Mobility is more than just software or hardware it's a journey undertaken by business to realise the benefits of a mobile workforce. There is a beginning to the journey but more often than not no end. As with the introduction of other initiatives this journey tends to be circular. If you start from identifying a need, work through realisation, and move into support eventually new needs will arise. Of course that's why it's important to underpin all of this with a view to ongoing change management. Here is one way of categorising the key aspects of an Enterprise Mobility Journey:

• Business Case
• Product Selection
• Realisation
• Support

Enterprise Mobile Business Case

To stay in business it’s important to consider how funds are spent. Organisations of different sizes and types go through a business case process with more or less rigour. Some organisations may be capital heavy and invest in large equipment or plants. In these cases IT spending may be seen as a small insignificant part of the overall investment plan. For others money spent on IT is core to their DNA. Regardless of the company type there are always competing initiatives for funds. As well as getting a place in the investment hierarchy a business case has a number of benefits:

• Socialises concepts and aligns vision (Needs)
• Sets scope and boundaries (Requirements)
• Defines the costs and benefits (ROI)
• Acts as a reference for future stages of the mobile journey

While a business case for a mobility project can be treated in a similar fashion to any other business case. Here are a few tricks and traps to look out for:

• New technology is not well understood
• Replacing paper processes may have greater benefits than replacing an existing system
• A mobile application could form part of marketing / advertising spend
• Mobility investments often establish the basis of multiple projects

For further reading refer to these articles:

• The Benefits of Enterprise Mobility
• Business to Business Mobility

Enterprise Mobile Product Selection
At the outset it's worth mentioning that no one has a working crystal ball and it's clear to most that mobility is an area of rapid change. Often people ask me how can they trust product Z when last week product X was the leader. This is the same argument many people have when they are looking to buy a new personal mobile device or other technology. "Should I buy model X now knowing that in a few months perhaps a new model will be better?" My response is to harp back to the business case and requirements. If you know that the delivered features will enable you to achieve your business goals then you can feel comfortable. Consider when NASA built the Mars rovers they didn't look for the most recent or powerful mobile device, they used a clear list of requirements.

Of course there are a number of technical solutions to mobilising an enterprise so if the technology is new to you consider some of the following:

• Industry events (get some insight, network, and talk to experts)
• Similar non-competitive companies (perhaps another geography)
• Web & Social (plenty of people willing to help)
• Existing partner network (your solutions partners may have expertise)
• Research firms (such as Gartner or the newer crowd sourcing alternatives)
• Back end connectivity (ensure your technology integrates)
• In house talents (mobility is an exciting area for many people)
• Platform or point solution (does your case allow for future expansion)

For further reading refer to these articles:

• How to Select a Device for Enterprise Mobility
• HTML5 vs Native

Enterprise Mobile Realisation
The realisation phase of a mobile journey is where the rubber hits the road. The scope of this phase can vary widely depending on the business case, the product selected, and the implementation approach. Ensure that before too much rubber has hit the road all involved parties agree on the way forward. There maybe a big difference between leveraging an existing cloud solution and a more traditional waterfall driven software project. Regardless of how agile (or not) the project is each will (or should) have a a degree of:

• Design/Confirmation
• Build/Implement
• Test/Train
• Pilot/Deploy

During realisation is of course a key time to be referring back to that business case and most specifically the requirements. Oh and if you're looking for a great result never forget the importance of business and IT change management.
For further reading refer to these articles:

• Testing Enterprise Mobility
• Prototyping Enterprise Mobility

Enterprise Mobile Support
One of the easiest traps to fall into is to leave support to the end of the journey. It's important that support and supportability requirements are baked into the business case. Supporting mobile applications and hardware has a couple of added complexities that traditional desktop support may not have to contend with:

• Unreliable communications
• Bleeding edge technology
• Frequent change
• BYOD
• Many layered fault determination

If you have considered support up front then hopefully you have a solution that includes tools to empower your users and the support team. Finally a couple of points on the importance of baking Change Management into the entire journey. From an IT sense consider how to handle software/hardware updates and the impact of change to other systems. From a business perspective consider the people, the process, and how mobility changes the game.

Enterprise Mobility Challenges

I wish I could tell you that mobilising an Enterprise was always easy. Like with most things worth doing there are challenges to success. Now I don't want to put you off mobility in any way! I did however want to group the tricks and traps into some sensible categories. Here is what I have come up with as the Challenges to Enterprise Mobility:

• Hype
• Justification
• New Technology
• Rapid Change

Hype
There are a lot of statistics around about mobility. It wouldn't surprise me to hear that there was a large increase in the number of statistics about mobility while you are reading this sentence. That's not to say that the statistics are untrue. Just that often they can be taken out of context. No doubt the % of people employed in an organisation that use smart phones has increased.  This usage is nearing saturation in a lot of the developed world. What I'd encourage people to think about is "What does this mean for business?"

Justification
The art form of benefits calculations and business value. It's easy to be swayed by stories of large cost savings or increases in throughput. As an advocate of mobility I believe you can get good business value from mobile initiatives. With tough economic times there is always more pressure to have a solid business case. So while soft benefits are great for gathering momentum you may need hard facts to win over the bean counters. Also when the rubber hits the road it's often important to be able match functionality to the benefits that you need to achieve. "What is the Return on Investment?" For more on specific benefits refer to this article on The Benefits of Enterprise Mobility.

New Technology
Mobile technology can require learning a new language with a whole set of its own acronyms and terminology. HTML5, MEAP, MDM, MDAP, etc, etc. Adding to the confusion an acronym can mean one thing in the mobile arena and something completely different to another audience. I remember having a conversation with someone awhile back about MDM. They thought I was discussing Master Data Management while I was happily refering to Mobile Device Management. The challenge here is of course: "What's the right solution?"
For specific thoughts on how to chose some aspects of mobile technology please refer to this article on HTML5 vs Native.

Rapid Change
There is plenty of evidence of rapid change in software and hardware in the mobile arena. Not long ago everyone was using a Nokia, then a Blackberry, now maybe an iPhone or Android device. In a few years who can say Google Glasses or Fujitsu Slates? Change of course is not limited to hardware and software but is most relevant to business process and the way mobile technologies are used.
I've put some thoughts on how mobile computing is changing in The Future of Enterprise Mobility.


I'd love to hear your thoughts and experiences on the challenges of Enterprise Mobility....

Apps Tech News

A quick blog to mention the team over at www.appstechnews.com. As well as publishing some of my blogs they post a variety of news and articles from much better authors. Topics include:

• Analytics
• BYOD
• Cloud
• Data
• Enterprise
• MDM
• Development
• App Stores
• Device

Not just a syndicating service, Apps Tech News also formulate opinion pieces and collate information into great articles on current topics. For example the "Is Blackberry CEO right to question long term tablet future" piece by James Bourne included quotes from Jim Hemmer (along with yours truly!) as well as analysing and reporting on industry sentiment.

I'd recommend adding App Tech News to your bookmarks (along with this blog of course). Keep up the good work !

The MAP to BYOD?

Recently I had the pleasure of talking with Sara, Brad, and Rob at Mocana. A team with a strong security & data loss prevention (DLP) background that are now utilising their underlying technology to provide mobile application security. I had a great discussion about their Mobile App Protection product MAP. The tool looks feature rich, is easy to use, and is maybe just the 'map' you need to find your way through the BYOD maze.

Essentially the MAP solution allows applications to be "wrapped" with a range of policies to enable secure access and provide DLP. This means in a BYOD situation a wrapped corporate application with specific restrictions (such as communications, firewall settings, copy and paste restriction) can sit beside personal applications that enjoy their usual settings.

I was treated to a demo of the solution and got to see a walkthrough of the different options and settings. From a user-friendly dashboard an administrator is able to upload a finished mobile application (that's apk for Android and ipa for Apple), select policies and associated settings, wrap the application, and finally download the application for distribution. There are a bunch of policies including:

• Expiry
• VPN
• Passcode
• Firewall
• Geofencing
• And more!

As well as individually wrapping applications a Federation concept enables multiple applications to share policies simplifying maintenance and communications. The application was wrapped very quickly well under 10 seconds and the file size increased by a few hundred kb.

A couple of points for consideration: Core Apple iOS applications cannot be wrapped, however typically there is an alternative software offering (email clients, browsers) that can be protected. In some cases this may help with the separation of personal/corporate activities. As an application is wrapped and then distributed the policies and settings cannot be updated without repacking and distributing the application. While this is not particularly different to the way most applications work on the Apple App store and Google Play it was just one of the areas that Mocana has for consideration in the R&D path.

Talking with Mocana I got a sense that they were customer driven. The product settings and features have been built over time based on actual customer needs and specific requests. I also got some insights into their product roadmap which includes additional policies, further federation features, and single sign on. This is a company that provides security solutions to OEMs, government and military applications. So I was pleasantly surprised by the user interface and little features like the protection indicator on the wrapped application. If you want to know a bit more checkout their website or this video.

Facebook Home, Skins, and Future Social Mobility

Facebook home released and is officially available for a variety of Android devices. Like with most Android applications it is unofficially available for any device with a compatible Android OS. Leading up to the announcement there where plenty of rumors about a forthcoming Facebook phone along with speculation that Facebook was moving into hardware. In such a dynamic space I would never rule anything out but it does seem sensible for Facebook to "Play" (pardon the pun) to their strengths.

A couple of things I find interesting:

• Facebook a serious player in the skin game?
• Who else will jump on board?
• What's next with this social stuff?

Facebook is the most popular social networking site in the world used by a very wide audience. If anyone has the reach and software skills to make a skin successful it is Facebook. However the skin game has never had a huge degree of success in the past. Hardware manufacturers and telcos have traditionally provided skins to phone Operating Systems for branding, user information, loyalty, lock-ins, etc. The tech community would always cry foul and try to find a way around the skins and this noise (citing poor performance, lack of flexibility) would often filter down to the general user community.

Similarly in the desktop space the concept of a skin sitting above the Operating System has never had wide success. Unlike iOS most desktop operating systems allow quite a degree of easy access for users to change the look and feel. Many in the tech community would argue that what makes Android great is its flexibility. The Android OS for mobile phones defiantly allows a wide degree of user customization compared say to iOS. However how many users really change more than the background picture and layout of the icons? With more focus on user devices in enterprise the ability to tinker is of course a mixed blessing. Don't get me wrong the quest for better user experience is important and experimenting with skins, overlays, and changes to operating systems are to be commended. After all you could argue that the Windows GUI was a skin on top of DOS.

It's been reported that after Facebook, Linked-In is the next most popular social networking service. In my experience Linked-In tends to have a more business focus. Will Linked-In build a corporate friendly Android skin? If they can bundle features that both corporate and social net-workers want together they could get some real focus. For example they could combine separation of work/personal space, added security layer, and social networking.

Other players that everyone will look to for a similar concept are of course Google+ and companies like Line. One feature that both of these offer is the groups or circles concept that allows controlled sharing of information to specific audiences. While I really like this concept I don't think many enterprises will risk an employee accidentally sharing a proposal or costing with the wrong group. This degree of control needs to be built into the core of social networking.

So in future Social Networking for Enterprise I would like to see secure sharing of information socially with low risk. Allow me to share documents and chat with my colleagues from my work-space/phone/internet device without the ability to accidentally share content with non-approved contacts. A system of this kind would encourage participation by using familiar tools and enable merging the consumer and enterprise social aspects. A secure social framework would be a good launch pad for collaboration ideas such as Gamification.

To enable this vision there probably needs to be a social networking standard or protocol for ubiquitous sharing of contacts/messages/content/likes (and the like). Upon this kind of foundation plugs-ins could then easily merge say Microsoft communicator with Facebook, Google+, and Linked-In. Contacts could be common across different platforms and the user would be empowered to chose a context specific interface depending on their circumstances or needs.

Enterprise Gamification is it a thing?

Let me start by making my feelings clear. I hope Enterprise Gamification is a thing. I mean I work in enterprise mobility and I like games so I couldn't really think of a better combination (accept maybe sushi and beer or tropical island resort and cocktails). Anyway as an experienced exponent of computer game playing, and some beta testing, along with a few flash games I made 10 years ago plus my experience with enterprise systems I feel I'm adequately positioned to briefly explain what this gamification thing could be.

Drilling down let's look at the two key parts and what they do. An enterprise system typically aims to make a business more efficient and effective at achieving its goals and provide shareholder value. These systems enable business process; provide a central knowledge repository, and an audit trail. Games tend to be fun, addictive, reward behaviour, and keep score.

So then Gamification of the Enterprise is leveraging the techniques of gaming in an enterprise setting. So how can games be combined with enterprise systems? Some people would say that working is the opposite of gaming. That is one is fun and the other is not. What if we could make work fun, I think that would be good thing. Some of the key aspects to consider are:

• Business goals
• Key Performance Indicators
• Positive and negative activity
• Actors and Use Cases
• Technology platform
• Scoring and reward mechanism
• Change management
• Monitoring Success

With any enterprise systems or mobility project it's good to start with the business goals and align your technology with these directions. Each business, division, or organisational element may have different goals so there is unlikely to be a one solution that fits all.

KPIs have been designed for a reason and they are likely to be the best starting point when considering gamification. Note that the KPI itself (for example DIFOT) maybe a roll-up of individual transactions and activity. Whereas the transactions related to the KPI may be most appropriate for scoring in a gamification sense. Consider carefully that in games negative behaviour is also highlighted and the timeframe for scoring may need to be short enough to enable a "reset". If a staff member has been doing poorly for a time period they may need an opportunity to start fresh.

Different roles within the business will be aligned with particular use cases, business process, and key performance indicators. Gamification perhaps aligns best with repetitive tasks in a short lifecycle. Long term goals are less likely to make good candidates for gamification. If you have a multiple year sales cycle then tracking these sales in a scoreboard will not make for an addictive gaming experience. However tracking requests to provide assistance and assistance provided may result in a better outcome. Just like with many KPIs and many games, scoring can be done on a group level, an individual level, or a combination of both.

What's this all got to do with mobility? Well a mobile platform is the perfect vehicle (pardon the pun) to enable enterprise gamification. Sharing information is instant, scoring is instant, and the success can be tracked at any time. Let's take a hypothetical service scenario for a company that services widgets. The business goal is to fix issues the first time on time. KPIs track monthly how many issues are resolved, the resolution time, and how many times a refix is required. In the as-is business the service technicians receive a plan of work, go on site, and fix the issue. If they are not sure of something they ring up the office.
In the gamification scenario the service technicians have a mobile application where they see and update their job. They can request assistance from other technicians with appropriate skills who are currently free. They instantly get statistics on how many times they have helped others and their other KPIs. The leading technicians each month are rewarded with a voucher for their contribution to the company.

This leads me onto the reward mechanism. In the case of games the score is often the reward in itself. In many games a good score leads onto unlocking additional features, advancement, and general encouragement to keep playing. In business this needs careful consideration. Not everyone can be promoted because they did a good job. Someone who is the best at servicing widgets might not make the best widget servicing manager. However achieving a good score can form a part of an annual review, part of the bonus structure, be a trigger to get additional training, be bragging rights, or even a voucher for the company cafeteria.

Like with any new technology or business process change, the change management aspects can be pivotal to the success of the initiative. Involving and communicating with the user community in a sensible way encourages participation and allows some room when things don't go exactly as planned. As gamification is likely to be new to many organisations it makes sense to pilot it first with careful monitoring. The last thing you want to do is drive the incorrect behaviour. Ensure that the gamification is kept in context and don't get carried away. Some business cultures have more staff turnover and/or competitiveness than others and gamification can be introduced in very different ways. Remember that games are supposed to be fun.

Finally I'll finish with some quick ideas for gamification in the enterprise. Please let me know if you have some other ideas to make this Enterprise Gamification a thing:

• Encouraging employees to help each other
• Completing tasks in a successful or timely way
• Identifying issues/problems
• Taking a photo to highlight a success or an issue
• Social communication
• Active participation in training activities

Enterprise Mobile Prototyping

Projects involving technology that is emerging, changing rapidly, or where the stakeholders are not experts will benefit greatly from prototyping. In these conditions it's difficult to get the best value out of a traditional 'blueprint everything up front' approach. Of course I'm talking about enterprise mobile projects here.

As well as not understanding potential pitfalls it would be easy to miss out on leveraging all the possibilities of the new technology. On projects I have worked on in the past I've attempted to leverage the build tools for prototyping (or just mocked up things and discussed them over a projector.) Of course depending on the tool being used this can be problematic. Sometimes just getting the tools installed and setup can take quite a while. Often the build tools are not suited to quickly producing useful prototypes.

With a mobility related project some of the true "right once deploy many" MEAP options will let you pull off a prototyping approach. However depending on the specifics of the project you may not have the luxury to pick the tools or the timeframe. Even when all the stars align how do you effectively gather feedback from your audience?

Along comes a product like Intuito which enables rapid prototyping on device along with useful feedback mechanisms from a cloud solution. I'd previously written a brief article about intuitive prototyping and have since had the opportunity to try the product for myself.

How does it work?
Intuito let me import screen mock-ups and quickly set hot-spots to simulate swipes, clicks, and other user interactions. I took a Power-point mock-up I had from a previous project and exported each slide as an image. In a few minutes I created a working screen flow. To test it a shortened URL was generated and I opened it on my iPhone. I made a few tweaks, retested and within 30 minutes I was happy with my flow and felt comfortable using the Intuito tool.

I should mention that while you can pass around some variables and simulate a number of different interactions Intuito doesn't pretend to be a full blown application builder. You cannot "code" screens and build logic or complex navigation. To be honest for rapid prototyping you probably don't want to. To simulate some user interactions I duplicated a couple of the Power-point slides and changed some data in the mock-ups.

Ok so that's pretty good, but wait there's more. Once happy with my screen flow I was able to create survey style questions for each screen. This allows testers to immediately respond to what they have seen. Intuito also gathers a heat map of where and what users are interacting with. Since it's a simple link you can easily distribute the prototype to a testing group. As the audience use the prototype the feedback is gathered and displayed in a dashboard for analysis.

Incorporate into a Mobile Application Project
The inputs for Intuito are a screen flow concept and screen design mock-ups. To get the best results the inputs require skills like UX/UI/Graphic design and depending on your application may require business and technical specialists. Of course it's worthwhile to temper the design with the technical feasibility of the development tools, device platform, data, etc. The beauty of the prototyping approach of course is that you can rapidly (and cheaply) produce, test, change, and repeat.

When to use
The adage about spending more time on design and less on build rings true. With prototyping tools the focus can be on design without needing to spend so much time. These types of tools can be leveraged in various project phases for example:

• Part of RFP/RFQ process to build a mock-up that can be quoted on.
• During the design/blueprint phase to finalise an agreed functional design.
• Throughout the build phase to prototype traditional blueprint/designs.
• Ongoing in support/run phases to formalise change requests.

Enterprise Glass

Google Glass is looking like a great leap forward in ubiquitous computing. My previous article covering computing uses and form factors will probably still hold true until a step change with input devices occurs. Most of the excitement around Glass is in the consumer space with amazing looking first person videos of sky diving and the like. What I wanted to write about was the potential for glass in the enterprise.

Augmented Reality
According to Wikipedia: "Augmented reality (AR) is a live, direct or indirect, view of a physical, real-world environment whose elements are augmented by computer-generated sensory input such as sound, video, graphics or GPS data."

AR is already making big inroads in the Business to Consumer (B2C) space especially for marketing/advertising scenarios. Not long back I was in Thailand and noticed a lot of people running around a Uniqlo store looking for butterflies. AR also has some potential in the Business to Enterprise (B2E) space using a mobile device to 'look' at equipment or similar. What really makes Glass a practical alternative is the hands free operation with the screen always where you need it. Makes me think of 'The Terminator' and obviously the military use similar technology in helmets for aircraft and such. In many enterprise environments safety glasses are already standard equipment so why not leverage them with powerful targeted information?

Glass in the Enterprise
Ok Sergei, Steve, Babak, and team here are some ideas that I can quickly come up with for Google Glass in the Enterprise, send me a set and I will happily come up with some more:

Style	Example	Description
B2E	Training	New staff are inducted to the office, OH&S policies, firescapes, bathrooms, etc using an interactive augmented reality application.
B2E	HR	Combined with facial recognition provide the ultimate 'whisper in the ear' to identify staff and associated metadata.
B2E	Meetings	Use with IM /meeting sharing apps for a unique perspective on remote meetings. Connect to whiteboards and other equipment.
B2E	Logistics	Combine with OCR/Scanning/RFID to aid with stock takes, bin counting, receipting, proof of delivery.
B2E	Assets	Identify assets, schematics, parts. Request/Enable remote assistance when repairing.
B2E	Retail	Staff can be instant experts on their own products. With overlayed pricing and detailed product information + onselling recommendations.
B2B	Realestate	Inspect realestate with guided room checklists, record results. Provide virtual property tours.
B2B	Conference	Recognition for attendees, AR product information, competition entry, location awareness, photography.
B2B	Events	Provide targeted buyers (e.g. fashion) with glass and let them sit back and watch the show with AR provided product information.

As you can see there are a variety of opportunities to leverage and launch investments in Social, Mobile, Analytics, and Cloud (SMAC). I'd love to hear your suggestions for more ideas for Glass in the Enterprise.

Google does it again
This is the second time in my life I can recall where I had an idea that Google launched as a new offering in an amazing way. The first was around 10 years ago I was making cartoons on my animated flash website MonkeyStyle and used a collection of satellite data to allow my character to zoom into his target. Not quite Google Maps but hey it was similar in concept! In the last couple of years I drafted a science fiction novel about Augmented Reality Contacts - now they are real!

The Rules of Enterprise Mobility

During many mobile meetings, presentations, and discussions I've come across a collection of "Rules For Enterprise Mobility". These rules cover topics like selecting mobility tools, types of users and applications, mobility needs and a lot more. Let's start with three rules of three:

Rule of Three
Gartner coined the phrase "the rule of three" to help convey when it best makes sense to use a MEAP (Mobile Enterprise Application Platform). The idea is that you should consider a MEAP if you have any of the following needs:

• 3 x mobile applications
• 3 x device types
• 3 x back end systems

Of course a platform helps with these by providing security, integration, and write-once deploy-many tools that you may have to develop yourself if you go it alone. So that's a rule number 1.

Three Mobile Groups
Coincidentally there are three user groups that we typically identify as the target of mobile applications:

• B2E (Business to Employee/Enterprise)
• B2B (Business to Business)
• B2C (Business to Consumer)

Business to Employee/Enterprise applications are those which are used by employees of ones own company. Business to Business are used by partners or subcontractors and Business to Consumer are used by the general masses. Ok this is not really a rule per say but it's still mobility and involves the number 3.

Three Application Types
Thirdly there are 3 commonly recognised mobile application types:

• Web
• Native
• Hybrid

Each of these application types have their place and various pros and cons (for example portability, performance, learning curve, cost) which I've discussed in my previous blogs. I don't know if that's now 9 or 27 rules or if it makes sense to try to or correlate them further. It would be great if there was one rule to bind them all but Tolkien didn't write enterprise mobility.

Four C's 
In the blog by Christopher Koch the concept of the four C's is discussed to explain the scope of a mobility platform:

• Create
• Consume
• Connect
• Control

As Christopher explains a mobility platform for enterprise that covers each of these areas will add value to business and IT. Suggest you have a look at the Gartner quadrants for some good information on the various mobile platforms.

Seven Steps
The 7 Steps for an Enterprise Mobility Strategy are covered nicely in Spider 21's Weblog these are:

• Mobility Roadmap
• User Workflow Analysis
• Mobile Platform Selection
• Device/OS Selection
• Back-end integration
• Mobile app development
• Change Management.

Well worth a read to understand more about each of these important topics.

More Numbers?
I hope this selection of rules serves as a good reference for Enterprise Mobility and would love to hear some suggestions for more rules to include/update the article. If you are looking for detailed information on topics like Mobile Device Selection, Benefits of Mobility, or Mobile Testing then please follow the links or read through all the articles on this blog.

SAP Enterprise Mobility and M2M

Recently I presented along with Dr Nick at the Australian Computer Society's Telecommunications Society of Australia in Melbourne. The topic was SAP Enterprise Mobility and M2M. The slide deck and further information about the talk are on the TSA website. Here is an overview for those who couldn't attend:

Enterprise Hairball

A typical enterprise landscape with regards to mobility has evolved over time based on point to point solutions. For example one initiative may have developed an application natively to suit a palm pilot or blackberry. When this was done some good thoughts where put into security and integration. What we find however is that sometime later another initiative in a different org unit will start up. More often than not with its own security layer, integration and technical solution. Over time this results in spaghetti of connectivity, infrastructure, and support hassles resulting in a high total cost of ownership.

A Good Strategy

SAP Strategy is to bring a standardised common approach to mobility. Where multiple back end systems (including non-SAP environments), databases and applications can be mobilised using a best of breed platform. The platform enables customers along with SAP and its partners to develop and manage mobile applications in a common way.

The Platform

At the centre of the solution is the SAP Mobile Platform. This layer provides safe secure connectivity, integration, application, and data service management. It’s underpinned by the leading Mobile Device Management solution Afaria and supports a very wide variety of devices. The mobile software development kit leverages Eclipse along with other tools and makes use of standards like OData to deliver native, HTML5, or container mobile applications. In a nutshell the platform supports the 4 C's (consume, connect, create, and control).

Unification Time

As you may be aware SAP’s mobile strategy incorporated purchasing best of breed components. While continuing to maintain, upgrade, and release updates to these individual products SAP’s approach includes a strategy to sensibly unify.  So today for mobile application development and management there are 3 key components that have a rich heritage around the world with both SAP and non-SAP users:

• SAP Unwired Platform (SAP has leveraged this for many of the Line of Business Applications)
• Syclo Agentry (Strong heritage with Service and transformative mobile applications with both SAP, Maximo and other back end environments)
• Sybase Mobiliser (With the flagship 365 product suite used extensively by financial institutions, telecommunications companies and especially in the B2C arena)

Moving forward a number of steps are being undertaken to reduce complexity and unify these components. The first step is to bring together common administration tasks like installation, licensing, and documentation. To be followed by the unification of the modelling and designer aspects along with a full range of supporting services like security, authentication, and analytics.

The timeframe is aggressive. Gone are the days of a 12-24 month release cycle. With the rapidly changing mobile arena it’s easy to understand the importance of quickly getting to market in an incremental and agile way. 

Mobile Wallet

The SAP mobile wallet solution is widely used to add value to consumers, financial institutions, and telecommunications companies. It reduces the cost of services and customer churn and is leveraged as a marketing tool. Mobile Wallet solutions are being used in both emerging and established markets. In the developing world a mobile wallet solution can provide services where a bricks and mortar presence is difficult or not cost effective. Some examples of where the SAP solution is used include:

• Celcom Aircash (customer self-service, remittance, and top-up)
• MyClear Malaysia (multiple finance and teleco companies on a common solution)
• QTEL Mobile Money (international money transfers without queuing in a physical location)
• Singtel mPayment (top-up and manage toll accounts from a mobile)

LOB

SAP and its partners offer a wide variety of line of business COTS mobile applications. Covering areas like HR,  Supply Chain, IT, Finance, CRM, Sales, Service, and Analytics. These applications can be seen in all the app stores. A good way to check out the range is to download SAP’s own mobile app store. In this application you easily find applications by industry or technology type and can view videos, technical information, and screen shots relating to each app.

Lots of Things

In recent times the number of things connected to the internet has exceeded the number of people on earth, and it doesn’t look like this growth is stopping anytime soon. These days we have televisions, air conditioners, industrial machines, cameras, and you name it connected to the internet.

A Rich Reach

SAP’s vision for M2M is about the expanding richness and reach of capability. Not long ago mobile phones where only being used for calls and SMS.  More recently mobile applications meant an expansion of the experience for individuals. This is quickly evolving into sharing secure content socially and with workplaces, customers and vendors. Resulting now in the possibility of ‘the Internet of things’ with the largest solution reach and richness.  A couple of current examples include:

• Smart Cars - collaboration with mutual benefit for consumers, utilities, and retailers
• Smart Logistics -  real time, end to end visibility of the supply chain
• Smart Vending  - bringing together marketing, planning, supply chain, replenishment

Now and Soon

M2M has been around for a long time, sensors with process knowledge have been installed for 40 years. Currently most solutions are vendor specific and stove pipe in nature. The vision of "the internet of things" is a layer of information sharing across the billions of connected things enabling clever use of big data and knowledge. Think creatively along the lines of the "Smart" scenarios. There are some exciting initiatives in this space to bring some standardisation including MQTT.

How to Select a Mobile Device for Enterprise Mobility

Over the last few years consumer devices have overtaken enterprise devices in a lot of ways. Many of the features originally developed for the enterprise are now leveraged in mobile phones that we all have. Does this mean it's a no-brainer when it comes to choosing a device for an enterprise mobility project? Far from it, more choice brings more debate and more confusion. While BYOD may suit many organisations and mobile solutions it's worth looking carefully at your own situation to determine which devices are appropriate.

Obviously amongst the fields of consumer and enterprise mobile devices there is a lot of variety and the technology is changing rapidly. What does stay more or less constant is that businesses want to get value for money. I'll cover some of the key points to help you make up your own mind about what is right for your initiative. I'd suggest making a decision based on a good understanding of the current and future requirements. A good way to do this is by using a discovery, questionnaire, and/or workshop process. Try to ascertain what you can in the following areas:

Who are the mobile users?
When formulating a strategy for device selection I normally start with the user roles. For example:

• Executives
• Sales People
• Customers
• Subcontractors
• Service Staff
• IT personnel
• Consumers

What will each user group do with the device?
You might find a 1:1 match between use cases and users but normally there is some cross over, so it's important to understand what will be done with the devices. Here's some examples:

• Click through work flows
• Create content or enter lots of text
• Scan goods with a bar code or RFID
• Capture a customer's signature
• View large documents
• Take photographs of problems
• Search on the Internet for information
• Use mapping or Geo location services

Where and when will they use the device?
Of course the environment may vary within a user group. This might be the time when you determine sub-groups with slightly different needs. Thinking about the following use profiles may help you determine battery life, or IP rating requirements.

• In and around the city
• In rural areas
• Underground
• In a vehicle or forklift
• In wet areas, in the desert, in high temperatures
• With chemicals or explosives
• Occasional phone calls
• All day data entry

What are the needs of the software?
You may have covered this stuff when evaluating the use cases, however its good to cross check and consider any technical requirements that you will have for the devices:

• Particular operating system or version
• Browser that supports HTML5
• Anti Virus
• Offline Database
• Storage capacity
• CPU type
• Connectivity (Bluetooth, serial, usb)
• Printing

OK that's a lot of questions but once you have a handle on these areas you can map user groups, use cases, and form factors to help identify which device styles suit your business.  Often I do that in a spread-sheet format and if necessary you can apply weighting values to certain characteristics. So out of this work you should be able to determine the base requirements list for each device. Something like the following:

What are the device requirements?

• Screen Size
• Input Method
• Peripherals
• Battery Life
• 4G/LTE/Wifi
• Ruggedized or not

Let's not forget the non-functional, procurement, and policy type requirements you may have in your organisation. For example:

Non Functional Requirements 

• Vendors agreements
• Supportability of the devices
• Repairability / replaceability
• Staging and building the device SOE
• Security and IT policies

Now that you have a complete picture of the requirements you can factor in specific brands, models, and manufacturers. Around this point consideration is often given to whether a consumer device or an enterprise device is most appropriate. Remember you can always develop a policy or approval process that enables different devices to be chosen for different criteria. Here are some quick thoughts:

What are the pros and cons of enterprise and consumer devices?

• Enterprise device model life is much longer than consumer devices
• Enterprise devices have stable well tested components and operating system
• Enterprise devices tend to have better support
• Consumer devices initial purchase price is cheaper than enterprise devices
• Consumer devices tend to be better cared for than ruggedised enterprise devices
• Consumer devices have the latest technology (e.g. camera, CPU, OS features)

So certainly evaluate the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO). If possible consider the devices as part of your overall mobility solution and use a similar time frame for the cost calculation. E.g. if your ROI is over 5 years what will the device cost over this time frame? Will additional up-front costs be offset over time with better support and stability? As usual I'm in favour of understanding the requirements and making an informed decision. For some use cases and scenarios a ruggedised enterprise device will make the most sense and for many other applications a consumer device will work just fine.