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March 2010 | Volume 28 / Number 10
CRM, BPO & Teleservices

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Untying the Mobile Tether


By Brendan B. Read,
Senior Contributing Editor


With more robust smartphones and the expansion of high-capacity wireless networks, CRM applications can operate more effectively wherever they’re used – from the road, railroad, lobbies and waiting areas to cafes and “hot desks.” “Road warriors” have less need to return to home base to update their systems, which saves on fuel, costs and emissions. Yet are the technologies and practices at the point where mobile workers can untie the tether, to be free to operate entirely and cost-effectively in the virtual space?

To assess where CRM is at with the mobile workforce, Customer Interaction Solutions approached several leading firms. We posed them key questions on:

  • Top trends, issues, challenges and drivers;
  • Impacts of rapid expansion of 3G and now the advent of 4G/LTE; and
  • Real-time access to CRM applications on mobile devices as readily as if one is on a fixed point access.

Aruba Networks (News - Alert) (www.arubanetworks.com)

Mike Tennefoss, Head of Strategic Marketing

In order to be most efficient and productive in this environment, mobile workers need access to the same networked
CRM resources and applications while roaming as they do at their desks. The challenge is how to securely deliver this access so that workers have the same good user experience, security is maintained without compromise from end-to-end and the IT department is not burdened with multiple, non-complementary systems to manage and maintain.

The advent of high-speed 802.11n Wi-Fi and 3G/4G cellular networks, coupled with new inexpensive remote access technology, has provided new vehicles with which to economically extend the corporate network to mobile workers. The dividing line between work that must be done in the office, at home, and on the road has been blurred – workers can largely be just as effective working from any of these locations. However, while the technology to make mobile workers productive has made huge strides, workplace dynamics and the stigma associated with not being physically present in an office remain open, thorny issues.

Untethered real-time access is not only possible but highly desirable. However, it will only work well when an operations management solution is in place to ensure that the network and devices are running well. The key to real-time data aaccess is the high availability of both the devices and the network. A network management solution that encompasses mobile devices – as well as wireless and wired networks – is essential to quickly identifying fault conditions, pinpointing root causes of errors, notifying affected parties and remediating the issues. This element of CRM implementation is often overlooked and yet it is critical to optimal system operation and user satisfaction.

Avidian Technologies (www.avidian.com)

Tim Nguyen, Chief Information Officer

We believe the top trends are faster access to CRM data and easy to use CRM mobile applications. Users understand that screen real estate is smaller and they aren’t looking for the entire CRM application to be recreated on their handheld devices. What mobile workers are looking for is fast access to this data without having to find a hotspot or waiting for a mobile Web browser to finish painting the page. Solutions to these problems are to deliver CRM data directly to devices via Web services or Web applications using a data plan or Wi-Fi hotspot.

We believe the next major mobile requirement will be CRM data. Users want to know the history of the client, orders
placed, past conversations and other valuable data before visiting the client. They want access to all this without having
to open their laptop or netbook. The winner of the device wars will need to understand this new requirement and make it super easy for users to get at this relevant data. In the end, CRM companies will need to develop mobile applications that support all the major devices: Blackberry, Windows Mobile, iPhone and Android (News - Alert).

With 3G, many mobile apps and Web pages are rendered at “acceptable” speeds or throughput. With the introduction of 4G, we’ll see the data packet size increase, speed increase and many other technical improvements. This is going to result in a much higher quality and faster user experience. 4G will enable CRM developers to create applications that deliver more relevant client data to mobile users wherever and whenever they request it. However, the keys to receiving these technologies are that you will need a newer mobile device, 4G carrier support in your area and signal strength.

Access to real-time data versus stale data is very important. On a case-by-case basis, both can be acceptable given certain criteria. How important is the data? How often does it change? How difficult is it to sync and get new data? How often is syncing done? Mobile CRM applications are not normally designed to replace their desktop/laptop application cousins. They are designed to be a supporting application for quick information. Once I get back to the office or hotel room, then I will use my laptop to enter in the full details of the client visit using a full keyboard. It would be great to be able to sync the offline mobile data to the corporate CRM in order to give me a head start.

Maximizer Software (www.maximizer.com)

Vivek Thomas, President

Regarding trends with a mobile workforce’s engagement with a CRM system [there is a realization of] major benefits include the ability to increase productivity as well as establish a better work-life balance. For example, a salesperson can fit in more daily visits to customers or prospects by optimizing his or her time on the road – logging customer updates as he or she goes through the day rather than taking one to two hours at the end of the day.

Another trend is that executives who are part of a mobilized workforce have the ability to strategically manage by exception by responding to issues requiring immediate attention, from any location. The challenges
that appear are primarily related to corporate mobility policies and deployment, such as issues with networks or data plans, rather than regarding functionality or specific user-problems.

The rapid expansion of mobile networks has made Internet-enabled applications on mobile devices a reality – ranging from Facebook (News - Alert)-type social networking apps to robust enterprise-enabled apps. Local device processing power and storage is no longer a limitation as processing can be moved to the server side. With newer, faster mobile networks, we can now design applications that leverage the storage and processing requirements on the server, resulting in a lighter footprint on the device and bringing uniformity to the data accessed/viewed by the user.

A key challenge is the consistency and availability of these networks, as the quality of a connection may not always be as good as advertised. Additionally, 3G and 4G are not available in all parts of the world. Another potential problem is the abuse of these networks, especially with streaming audio and video applications, which can quickly degrade the quality of service in a mobile network.

We believe that with fast wireless 3G, 4G/LTE (News - Alert) and Wi-Fi mobile networks available, we are ready for the next generation of real-time access mobile applications. Mobile users can run their new business applications, like Maximizer Mobile CRM, while completely relying on communication with their enterprise server through the Internet over an encrypted channel.

Ideally, mobile devices should be able to automatically switch from the cellular network to Wi-Fi when in close proximity to the local Wi-Fi access point. Some network providers are already looking at providing such services to complement to their data plan bundles.

Salesforce.com (News - Alert) (www.salesforce.com)

Atul Suklikar, Vice President, Product Management

At the highest level, the rapid growth in the smartphone market is reflected in an increase in adoption of CRM solutions on these devices. We are seeing more cases of mobile workers who are using their smartphones as their primary, and often only interface to Salesforce CRM – leaving their laptops behind when they are on the move. Another trend is the increase in the number of organizations that support access from multiple devices. In many cases, these additional devices are procured by individuals rather than corporate employers.

Because the hurdles of intermittent connectivity were addressed by salesforce.com early in the products’ lifecycle through data caching on the device, it’s safe to say that the networks have had relatively minimal impact on our ability to deliver a high quality mobile CRM application.

In a perfect world, a mobile application could be run entirely using a mobile connection. In today’s world, though, mobile CRM still needs to be accessible offline for a couple of reasons. The first is responsiveness. When you need information, you want it right there, stored on your mobile device and instantly accessible. The second is offline access. Users should be able to work offline whether a connection is available or not, such as on an airplane. In fact, we believe a user shouldn’t even know or care whether a wireless connection is available or not – their experience should be seamless.

Continuing advancements in network speed and capacity are definitely opening up new horizons for our mobile CRM application. For example, by integrating Web-based content with our local device client app, salesforce.com has been able to make dynamic Web content viewable in the context of a locally stored mobile application. This enables us to deliver the best of both worlds without compromising the core requirements such as instant accessibility and relevant data.

At some point, wireless technology will indeed pass a threshold and caching will no longer be required. Until that day comes, we believe that our model of mobile client plus Visualforce pages offers the best of both worlds.

It really depends on the quality of the application you want to deliver. Receiving and uploading fresh data once a day is quite limiting and arguably negates some of the chief benefits of having real-time mobile access.

SugarCRM (News - Alert) (www.sugarcrm.com)

Martin Schneider, Director of Product Marketing


The greatest issues impacting mobile CRM capabilities are device proliferation, the reluctance of companies to add the additional expense of mobile applications, and the inability for older CRM systems to be leveraged via mobile browsers.

Device proliferation is a simple, yet hard to overcome issue. Sales may use Blackberries, while marketing uses iPhones, or Microsoft (News - Alert)-powered devices. Deploying the same CRM system across these devices can be troublesome, or impossible.

Some mobile application platform vendors such as Rhomobile  (News - Alert)and Appcelerator are working hard to create singular platforms that support the same application logic across Android, Blackberry, iPhone and Microsoft smart phones. This will make deploying resident apps a lot easier for businesses – and easier for the CRM vendors to support a single application that is deployed across many different platforms. The CRM provider can work with Rhomobile or Appcelerator (or both) and simply create a single version of the application – which was certainly not the case. This speeds up development time, and lowers maintenance issues.

While these platforms are still nascent, the prevailing wisdom seems to be vendor-provided HTML smart clients. This enables the mobile device browsers to support the application in a fast and user-friendly manner (it is not simply a “shrunken-down” browser). This obviates the “Blackberry or iPhone (News - Alert)” issue, as smart clients are device and browser agnostic. The downside is that users lose access to the application and live data when they lose Internet connectivity (for example, in airplanes), but the upside is there are no data synchronization issues because when you are connected, you are connected directly to the server.

As the hardware providers work to make their devices easier to use, adoption of mobile CRM apps will surge. This is certainly the next phase of mobile application development, and it is an exciting time.

Broadband ubiquity (or at least as close as we have come to it) has aided the mobile rollout. Mobile CRM has moved from a “nice to have” into a “yes, we’re going mobile” scenario for many businesses. These faster and more reliable networks make it as easy to access CRM data over a browser-based client as it is to access your e-mail.

Of course, the issue becomes present when the network fails, or is not performing at optimal levels. But as the networks battle to provide better service to consumers – the mobile CRM user wins.

Sadly, we are still in “trade-off” mode: where users must decide on using a smart browser client and having live access to real-time data, or using a cached database/synch approach. Both have their benefits, however, it is up to the user and use case to decide which approach is best.

The smarter CRM vendors provide both options. SugarCRM, for example provides its “offline client” directly and resident applications for the Blackberry and other devices through partners. Its smart-client mobile version is bundled free with the Professional and Enterprise editions, and requires no additional cost or deployment to get running – simply point to the app on your device browser and you’re up and running.


The following companies participated in the preparation of this article:


Aruba Networks
www.arubanetworks.com

Avidian Technologies
www.avidian.com

Maximizer Software
www.maximizer.com

Salesforce.com
www.salesforce.com

SugarCRM
www.sugarcrm.com

 




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