Apps, smartphones and tablets are all tools that organizations are utilizing today to improve the quality of their business, as they have been proven to help drive revenue, streamline internal processes and enhance partner value. On the back end, mobility also has the ability to enhance and extend an organization’s IT portfolio, and deliver value to their customers faster than ever before.
Mobile devices are providing an opportunity for business leaders to put technology at the place where the work is conducted. “For instance, take a housing inspector: why not replace the clip board used by the inspector with a tablet to capture the inspection as it happens?” asks David, chief digital strategist at Compuware, a provider of enterprise mobile solutions. “Mobile devices set your workforce free from tethered computers.”
Another example Compuware (News - Alert) provide is its experience with Dole, a manufacturer of fruit products. It recommended Dole's team a tool that records the data the company needs to capture around fruit quality (photo of the fruit, location, quality, notes, and inspector name) and immediately sends the data to a cloud service that aggregates the data into report. This solution was created as opposed to being manually inspected with fruit quality recorded onto paper and later updated via e-mail to the corporate HQ, which took more than 14 business days.
Compuware has for more than a decade been delivering mobile solutions to companies worldwide, with a solution library of over 200 apps for both public and private app stores across all leading mobile operating systems and devices. The company is a firm believer in implementing a mobile platform to all enterprises, with its top three reasons being:
- Moving data collection from tethered laptops/desktop computers to highly mobile devices
- Speeding up the transaction time of collecting data/money
- Improving the accuracy of data collection from paper driven forms
According to David, there are many factors challenging the IT portfolio: existing infrastructure, systems and operational systems. Now add those to the new technologies that have begun unraveling over the past few years such as cloud, social media and mobility and you can clearly see that the IT department is now required to do much more than they originally were. Mobility is a highly specialized skill set (operating systems, devices and user experience/UX are different across platforms), hence it makes sense to team with a company who is an expert in delivering solutions into your company faster.
"However, technology can always be easily repaired" says David.
After choosing to go mobile businesses can make mistakes when integrating mobile solutions. "A bad mistake is to focus on the app and ignore the back office technology. In many regards, the app is simply the interface between the user and the system. The system, (data, APIs and business logic) can be re-used from one platform to another. The app is a presentation layer with the contextually correct data points presented."
To avoid any type of mobile disaster during the beginning stages of implementing a mobile solution, Compuware works directly with business leaders to define their digital strategy and create a holistic set of solutions that provide a solid vision for the client, inlcuding the ramifications of choosing technology platforms to support.
“Mobility is not a fad. It is here. The challenges mobility offer a company must be embraced and supported. They are not going away,” David concluded.
For more information on how an enterprise can leverage a mobile platform, be sure to visit Compuware.
Edited by Jamie Epstein