There’s a mobile tsunami that is gaining force by the day, but the right enterprise application development platform can provide refuge, according to Jan Vermeesch.
Businesses around the world are feeling the pressure as mobility increases in importance and they respond by seeking to continually optimise their operations with mobile apps.
The question for enterprises is whether they will allow themselves to be swamped by this tsunami or whether they put controls in place that allow them to ride it out successfully.
All too often IT departments feel pressured to respond to each and every request in a reactive manner. Very quickly this results in an explosion in resource requests, spending and ultimately maintenance and support of the underlying infrastructure and systems.
When the finance folks come a knocking, the response can often go one of two ways – either to limit the options of the platform, devices and apps that are offered, which comes with its own risks as almost 1 in 4 of people say they will walk away from a business if the IT isn’t their preferred choice or doesn’t work as they want. Or the
second response is to continue to build what people want, with that exploding bottom line and a slow down in responsiveness.
Yet both of these approaches deliver more threats and risks to the enterprise and its competitive positioning than they do benefits.
So in the age of multiple back-end and often traditionally siloed systems, how should enterprises be preparing themselves to tackle and ultimately ride through this mobile tsunami?
Smart enterprises are investing time to select the right enterprise application development platform. This assures the confidence of a long term strategy without having to deal with the complexities of the rapidly evolving mobile market of today and tomorrow.
For enterprises that have a pre-dominant SAP infrastructure, Honeywell’s Movilizer is fast becoming the platform of choice, regardless of industry. What enterprises are rapidly benefiting from is all their backend systems connecting to Movilizer Cloud, and the ability to bring together or combine ‘movelets’ or packs and
containers of data through workflows. Data moves seamlessly up and down, out to mobile and back to the backend system.
Take Orica – in a bold decision made by its Australian executive, the business has turned to Movilizer to ensure that its systems are compliant with European legislation regarding the ability to track and trace highly explosive chemicals as they move through the continent. However this legislation doesn’t just demand the tracking
and tracing of the explosives, but the whole supply chain down to item level.
By rolling out Movilizer Cloud across its European customer field operations and implementing an automated scanning process with the custom-built MovicaTT Application, Orica has not only achieved its compliance but by also providing access to relevant reports (data access) for all its key suppliers has ensured they too are compliant with the legislation.
From a user point of view, the key attractions are it is easy to use, it is both mobile and offline available and it follows the given process steps of explosives purchasing and processing. And eight different mobile operating systems are supported, making it very simple to onboard all stakeholders. Beyond these end user benefits, the cloud solution enables Orica to avoid complex infrastructure on-site. It is highly scalable and available at low cost.
As Movilizer is the underlying technology to this solution it opens up other opportunities for Orica to leverage on Movica TT in different ways. So if your organisation is struggling with an onslaught of mobile requests, battling with a myriad of backend systems, stop! Take the strategic approach to riding out the tsunami by choosing the right enterprise development application platform, preferably one that embraces all the cloud offers, and turn ‘overwhelming’ into ‘agile and rapid’.
Jan Vermeesch is global business development leader, Honeywell Workflow Solutions – Movilizer.
