As organisations continue to deliver mobile applications as a way of marketing to customers, they also need to consider how mobile solutions can improve their internal business processes. Danielle Cullen explores some of the reasons for implementing mobile applications within the enterprise.
By 2013, more than 1.19 billion workers – making up 34.9 per cent of the global workforce – will be using mobile technology by 2013, according to a recent study by IDC. With another study by Symantec showing that 71 per cent of organisations are already implementing or are planning to implement enterprise applications, it seems that businesses are starting to realise the significant opportunities presented by enhancing their internal business processes with mobile applications. And SAP is clearly seeing the advantages too. With more than 80 sample applications already available in the SAP App store and a newly released partner development program, it would seem that SAP understands just how well enterprise mobility solutions complement their existing service offering.
So what benefits do enterprise apps bring to an organisation over their consumer app counterparts?
Measurable, predictable ROI
Many organisations across the globe have spent a fortune on consumer applications expecting them to go ‘viral’ only to find that they don’t. Even worse, there are examples of organisations which implement consumer apps for iPhone/ iPad only to find that their products and services get boycotted by an angry Android community! Enterprise applications provide a predictable, measurable return on investment (ROI) – and a guaranteed uptake when enforced as a working practice. For example, say an organisation implements a timesheet application for 30 remote workers who previously had to drive an average of an hour each week to enter their time in an office environment. At a salary of $50 per hour, the organisation is paying $1500 per week for timesheet completion. A $25,000 project to enable SAP-integrated mobile timesheets then pays for itself in less than six months. Being able to assess and measure the ROI in this way results in the implementation of enterprise apps becoming a ‘safe bet’ solution.
Drive for innovation
The people that know how business processes can be best improved are often those undertaking them. Giving these people a voice to express openly how they feel and what they need is a great way to drive innovation within the enterprise – and mobile applications are a sure-fire way to get employees innovating.
One of the best triggers we have observed is to give employees a simple mobile application to assist with their daily tasks (such as timesheets) and then gather them together a month later to ask what they think about it – what they like, what they hate, and how else mobile applications could improve their jobs. The results are often quite surprising and different to what you might have predicted. Empowering people in their roles and providing recognition and reward for innovation is a great way to improve the business, and mobile applications often provide an exciting way in which to start.
Improved business performance
Enterprise applications have a clear goal or purpose in their implementation. They may drive a business process to be faster or lower cost. They may ensure better data accuracy, in turn driving better reporting and decision-making. They may be implemented to improve the health and safety of employees.
Whatever the reason, enterprise applications encourage organisations to look at their business processes from the “outside in” and think about where business performance improvements can be made. In this way, a relatively quick and simple mobile application can sometimes have a surprisingly significant impact on the results of a business.
Leverage existing IT investments
Mobile enterprise applications are a great way to leverage existing IT investments. Having spent millions of dollars on implementing SAP and/or other systems, as well as continuing licence and maintenance costs, it makes good sense to develop mobile applications that interface with these systems to really maximise value – as well as improving business processes along the way. We’ve started to see organisations making good use of this throughout Australia and New Zealand. Across the continent, there are already executives approving SAP workflow tasks on their smartphone, maintenance engineers creating notifications and work orders on their tablet devices, and field workers logging incidents in realtime on rugged field devices.
The mobile revolution isn’t happening, it’s happened – and enterprise mobility is truly changing the way that the world does business. If they haven’t already done so, organisations need to start acting on this now or risk getting left behind.
Danielle Cullen is operations manager at Clarimont. Clarimont specialises in driving improved business performance through strategic cloud and mobile solutions.
This article was first published in Inside SAP Winter 2012.
