Mobility Intelligence

Transcription

1 transforming the mobile enterprise Mobility Intelligence White Paper Where Business Intelligence meets the Mobile Enterprise

2 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Business Intelligence (BI) has become a strategic enabler within leading organizations seeking to gain competitive advantage from more informed decision making. (According to an IBM study 1, 83% of CIOs stated that they saw BI and analytics as key to improving competitiveness). At the same time Mobility is becoming a strategic initiative for organizations demanding speed, agility and innovation in support of their BI strategy. However, in reality traditional BI solutions do not focus on the mobile operational environment and so lack the analytics to provide the necessary insight. There is a blind spot at the intersection where BI meets mobility and this paper seeks to shine a light on that blind spot. The solution is called Mobility Intelligence. Organizations implement a mobile solution to cut costs, increase efficiencies and improve customer service. But too often, the mobile project fails to deliver the expected return on investment (ROI) and is fraught with problems that impact productivity from the beginning. Critically, organizations are unable to fully understand why they are not getting the ROI they had expected from their mobile deployment. They may realize that it was due to poor user adoption, infrastructure unreliability and the high cost of supporting change but have not been able to gain a granular view of the root causes behind this. A detailed operational view of the mobile environment represents a significant blind spot for organizations today. They are challenged to deliver against increasingly stringent service level agreements (SLAs) and key performance indicators (KPIs). As a consequence, they need to be able to identify best practice in their mobile operations, and eliminate worst practice. Mobility Intelligence provides the capability to measure the impact of change upon ROI and is fundamental to maintaining and improving operational excellence. With greater insight into field activity, mobile process inefficiencies can be highlighted and a change management program put in place. In a process of continuous improvement, the measurement, control and correlation of the on-going performance of the mobile solution is able to provide the ROI previously expected. Mobility Intelligence is therefore critical to competitive advantage as organizations increasingly seek to interact directly with the customer by means of mobile solutions. 2

3 WHAT IS MOBILITY INTELLIGENCE? Mobility Intelligence analyzes business data and identifies trends and patterns across all elements of a mobility ecosystem; enabling support for decision-making, optimization of ROI and measurement of the impact of change. Mobility Intelligence is the enablement of Business Intelligence within the Mobile Enterprise. Where Business Intelligence meets the Mobile Enterprise... According to the Gartner Group, organizations that recognize the need to consider the overall business process and take a holistic view of its place within the organization will better meet customer requirements 2. This however, must comprise all parts of the process, including those elements that are performed by their mobile workers. Critically, organizations must first measure the impact or potential impact of change in order to determine if an improvement is possible. If it can t be measured, It can t be improved... Mobility Intelligence gives organizations visibility into key operational statistics. It identifies how the end-user interacts with the mobile business processes within the mobile environment. This delivers insight into where and how the expected ROI has been eroded and provides greater confidence and substantiation for further investment in the mobile project. The value of Mobility Intelligence lies in its ability to empower business leaders to implement controlled and measured improvement programs. This means that changes in mobile business processes and working practices are invariably required in order to introduce new mobile products, solutions and services. As an integral part of a BI strategy, Mobility Intelligence provides a competitive edge as organizations strive to deliver against increasingly stringent KPIs. Mobility Intelligence not only minimizes risk, it is the route map to innovation. 3

4 THE NEED FOR MOBILITY INTELLIGENCE Business leaders need to be able to analyze the impact of change on key mobile business processes. Without it they will lose their competitive edge. Business leaders are aware of operating within blind spots According to Business and IT Analysts, Quocirca, Enterprises feel that mobility is a good thing, but lack the metrics to know why, where and how. They also lack the right tools to integrate mobile & remote into regular and this creates people and process management issues. A typical mobile solution incorporates a complex mix of hardware, network, application, and support services. A limited view of the interactivity of all aspects of the complete solution means that ROI is under threat. This threat comes largely from diversity and rapid change within the mobile market - new devices, faster networks, new business systems and changing market drivers. The IBM Institute of Business Value suggests that business leaders are aware of operating within blind spots 3. Whilst some businesses may already have information about the performance of their mobile applications, they have been limited in their ability to see how that performance correlates with usage patterns in the field, hardware or helpdesk performance or network coverage. They have been even more limited in their ability to perform crossfunctional comparisons between groups, users or sites, or when mapping information onto core mobile business processes. Whilst the value in productivity gains, business process efficiencies, operational cost and customer service are measures that most organizations seek to quantify, this value can be undermined by poor user adoption, unreliable infrastructure and high cost of ownership. In order to mitigate these factors, organizations need to be able to continually measure the ROI - and more importantly the impact that change has upon ROI. Research by B2M Solutions found that the top four drivers for Mobility Intelligence were: greater efficiencies and productivity along with benchmarking best-practice and alignment to BI strategy. 4

5 Network Operators mprodigy mobile management Platform Other Asset Manufacturers Device Manufacturers Network Peripheral Device The case for reduced downtime and increased efficiencies is clear, and the returns are immediately obvious. Perhaps less clear is that benchmarking best practice provides the performance baselines required to offer tangible measurement and improvement plans. Aligning Mobility Intelligence to a BI strategy enables agile decisionmaking; a key factor for competitive advantage. Senior Executives are therefore able to make strategic decisions based upon high-quality data and visibility across the entire mobile enterprise. MEASUREMENT IS ENABLED BY ANALYTICS is the enabling technology for Mobility Intelligence; presentable in easy-to-understand dashboards. According to IDC, analytics refers to the software used to access, transform, store, analyze, model, deliver and track information to enable fact-based decision making and extend accountability by providing all decision makers with the right information, at the right time, using the right technology. 4 Operational analytics which only provide a single view of a single aspect of the mobile operation, such as battery charging patterns are not enough to deliver true Mobility Intelligence. mprodigy mobile management Platform Blended Break/ fix Application Break/ Fix Service Providers Application/ Service Providers End-user Helpdesk Device Users Helpdesk Service Providers Blended analytics pulls together the interrelationships and correlations between the mobile ecosystem participants to provide a cross-functional perspective. This cross-functional insight between the application, device, network, peripherals, help desk function - not to mention the users - provides opportunities for increased operational efficiencies, cost effectiveness and innovation. The true value of blended analytics is in its ability to map onto core mobile business processes. This level of analytics provides a means of identifying mobile business process improvements; so that inefficiencies and costs may be stripped out. Further operational insight will be delivered in a process of continuous improvement. By benchmarking best practice, competitive advantage may be realized through the introduction of innovative new mobile-based products and services. 5

6 SCENARIO Organizations are looking to the analytics capability of Mobility Intelligence to deliver competitive advantage. A major airline realized that in shaving 10 minutes off its turnaround process it not only improved efficiencies, but the potential for incremental revenues was increased through the introduction of a new service-at-gate. This service was enabled by extending the use of mobile technologies. The airline wanted to improve its turnaround time; the time taken to check-in all the passengers, and ready the aircraft for take-off. An efficient turnaround process is essential in order to avoid high fines incurred as a result of delay not to mention the negative passenger experience. To do this, a core business process review was required to identify the barriers to efficiencies and the opportunities for further process improvements. Blended analytics provided the swift delivery of a solution that mapped the interactions and inter-relationships between the mobile devices and the device operator and provided insight into the execution of key business processes from the entire mobile operation. This enabled both analysis and optimization of all aspects of the mobile solution and how they impact each other. Key performance indicators were measured such as: time to board all passengers; time to take off after last passenger had boarded and number of bag payments during boarding. Other key metrics associated with the mobile environment (network performance, battery charging levels, device memory, device resets) were also recorded to give a holistic picture of the interactions between all elements across the mobile enterprise. 6

7 The optimum value of the analytics framework is in its ability to compare macro to micro levels of information. Statistics were analyzed by airport, gate, flight, location, user and device type or group. Furthermore, drilling down meant that the information was viewed from multiple perspectives and comparisons drawn; such as gate H, using a Motorola MC64 device, destination New York, user Joe as compared with gate J, using an Intermec CK3 device, destination Seattle, user Jane. Groups with Highest Reboot Distributions Washington (Depot) Sydney (Depot) Dallas (Warehouse) London (Sales) Amsterdam (Depot) Application Management User Thanks to the measurement, understanding and improvement of the core mobile business process, this airline was able to shave time from its core mobile business process, thereby reducing the risk of financial penalty and poor customer service. Not only that, it is now considering how best to use this opportunity to introduce new revenue-generating services. Mobility Intelligence is being applied to test the impact of these new services, prior to rollout, therefore further mitigating risk and maximizing opportunities for further growth. 7

8 CONCLUSION Illuminating the blind spot in Business Intelligence provides for continuous improvement of the mobile environment. Mobility Intelligence builds on a Business Intelligence strategy to benchmark best practice and deliver competitive advantage. Mobility Intelligence and its analytics capabilities open up new paths to business transformation by delivering cross-functional views of the mobile operation. At the heart of a Mobility Intelligence strategy is the recognition that the ROI anticipated has been eroded due to poor user adoption, infrastructure reliability and the high cost of ownership. All of these factors impact productivity, cause process inefficiencies, restrict cost reduction plans and impede customer service. An organization can maximize its investment in a mobile solution by measuring the impact of change and planning for continuous improvement. Sophisticated analytics benchmark best practice and deliver the process level view required to enable organizations to prevent ROI erosion, plan and measure the impact of change and to reposition themselves for sustainable competitive advantage. 1 IBM Global CIO Study John Dixon, Gartner via V3.co.uk 27th January IBM Institute of Business Value, April IDC whitepaper sponsored by SAS The Case for Investing in Business Technology February 2009 transforming the mobile enterprise UK Office t: +44 (0) f: +44 (0) The Core Business Centre Milton Hill Abingdon OX13 6AB U.S. Office t: f: N. Martingale Road Suite 400 Schaumberg Illinois 60173