www.niit-tech.com mkonnect - an Enterprise Mobility Application Gaurav Pandey NIIT Technologies White Paper
CONTENTS Introduction 3 Challenges 3 Solution Description 3 Implementation 6 Conclusion 7 References 7 About the Author 8 About NIIT Technologies 8
MANUFACTURING PROFIT DELIVERY CONSUMPTION MARKETING MARKETING MARKETING MANUFACTURING PRODUCTION TRAVEL PRODUCTION FACTORY SALES PROFIT MANUFACTURING PRODUCTION PRODUCTION BUSINES MARKETING FACTORY PROCUCTION DISTRIBUTION SALES Introduction It is always a priority for an organization to improve productivity, enhance profitability, make just-in-time decisions and increase customer satisfaction. With the recent advancement in technology and reducing costs in the mobile device arena, Enterprise Mobility has come up as a suitable and viable solution. Various flavors of enterprise applications can be extended to the mobile devices. This includes Sales, Employee Self Service (ESS), Manager Self Service (MSS), BI (Business Intelligence) and many more; depending on the organization and its structure. Apart from extending different enterprise applications to the mobile devices, an enterprise mobility solution also needs to cover most of the current mobility platforms (Blackberry, ios, Android, Windows etc) in order to maximize compatibility with various mobile devices. Challenges In a conventional setup in an organization, the workforce accesses the ERP using a computer while they are in their office premises. In the absence of a suitable mobility solution, many challenges are faced by the workforce when they are away from office. Sales: The sales force of an organization has to suffer delays in processing Sales Orders in the absence of a mobile solution that can interact with the ERP on the fly. Due to this constraint, they are susceptible to making ad-hoc commitments to the customers. While interacting with customers, they do not have ready means to check account information, which reduces their ability to negotiate. The lack of a mobility solution hinders the performance and abilities of the sales force. Employees: The mobile work-force typically is required to come to office to access the ERP system resulting in hours of lost productivity. The employees typically end up spending a lot of their time filling up numerous reimbursement claims, travel claims, leave requests etc. They are bound to use a computer or laptop with internet connectivity and in absence of which, they are unable to create and submit the requests. Moreover, the organization makes all the employees adapt a cryptic ERP interface that is not easy to comprehend. Managers: Often we come across a situation, when the managers are on the move and they have some approvals pending for their action. In such scenarios the manager does not have any means to know about and to act on the approval requests. The delay in approvals leads to elongated approval cycles and delays in purchases / sales orders processing. Also, the lack of agile approvals for the various requests like travel requests, reimbursements etc leads to reduction in employee satisfaction as well as productivity. Executives: The performance of the top level executives can also be affected by the absence of a mobility solution. When they do not have a handy means to know about the various statistics, analytical reports and trends pertaining to the organization; their decision making power gets hindered and slowed. They need a solution that can present various reports to them, with ease. Solution Description mkonnect is an Enterprise Mobility application developed by NIIT Technologies that brings the power of SAP to various mobile devices. The application supports multiple mobile platforms like J2ME, Blackberry, Android and ios and hence covers a large variety of mobile phones and devices that are in use today. The mobile device just needs to have GPRS connectivity to connect to SAP and push and pull data from it. The various SAP modules that mkonnect brings to the mobile devices are as follows: 3
mkonnect Sales: The mkonnect Sales application brings various Sales functionalities to the mobile device like: Account Management, Sales of Goods and Collection of Payments. Using the application the sales-force can create sales orders, view status of prior orders, view customer account details and view real time stock status. The application enables the sales-force to take faster actions as well as well informed decisions. mkonnect ESS: The mkonnect ESS application allows the employees to create and submit leave requests, travel requests, travel claims and monthly reimbursement claims using a mobile device. Using this, the employees can submit the requests independent of the location as well as availability of a computer with internet connectivity. Apart from better enabling the employees, the application makes the request submission process faster. mkonnect BI (Business Intelligence): The mkonnect BI application empowers the top level management by presenting them with daily summary over SMS or email. Additionally, the application allows them to see the reports in a drill-down menu format, tabular representation, graphs, charts, etc. The application has 100% report configurability. As the application presents the various trends to the top level management, they are kept well informed at all times and also are able to take just-in-time decisions. Apart from the above mentioned in-built workflow functionalities of SAP, mkonnect can also be customized to bring any SAP functionality onto the mobile handsets depending on the needs and requirements of the client. To enhance capabilities further, the mkonnect solution has been integrated with Bluetooth printers. As mkonnect MSS/Approvals: Using the mkonnect MSS/Approvals application, the Manager can quickly take action on Sales and Purchase orders. Similarly, they can approve travel requests, leave requests and the different types of claims submitted by their team-members. This application has a multi-fold effect on productivity because it not only enables timely action by the managers but also increases employee-satisfaction as their approval requests start getting processed faster than before. a result, the user can print the required information on a remote printer; this functionality is especially useful for printing invoices, stock-transfer notes, receipts etc. 4
To illustrate the customization of mkonnect for specific functionalities, examples of two such applications are presented below. Remote Invoicing (En Route Enablement): This particular customization of mkonnect is created to enable the truck drivers who are delivering a shipment from a plant to a warehouse and are required to make an en-route delivery. In a situation where a customer is situated along the way from the plant to the warehouse; the truck driver, once he leaves the plant, does not have any means to deliver goods to a customer who is en-route as the driver does not know the order details and has no facility to provide an invoice to the customer. The driver will have to go to the warehouse, unload the entire stock, load up the customer stock on a smaller vehicle, get the order details as well as a printed invoice and then come back to the customer with the goods to be delivered to them. However, using the mkonnect En Route Enablement application; the truck driver can deliver the goods to the customer and modify the Stock Transfers Note in SAP for the quantity delivered. Additionally, he can generate an invoice in the application and print it using a small Bluetooth printer that he carries along with the mobile device. This leads to faster delivery of goods to customers and hence increases customer satisfaction. On the other hand, it also reduces secondary freight and improves the bottom line of the company. Conventional Model Cement Plant Transportation Customer Warehouse New Model Remaining Shipment Cement Plant Transportation (Floating Warehouse) Enterprise Server & Mobility Middleware Customer Warehouse Remote Stock Transfer: This innovative application has been designed to bring the Stock Transfer related SAP screens on the mobile phones and tablets. The manufacturer transfers the goods from a plant to warehouse/railway siding. The warehouses/railway siding locations are often located at remote locations that have limited or no internet connectivity. In a traditional setup, one would have to distribute the stock in the warehouse/railway siding and then go back to the office to register that entry in the SAP system. This leads to delays, inconvenience and erroneous reporting in SAP. On the other hand using the mkonnect Remote Stock Transfer application, the user can make the stock transfer entry at the warehouse/railway siding itself using just a simple mobile phone with GPRS connectivity that goes directly into SAP. There is no need for continuous power and network availability as well as no need for a laptop or PC. This makes the Stock Transfer entry faster as well as accurate. 5
Corporate Network SAP Landscape Plant Warehouse Enterprise Mobility Middleware Remote Warehouse Railway Siding Storage Implementation The mobile application solution integrates with SAP via a middleware server (an Enterprise Mobility Middleware Server - EMMS) for publishing mobile interface to SAP backend server to access SAP data. The mobile application talks to EMMS using HTTP protocol over the mobile internet. EMMS will in turn talk to SAP over the enterprise LAN using SAP s BAPI/RFC programs as well as with JCO connection. The middleware provides the interface to mobile phones through GPRS, 3G or WiFi and accesses the SAP backend server. For providing access to mobile devices the middleware is hosted on a valid public IP address. Middleware server is responsible for the following tasks: Simplified interface for mobile devices Interaction with SAP over enterprise LAN Mobile application distribution URL Middleware server components: Windows OS Java Development Environment Tomcat Application server mysql database SAP connectors Application distribution URL is configured on middleware server for the distribution of mobile executables or installable applications for different smart-phone models. ESS Sales Work Flow App Download Administrative Console User Management Connectors Security Module Application Definition Engine Web Services Application Distribution SMS Gateway Interface Settlement Platform 6
Security: Moreover, the mkonnect architecture does not compromise on the security aspects. A user can use mkonnect application only by passing his/her SAP credentials to login into the application; hence the level of security is the same as while using the SAP GUI. If the password expires on SAP, the user will not be able to login using the mobile device. Similarly, on repeatedly entering the wrong password, SAP locks the user and the user won t be able to login again. The data transfer to and from the mobile device is completely secure, as all data travels on internet on secure channel (HTTPS) by installing SSL certificate on server. Also, to restrict the installation only for employees, access controlled installation of mobile application can be done with proper authorization credentials using over-the-air (OTA) installation. No data is stored on the mobile application. Even if some data is stored in some specific customised cases, it cannot be accessed outside the application. In case the mobile is stolen, application can be deactivated. Moreover, if the Blackberry infrastructure is used, the blackberry security policies are inherited automatically. Conclusion The mkonnect enterprise mobility solution offered by NIIT Technologies helps our clients increase their overall productivity. Not only does the solution increase the ease of working to the employees, it also makes the processes much faster thereby increasing overall productivity. References mkonnect has been implemented by NIIT Technologies for various esteemed customers as well as for their own internal use. mkonnect has been successfully implemented and is in use with one of our clients who are one of the India s largest and fastest growing electrical and power distribution manufacturers. The organization needed a solution that could improve their business functions by implementing their workflows and approvals through mobile phones. NIIT Technologies Ltd implemented mkonnect to extend their enterprise "Sales and Distribution and "HRMS modules to their mobile devices. It enabled the organization to exercise a variety of functionalities using just a GPRS enabled mobile phone. The employees can use the mobile application (mkonnect) to raise Leave/Travel requests and Reimbursement requests. Managers can approve the requests on-the-fly using their mobile phones. The sales team can create sales order, check customer account summary for outstanding payments and inventory check on their mobile phones. Similarly, for a well known cement giant mkonnect has extended the Sales and Distribution module that enabled the users to create sales orders, check customer account summary for outstanding payments and inventory check through their mobile phones. Also, NIIT Technologies have successfully implemented and use mkonnect application for their internal usage. Though mkonnect is provided as a standard set of solutions, it can easily be customized as per the client s needs and internal processes. Moreover, the product offering is modular in nature in which the client can choose a subset of the solutions on offer, as well as, the mobile platforms that need to be supported. 7
About the Author Gaurav Pandey works as a Senior Business Associate in NIIT Technologies has been linked with the mkonnect project almost since its inception. Gaurav is actively involved in various mobility related projects in NIIT Technologies as well as has experience working in various international research groups and consultancy projects. He also holds a Masters in European Business from ESCP-Europe and Post Graduation in International Business from Management Development Institute-Gurgaon. About NIIT Technologies NIIT Technologies is a leading IT solutions organization, servicing customers in North America, Europe, Asia and Australia. It offers services in Application Development and Maintenance, Enterprise Solutions including Managed Services and Business Process Outsourcing to organisations in the Financial Services, Travel & Transportation, Manufacturing/Distribution, and Government sectors. With employees over 7,000 professionals, NIIT Technologies follows global standards of software development processes. India NIIT Technologies Ltd. Corporate Heights (Tapasya) Plot No. 5, EFGH, Sector 126 Noida-Greater Noida Expressway Noida 201301, U.P., India Ph: +91 1 120 399 9555 Fax: +91 1 120 399 9150 Americas NIIT Technologies Inc., 1050 Crown Pointe Parkway 5 th Floor, Atlanta, GA 30338, USA Ph: +1 (770) 551 9494 Toll Free: +1 (888) 454 NIIT Fax: +1 (770) 551 9229 Over the years the Company has forged extremely rewarding relationships with global majors, a testimony to mutual commitment and its ability to retain marquee clients, drawing repeat business from them. NIIT Technologies has been able to scale its interactions with marquee clients in the BFSI sector, the Travel Transport & Logistics and Manufacturing & Distribution, into extremely meaningful, multi-year "collaborations. NIIT Technologies follows global standards of development, which include ISO 9001:2000 Certification, assessment at Level 5 for SEI-CMMi version 1.2 and ISO 27001 information security management certification. Its data center operations are assessed at the international ISO 20000 IT management standards. Europe NIIT Technologies Limited 2 nd Floor, 47 Mark Lane London - EC3R 7QQ, U.K. Ph: +44 (0) 20 70020700 Fax: +44 (0) 20 70020701 Singapore NIIT Technologies Pte. Limited 31 Kaki Bukit Road 3 #05-13 Techlink Singapore 417818 Ph: +65 68488300 Fax: +65 68488322 A global IT sourcing organization 21 locations and 14 countries 7000+ professionals Level 5 of SEI-CMMi, ver1.2 ISO 27001 certified Level 5 of People CMM Framework Write to us at marketing@niit-tech.com www.niit-tech.com D_11_180712