.KEYWORD palmroi
.FLYINGHEAD PALMPOWER ANALYSIS
.TITLE Investing in Palm handhelds: a return on investment analysis
.FEATURE
.SPOTLIGHT FIGALT cover.gif
.SUMMARY When making a purchasing decision, especially on a company-wide basis, you must evaluate your Return on Investment. In this article, Editor-in-Chief David Gewirtz explores the entire ROI issue as it pertains to Palm handhelds. He offers a number of real world examples of companies that have seen enormous ROI benefits and provides several guidelines to follow when trying to figure out what your ROI might be before you invest in Palm handhelds.
.AUTHOR David Gewirtz
.BEGIN_SIDEBAR
This issue of PalmPower Magazine Enterprise Edition is devoted to an important issue: the Return on Investment of Palm handheld computers. We’ve devoted three feature articles to this comprehensive PalmPower Analysis. Be sure to read all three to get the best understanding of this complex but exciting issue.
.END_SIDEBAR
For more than three years in PalmPower Magazine and nearly a year here in PalmPower’s Enterprise Edition, we’ve been showing you what you can do with Palm handhelds, helping you use them to the fullest, and delving into the most interesting nooks and crannies of their operation.
We know that, here in the Enterprise Edition, we’ve inspired many of you to consider investing in Palm handhelds. In a recent survey we asked you, "Has PalmPower’s Enterprise Edition helped you decide to purchase a Palm computer?" More than 53% of you said that the magazine helped you decide to purchase, and another 11.54% said it helped you to evaluate your purchasing options.
When making a purchasing decision, you’re obviously going to evaluate function, fit, and performance. In other words, can the product do the job? Based on the many success stories we’ve published and letters we’ve received, it’s pretty clear that Palm handhelds are amazingly versatile–far more so than we had any inkling of before we began publishing the magazine.
.CALLOUT From what we’ve been able to tell, the actual return on a Palm handheld investment is nothing short of astounding.
But when making a purchasing decision, especially on a company-wide basis, you also must evaluate your ROI (Return on Investment). In other words, you (or at least the key financial managers in your company) need to know that if you spend a certain amount bringing in a solution, there will be a return at least commensurate with the expense.
The purpose of this article is to explore the entire ROI issue as it pertains to Palm handhelds. It’s going to be an interesting journey, so buckle up and hang on.
.H1 Return on Investment
From what we’ve been able to tell, the actual return on a Palm handheld investment is nothing short of astounding.
It’s important to realize that there are two kinds of ROI you should be factoring into your thinking. The first, of course, is money ROI. How much more can you sell? How much can you save? How much more productive are your people?
But there’s another form of ROI that won’t fit into a spreadsheet. This ROI is equally, possibly even more, important. What is it? It’s the quality-of-life ROI. The simple fact is that Palm handhelds improve the quality of life, from making it easier to keep track of appointments, to keeping important information available at all times, to simply making sure you have the right map on hand when you need it.
It’s this quality-of-life ROI that’s going to be tough to calculate. Imagine, for example, that you’ve downloaded a corporate PowerPoint presentation to your Palm handheld and can now show it on your Palm m505 using Documents To Go 4.0’s Slideshow To Go software (at http://www.dataviz.com). Now imagine you’re on the train, coming home from a tradeshow. You start up a conversation with your seatmate and discover this is a key person from a client you’ve been trying to pitch. Assuming they’re interested, out comes the Palm m505, and you’re instantly able to illustrate your point with slides on your device. It’s hard to quantify this sort of synchronicity, but it happens all the time.
.H1 ROI examples
On the other hand, since some of the real ROI stories are so impressive, one way to get an idea about your ROI is to look at the ROI other companies have achieved. So let’s take a look at a number of firms that have reported substantial benefits.
.H2 Analysts International
Analysts International estimates a savings of $1,700 per person. The company provides technical consulting and information technology solutions to more than 900 corporate and governmental organizations around the world. With headquarters in Minneapolis, the 5,000-person firm has offices in 48 locations within the U.S., Canada, and the United Kingdom.
Employees of Analysts International use Palm VII handhelds and Lotus Notes to synchronize information, check calendars, and look up contact information wirelessly. The experience has been so successful that its analysts now recommend the solution to customers, offering their own success as proof of its value.
.CALLOUT If an attorney keeps track of just one hour that might have been forgotten in the past, a Palm computer has already paid for itself!
.H2 McGinnis, Lochridge & Kilgore
Attorneys in the Houston law firm of McGinnis Lockridge & Kilgoe LLP use their Palm VII handhelds to access email, check the status of cases, track billable hours, and keep their schedules with them at all times. By choosing a Palm handheld instead of a laptop for this particular application, the firm reduced the expected costs of IT by 25 to 35 percent. In addition, it increased revenue by helping attorneys keep track of billable time more accurately.
According to Vince Marbibi, the firm’s Network Applications Manager, "We tried laptops and a number of handheld devices, but for the money you can’t beat Palm. Before Palm, the attorneys would lug around their laptops wherever they went. It was an expensive and non-ergonomically friendly way to solve the problem. With Palm handhelds, the attorneys are able to be connected and still do the footwork that comes with being a barrister.
"Up to 30% of an attorney’s time is not usually logged, and thus unbilled. The attorneys use Time Reporter on the Palm handheld to keep track of billable hours in real-time. This information is automatically synchronized with the firm’s accounting system. If an attorney keeps track of just one hour that might have been forgotten in the past, then the Palm computer has already paid for itself!"
.H2 The Clorox Company
We all know of Clorox as the bleach people. But you may not know that they’re a multinational manufacturer and marketer of household and institutional products with about $4 billion in annual revenue. The company employs more than 3,000 people in Latin America. Clorox Latin America is using Palm handhelds in their mobile field sales force. Within eight weeks of implementing the Palm handheld technology, Clorox reported a 20% increase in the number of stores visited per day.
.H2 Elcon Corp.
Elcon Corp. is an electrical contracting company that created a Palm OS-based asset tracking application that the company says saves them $2500 per employee annually, virtually eliminates theft, and reduces redundant tool purchases. Elcon originally created the software for internal use, but they’re now also selling it as a product because it’s helping companies that have high theft problems. Elcon reports this solution paid for itself within a month.
.H2 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the American South’s largest newspaper, increased solicitor subscription productivity by 30% and improved customer relations after it gave Palm handheld computers to its door-to-door sales force.
Before the Palm handheld solution, the sales force would pick a street and walk up to homes with little or no knowledge about their potential customers. This resulted in unnecessary calls on existing subscribers or ones who previously told sales representatives they never want to subscribe.
Today, before beginning a door-to-door sales campaign, supervisors download customer and prospect information onto more than 100 low-cost Palm handhelds. Sales people carry the handhelds as they walk the neighborhood so they can approach the homes in an efficient order and adapt the appropriate offer at each door. By simply tapping an address from the list displayed on the handheld, sales people instantly know if the household is a current or lapsed subscriber and how many days the household receives a paper. The Palm handhelds also show sales people which current promotions they can offer the customer and automatically calculate applicable sales tax for each of 16 counties in the Atlanta metropolitan area.
The handheld solution has made the door-to-door campaigns much more productive and allowed the newspaper to reduce the number of door-to-door visits overall. Furthermore, it has improved customer relations by giving the sales representatives the data they need to better understand their customers before they open the door.
.H2 Fiat Credit France
Fiat Credit France is Fiat’s financing arm. Fiat’s 1,100 sales consultants all use Palm handhelds to present a financing offer, accessing price and model list data, financing information and current promotions–all at the touch of a button while on the showroom floor with the customer.
According to the company, not only has Fiat improved customer satisfaction and increased sales, but also the Palm OS-based solution has paid for itself in only 18 months. That includes recouping the costs of POS (Point of Sale) materials, brochures, the 1,100 Palm computers, printers, and other software and hardware options.
Here’s a good example of how to calculate your own ROI. Fiat didn’t just account for the devices. They also factored in the costs of everything from printers to brochures. Even so, the system paid for itself in a year and a half. Every day after that, it’s literally been making money for the firm.
.CALLOUT The Palm handheld solution not only paid for itself in less than six months, but also enabled client invoices to be generated at least a week faster than before, meaning better collections and improved cash flows.
.H2 Frontline Now!
Frontline Now!, located in California, offers channel sales and marketing outsourcing services for high-tech companies, enabling them to generate channel revenue without building or maintaining their own organization.
The company set up a forms-based solution for sales force automation. Palm handhelds were coupled with AvantGo’s Enterprise software (at https://avantgo.com/products/businesses/). The integrated solution enables Frontline Now! to provide clients with real-time, Web-enabled reporting.
Field sales representatives, now equipped with Palm Vx handhelds, visit computer retail stores to collect client-specific sales and marketing information. The data is transferred upstream into Frontline Now!’s central database using HotSync technology. Reports are automatically generated and available to clients through a password-protected Web page. It’s all pretty slick.
Frontline Now!’s sales reporting system ensures faster replenishment of inventory at the retail stores, increasing commissions as well as the clients’ revenues. The Palm handheld solution not only paid for itself in less than six months but also enabled client invoices to be generated at least a week faster than before, meaning better collections and improved cash flows.
.H2 The Gunn Automotive Group
The Gunn Automotive Group is a 48-year-old, privately held company with ten automotive dealerships at nine locations throughout San Antonio, TX. The company, one of the 100 largest automotive dealer groups in the United States, generates annual gross revenues in excess of $300 million.
.CALLOUT The Palm handheld solution paid for itself in the first two months of deployment. The project has resulted in $65,000 annual net savings.
Gunn implemented a Palm OS-based solution consisting of 200 Palm handhelds, Microsoft Access, and the company’s Dealership Information Management system from Reynolds & Reynolds. The mobile solution, developed in-house, enables Gunn’s sales force to access inventory information from ten different dealerships throughout Texas, all without leaving the customer’s side.
According to the company, the Palm handheld solution paid for itself in the first two months of deployment. The project has resulted in $65,000 annual net savings over their prior inventory-access solution.
.H2 J&B Wholesale
J&B Wholesale is a regional refrigerated foods wholesaler with warehouse and direct store delivery. The company, with over 400 employees, manages a fleet of over 100 vehicles driving nearly 3,500,000 miles per year. The company distributes quality food products and services to meat markets, retail grocery stores, and food service distributors in an 11 state midwestern area.
The company has provided its mobile employees with Internet-enabled Palm VII computers and software from GearWorks (at http://www.gearworks.com). Cell phone costs were getting to be "astronomical," according to Kurt Anderson, the company’s director of operations. Instead, the company turned to Palm handhelds to track their trucks and truckers.
According to Anderson, "Estimating conservatively, we expect to eliminate 75% of annual cell phone charges on top of a 40% annual reduction in overall administrative costs, specifically from handling exceptions when pickups or deliveries run late."
Now, that’s a meaty set of numbers!
.H1 How to think about your own ROI
As you’ve seen in this article, companies are deriving benefit from Palm handhelds in many different ways. In the case of McGinnis Lockridge & Kilgoe, a Palm solution actually replaced laptops. In many cases, a Palm solution isn’t replacing another technology, rather, as with data collection, it’s replacing a task previously done laboriously by hand. You know your own business best. Before I started writing this article, I never would have listed "cutting down on cell phone charges" as a benefit of a Palm enterprise solution, but for J&B Wholesale, it was a huge win.
So, when you’re thinking about your own ROI or trying to figure out what your ROI might be before you invest in Palm handhelds, keep these guidelines in mind:
.BEGIN_LIST
.BULLET Ask yourself if you’re replacing a previous process or if you’re enabling something entirely new.
.END_LIST
.BEGIN_LIST
.BULLET If you’re replacing a previous process, figure out what that process costs and then figure out what it might cost with the Palm solution.
.END_LIST
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.BULLET If your previous process was done by hand, there are bound to be mistakes or incomplete data. Factor in what mistakes cost and what opportunities will open up if you have complete data.
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.BULLET If you’re enabling something entirely new, get a handle on what benefits come from being able to accomplish that new activity.
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.BULLET Here’s where it telescopes. Now that you’ve derived the benefits from being able to accomplish that new activity, determine what new opportunities will open up from that. For example, if you’re now able to check your email on the road, what are the other things you can do remotely? Cycle this over and over until you see the entire chain: possibility leads to capability leads to possibility. And then, for fun, attempt to quantify.
.END_LIST
.BEGIN_LIST
.BULLET Don’t forget to factor in the dollar value of time saved. Even if you save just a few minutes a day, multiplied across a year, across all employees, it’s still a big number.
.END_LIST
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.BULLET Now that you’ve figured out the dollar value of time saved, figure out the opportunity value of time saved. Either you’ll be able to do more of the same task, so add that to your model, or you’ll do other tasks or be more responsive to customers and constituents. What’s the actual dollar benefit of that?
.END_LIST
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.BULLET And now that you know the actual dollar benefit of having more available time, what’s the goodwill or PR benefit? If you’re repairing something in half the time or showing up on a service call twice as fast, you’re not only doing more service calls, you’ll have more satisfied customers. Having more satisfied customers leads to better word of mouth, and that leads to even more customers.
.END_LIST
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.BULLET Finally, there are probably areas of benefit unique to your business. Really brainstorm to see what they are.
.END_LIST
There are a few things I’d like you to remember. ROI is important before and after buying to justify a purchase. It’s also very important because it’ll help you see new ways you can take advantage of the new resource you’re now using. Remember that if it takes awhile to do some serious benefit brainstorming, it’s not just for a spreadsheet. It’s a way of expanding your opportunities.
Finally, don’t forget the quality-of-life benefits I mentioned earlier. Having an emergency number when necessary, being able to check your mail on the train, being able to get an important message while in a waiting room, and being able to get directions when lost are all possible with Palm computers. And, as you might imagine, there are many more quality-of-life benefits. You can certainly internalize how those abilities can make your own life better. Now expand that to all your employees issued Palm handhelds. Not only will you have happier employees, but we all know that happier employees are more productive and stay in their jobs longer. That means lowered recruiting costs, lowered training costs, and less opportunities and skills lost.
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.H1 Wrapping it all up
We’ve covered an enormous amount in this article. It’ll give you a lot to think about. Believe it or not, there’s even more. While researching this article, I asked readers for their own ROI stories. I got such interesting responses that I put their responses into the article, "Investing in Palm handhelds: Readers tell their own stories of ROI results," located elsewhere in this issue of PalmPower’s Enterprise Edition. Be sure to give it a read. You’ll definitely get a pretty high return from your time invested.
.BEGIN_SIDEBAR
.H1 Product availability and resources
For more information on Documents To Go 4.0, visit http://www.dataviz.com.
For more information on AvantGo’s Enterprise software, visit https://avantgo.com/products/businesses/.
For more information on GearWorks, visit http://www.gearworks.com.
For more information about Palm computers, visit http://www.palm.com.
.H1 Bulk reprints
Bulk reprints of this article (in quantities of 100 or more) are available for a fee from Reprint Services, a ZATZ business partner. Contact them at reprints@zatz.com or by calling 1-800-217-7874.
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.BIO
.DISCUSS http://powerboards.zatz.com/cgi-bin/webx?50@@.ee6f834
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