.FLYINGHEAD KEEPING SCORE ON TCO AND ROI
.TITLE Cost-saving TCO tips for enterprise mobile solutions
.AUTHOR Dale Troppito and Dawna Paton
.SUMMARY This month’s Keeping Score column takes the TCO discussion one step further, looking at cost-saving tips for an enterprise’s mobile solutions.
.DEPT
Ok, you’ve had a month to digest the set of cost drivers that contribute to the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) for a mobile enterprise solution. In this month’s column, let’s take the TCO discussion one step further.
You might be asking, "Just how can the selected handheld unit really make a big difference in the mobile solution TCO? A handheld is a handheld, right?"
Wrong! The handheld you select, and how you deploy it, can greatly sway the TCO outcome for your organization. Let’s see how by discussing a few top practical tips.
.BREAK_EMAIL Select this link to have Dale and Dawna teach you about handheld selection and TCO.
.H1 Handheld unit costs
The cost of the basic handheld unit varies widely — by model within a given manufacturer’s line, and across handheld manufacturers. It’s important to assess the handheld capabilities that are really necessary to support the mobile enterprise solution you wish to deploy.
Do the users truly require every "bell and whistle" that top-of-the-line handhelds have come to offer? The message here is: don’t over buy; buy what you need … but with foresight of the direction you want to take your mobile solution.
Not only can you lower the basic device cost investment, but you might also reap payback in ease of mobile solution use. Often the complexity of a fully-loaded handheld can make the mobile solution somewhat unapproachable for users. Less can be more!
.H1 Mobile solution environment
Where and how is your mobile solution going to be used? Will the handheld be coddled? Or will it be exposed to harsh operating environments on a manufacturing floor or at the drill-hole edge of an oil rig site? The ruggedness of the handheld must be considered.
Ruggedness of handhelds varies across manufacturers. If your user community will be in operating situations where the handheld is likely to be jostled, dropped, exposed to extreme temperatures, harsh chemicals, etc., you may need to invest in a more rugged handheld in order to save money over the lifetime of your mobile solution.
Sometimes it’s not a harsh operating environment, but a harsh user community. If your user community has a bad case of the "dropsies", you could be facing a bundle of handheld replacements … and a bundle of additional cost. Most enterprises decommission handhelds with broken screens, replacing the entire unit.
Dropped handhelds are the leading reason for handheld replacement, followed by the user simply losing the unit. So maybe a drop test is something to consider when making your mobile solution’s handheld selection.
While rugged handhelds often cost more than non-rugged handhelds, the savings is derived from lower handheld replacement rates, lower repair depot costs and a small spare pool size.
.H1 Battery-life management
The battery systems within handhelds vary greatly. This is something to which you must pay close attention. The key question, of course, is what happens when the handheld runs out of juice?
Does the handheld go to sleep softly? Or does it suffer complete state breakdown and data loss, destined for the IT center for another round of set-up?
Battery management is a major cost contributor to the repair and IT costs of a handheld. And let’s not even think about the business impact of the user’s lost data.
.H1 Knowing your user community
Is your mobile solution going into the hands of techno nerds, eager for their next technology fix? Or is the mobile solution going to be used by the technology timid? The handheld device, operating system and application software must be selected to accommodate the audience of the mobile solution.
Vendors’ approaches to usability differ greatly, so test them all out on your user audience. If you do so, you’ll realize a lower TCO through decreased training costs, technical support calls, and "false" repair depot submissions.
.H1 Roll ’em out!
The process of readying a handheld for first-time deployment, again, differs between handhelds. Make sure that you are familiar with the handheld set-up process and the ease or difficulty with which operating system and software updates can be loaded into the handheld and configured.
Set-up time for a handheld can vary from 10 minutes to 4 hours, depending on the mobile solution, selected handheld, and selected operating system. Set-up time can be a significant cost in the TCO equation.
This is particularly the case when combined with a weak recovery scenario from a drained battery. A given handheld can be back in the "shop" repeatedly for set-up.
.H1 Robustness of software
Software maintenance and update management on an army of deployed handhelds can be significant. If the software — either the operating system or the software application — is regularly morphing to accommodate bugs and performance problems, your IT team will have to call in the troops for OS and application updates 3-4 times per year. So choose wisely!
Minimize the times per year that your IT team has touch each handheld. Coordinating OS and software application updates will lower the TCO nut even further.
.H1 Training: It’s a good thing!
Many companies view training to be an unnecessary activity for a mobile solution. The feeling is that the handheld is intuitive. Give the user 10 minutes poking and prodding at the functions and s/he will eventually figure it out.
However, with the growing complexity and sophistication of handhelds and the software that runs on them, this is just asking for trouble … and cost. An untrained user usually only knows enough to get by; a good portion of the OS and application is uncharted territory.
Such users are much more likely to make an operational error that can result in loss of set-up information and data. Such users are also much more likely to get themselves in a pickle and not know how to back out of a cascading screen path for which they have no idea how they got there!
One of two events usually occurs: the user puts a call into technical support for a lengthy one-on-one educational call. Or, the user blames the problem on the handheld and puts in a repair order for the handheld. The costs are adding up!
Private one-on-one training is the most expensive training method of all. Technical support call frequency and average length of call time increases. Finally, repair order frequency increases.
The moral of this story is simple: sometimes you need to spend a little to save a lot! A user group training session is an efficient method for quickly getting users competent with the handheld and the mobile solution. It’ll keep ’em off the phones, and off of your IT group’s work docket!
.H1 Putting theory into practice
While these practical tips will probably not "rock your world", they’ll definitely "chip away" at your TCO! Each is easy to implement. Together, they incrementally add up to big savings on the lifetime cost of your enterprise’s mobile solution.
.BIO Dale Troppito and Dawna Paton are managing partners of the Gantry Group. Troppito has guided Gantry’s rigorous ROI best practice models based on a 25-year career in the technology sector as a CEO, product development executive and chief marketing officer. You can reach her at dtroppito@gantrygroup.com. Paton believes that the technology leaders of the future will be those that understand the crucial role that a market-validated, value delivery strategy and compelling ROI play in shaping corporate competitiveness and customer satisfaction. You can reach her at dpaton@gantrygroup.com.
