.FLYINGHEAD KEEPING SCORE ON MOBILE SOLUTIONS
.TITLE Mobile media goes corporate
.AUTHOR Dale Troppito and Dawna Paton
.SUMMARY Dale and Dawna have taken a bit of break on the standard Keeping Score fair in this month’s column. With wireless data transfer rates finally becoming reasonable, Video On Demand technology, and more effective compression algorithms, mobile devices are transforming into fully equipped media centers. Given that it’s award season in Hollywood, this month has mobile media on the playbill.
.DEPT
We know we promised a drill-down into mobile solutions for the healthcare industry this month, but we thought we’d take a brief hiatus given that it’s annual award season in Hollywood. The Oscar ceremonies are upon us, and we thought it fitting to take you on a tour of what’s to come when video meets the mobile media industry.
With wireless data transfer rates finally becoming reasonable, VOD (Video On Demand) technology, and more effective compression algorithms, mobile devices are transforming into fully equipped media centers. We can already see it happening in the consumer segment. iPods are becoming the device of choice for compiling our entire personal music libraries, and will soon house our family photo albums as well.
Mobile Java is enabling our favorite video games. Will handhelds and smartphones be the next generation Game Boys? They just might be. Monthly subscription services to on-demand game libraries are just around the corner. But the big question is, how will these rapidly emerging mobile media breakthroughs change the corporate landscape and where will they bring enterprise value?
.H1 Staying "in the know"…anytime…anywhere
Just this month, Samsung and Verizon Wireless announced their partnership to offer VCAST multimedia 3G wireless services and VOD, allowing users to now access VCAST applications such as full-color video clips, games, and music videos. Such services will make it possible to provide video news updates to any mobile person. Further, delivery of this information can be highly customized to match the recipient’s profile.
.BREAK_EMAIL To learn more about the ROI of mobile media, click here.
Applying these capabilities to enterprise field forces results in each field member getting important news updates that are pertinent to their position and current work assignment. For example, a sales person could receive updates on a competitor’s press announcement introducing a new breakthrough technology. A broker could receive up-to-the-minute updates on the world market and financial rate changes.
It’s certainly no surprise that an informed field force leads to a more efficient, prepared, and productive sales force. And this usually leads to improved rates in sales closings, and improved strategic decision making.
.H1 Mobile e-learning
With the capability of wireless VOD in place, mobile devices are transformed into mobile learning devices. Workforce training is spotty at best for most enterprises. The administration of training often proves logistically difficult, and expensive. Removing the prerequisite classroom and expensive video equipment of the past, or even a wired PC, enables a continuous learning environment for each worker.
Mobile learning will transform how enterprises train their workforces and keep them current. Adding the missing ingredient of mobility, a worker will be able to take a training course in small snippets of available time: while awaiting a flight, waiting for a meeting to begin, taking a break over coffee, or relaxing in the hotel room.
Some of the benefits of e-learning you’re already quite familiar with are lower training costs, improved workforce participation, leading to a more uniformly trained workforce, and higher training content retention, leading to a more highly proficient, productive workforce. In addition, e-learning also increases enterprise compliance, leading to lower penalty costs. A more highly skilled workforce leads to more revenue, less costly errors or safety violations, and fewer lawsuits.
All of this, of course, leads to lower enterprise costs and corporate exposures, as well as increased revenue and opportunity. The mobile factor is the icing on the cake. Any time, anywhere learning is readying to go extreme!
.H1 Applying video to the workplace
Mobile devices have revolutionized field service. Today, field service employees rely on the handheld to inform and optimize their daily work dockets, allow parts availability checks and order placement, and view field equipment diagrams and schematics. Mobile field solutions allow representatives to collect field data, dynamically create the final customer bill, transfer data electronically to the central office, and receive timely central office updates.
Now add Video On Demand to this capability mix. Imagine field service staff accessing video knowledge bases that bring visual, how-to instruction at the customer site. Such on-demand e-learning applications will help field service staff overcome field problems and better ensure that the field job is successfully completed.
The need for repeat field service calls plagues enterprises because of the inherent extra service cost and customer satisfaction penalties. Bringing how-to knowledge to the field force will be instrumental to increasing field service effectiveness. Field service forces will transcend to a continuous learning environment where the complete knowledge base is in their hip pocket.
.H1 Spam, the next generation
Corporate marketing departments won’t miss the opportunity to bring their messaging to this new multimedia environment. VOD will be the means to deliver "educational" infomercials to mobile devices. This is one side effect of technology enablement that may result in additional enterprise cost instead of a bottom line ROI (Return On Investment) benefit.
What makes mobile devices attractive for this type of marketing is that the worker is mobile, outside of the supervised, controlled, corporate environment. Furthermore, this active content is handy for viewing in personal downtime that was previously unavailable to marketers, except in flat print, making the handheld and smartphone persuasive marketing tools.
.H1 In conclusion
Mobile media brings the potential of taking mobile devices into a new realm of just-in-time productivity tools for the enterprise workforce. Mobile media will take the handhelds and smartphones from being flat informational transfer devices, to 3-D visual communication devices. Applied and used correctly, enterprises can reap significant benefits for a more informed, educated, and skilled workforce. Sales cycles will shorten; close rates will increase. Field service staff can perform higher quality tasks with lower instances of failure and safety violations.
Then again, workforces may become glued to a new type of mobile "boob tube". Workers could just as easily become compulsive info junkies, ready to download that next video game for a test run! As always with technology, it’s all in the application, and the relentless management of it. So get ready, Hollywood is coming to a mobile device near you!
While we thoroughly enjoy pontificating on our personally selected topics regarding Mobile Enterprise Solutions, we’d like to establish an interactive relationship with our reading audience. Monologues are not us! We’d like to invite you to send your questions, opinions, and topic suggestions on mobile enterprise solution value delivery to dtroppito@computingunplugged.com. We’ll do our very best to respond expeditiously in our upcoming columns. Looking forward to hearing from you!
.BIO
