Wall Street Journal Reports on iPad as Sales Tool

Today's article in the Wall Street Journal talks about iPad sales tools being widely adopted in the medical sales field.

"Medical-sector companies are passing out thousands of iPad tablet computers to salespeople to spruce up their pitch to doctors, and at the same time giving Apple Inc. a crucial foot in the door to business customers.

Abbott Laboratories, Medtronic Inc. and Boston Scientific Corp. are among the drug and medical-device firms making the move, while others say they are testing out the devices."

How One Company is Moving Sales to iPad

In this post, PC world talks about a company moving entirely to iPads for their sales staff.

This reflects an trend we've been covering (see "6 Ways Salespeople Are Already Using iPads...")

In the next few months, Jeff Letasse, vice president of IT for Conceptus, will hand out more than 220 iPads to every salesperson in the company. He plans to wean them off of their trusty laptops and PDAs, with the hope of never having to buy another laptop for a salesperson again.

The dam holding back consumer devices in the enterprise "has broken wide open," Letasse says.

Read the article, then remember that the concern over "the app conundrum" is largely solved. For example they discuss the "Apple License" issue, but the fact is, the best development tools for the iPad (for ERP, CRM, and B2B uses) don't even require an Apple license.

Everybody keeps fussing over the Apple License and App Store issues. But these non-issues -- we already have development tools that bypass these limitations quite easily. Spread the word!

Meanwhile iPads in the sales world are a spectacular productivity enhancer and a more powerful way of closing sales. The firms that grab this opportunity early, like Conceptus, are going to grow more rapidly and outrun their slower competitors.

Want to know more about this? Attend the iPad Fast Track Webinar coming Dec 8th!

6 Ways Salespeople Already Using iPad to Boost Sales

1 Walk around at trade show inviting people to work on iPad. Combine with press release and t-shirts.

“We walk around the show wearing t-shirts that invite people to use the iPad on the spot. People would see our shirts and ask us what we are doing. We just hand them the iPad and invite them to set themselves up a server on the spot. They are hooked immediately. We could get a smaller trade show booth next ti

me, because it’s out in the corridors that the action happens."

Navisite Inc. Irina Jacovleva, Marketing Manager.

2 During product demo, use iPad to manipulate 3-d virtual model of product for demo.

“We have built a 3-d model of our product (a server). With the iPad I can walk around, talk, and make the 3-d model move, open, and display parts. Previously with a laptop it’s impossible to do this. We needed one salesperson to run the demo, and one to walk around and chat with the crowd. Now I can do both, because the iPad is so unobtrusive and easy to use. So, I suppose you could say we just got a 50% productivity boost on our sales process, in terma of our own time, plus the fact that we make a better impression on our clients.”

Torben Kling-Petersen Phd, Technical Director, Oracle Corporation. 3-D tool and iPad controller supplied by: Kaon Inc.

3 Use iPad to pitch investors.

“This makes me look more “on top of it” and prepared in front of investors. I can walk around, talk, in a very relaxed way. That means I’m more in control of the meeting, which means I look better.”

Kevin Dykes CEO, Scaleup Technologies, Inc.

4 Junior salesperson just deliver the iPad to the client, sales manager does every demo via WebEx.

“I used to fly out with every one of my sales reps to deliver the key presentation… I can close twice as many, and that is how we make our numbers. But I was limited by time and health, couldn’t hit all the clients that were coming in the door. Now with the iPad I can handle a huge load because I never leave the office, don’t have to fly. My time commitment is 3 hours instead of 2 days per client."

"In theory we could do this with the laptop but it never quite worked… the customer wasn’t willing to hold the laptop, it didn’t have the same emotional strength. The iPad somehow crosses the threshold, it serves as a viable replacement for a person. This will be the centerpiece of our sales strategy going forward."

James G., VP of Sales and Marketing, Fortune 100 technology firm (name of firm withheld).

5 Use iPad-based sales documentation to allow prospects to instantly email documentation materials to colleagues.

“In pharma and biotech, there are fat stacks of product documentation and technical information. With the iPad instead we just hand the iPad to a user, they read what they are interested in, and then immediately email what they think is most important to their colleagues in a very digestible form. So they almost immediately start making the sale for us.

Red Funnel Consulting -- FatStax Inc website.

6 Use “optimized” presentation on iPad to differentiate from low cost competitors and close large deals.

“We are getting a significantly better close rate since we started using iPad. Don’t know how long it’s going to last, but we’re going to push it all we can. Deals are usually over 5 million dollars and we’re seeing a lot of lowballing competitors. The customers know that the lowballers are not to be trusted, but they have a hard time convincing their peers. Very hard sometimes for them to fight the urge to jump for the lowball price, even when you know you could get burned. The iPad helps them make their case to their colleagues, that quality is the crucial issue. Our iPad presentation gives a higher perception of quality."

Paul S., VP of Sales, Mid-sized technology company (name of firm withheld),

More On iPad CRM

In a prior post we talked about the "Magic Triangle" of iPad, CRM, and Enterprise 2.0 (enterprise social networking).

Here is another article on iPad and CRM.

Why do we care so much about iPad-based marketing? Because all signs point to major productivity gains, and most sales, especially corporate or B2B sales, have stubbornly remained very expensive over the years. If the iPad changes the sales equation, that is huge.

2 Good Posts From B2B iPad Developer

Here is Fatstax -- a developer of some very cool and practical iPad sales tools.

Highly recommended blog posts:

The Coming Flood of Enteprise iPad Sales Tools

Start By Customizing Existing Software

Gartner to CEOs: Seize the iPad Opportunity Now

From Gartner Group:

The Apple iPad and its ecosystem are likely to disrupt existing technology use profiles and business models, and CEOs should ensure that its potential is being seriously evaluated inside their organizations, according to a new report from Gartner Inc.

Note also another issues. CIOs and IT managers who hesitate, hoping for the Android platform to "catch up," are being shortsighted. Any costs invested in the iPad are going to be limited compared to the overall size of the mobile business.

I hear many IT people say "we don't want to choose the wrong platform." But they are missing the point. It's quite inexpensive to get into the iPad and most of those costs will be for "non-platform specific" issues.

The biggest danger to enterprises is failing to move quickly enough.

Purchase the full report here.

How Big is the ERP Elephant? 200 Billion. But How Fast Will it Move?

During a talk at the latest iPhone Business Meetup (highly recommended!) someone asked:

"How big is this ERP/touchscreen tablet opportunity? Best guess?"

OK...according to the statistics available:

• 60 billion per year: current annual sales of ERP industry


• 200 Billion: Residual Value of ERP software -- legacy software that has been purchased in past 2 decades and is still in use.


• 25%: Potential value add by touch tablets and smartphones.

So, if we choose to use these numbers -- admittedly guesswork -- then the market opportunity is $50 Billion of legacy fixes, or $15 Billion/year of annual sales.

Of course total size is not the limiting factor in enterprise sales. The size is huge. It's an elephant.

The question is, how fast can we get this elephant to adopt a good new idea, even when that good idea is really easy to prove?

• Slow: Speed with which ERP market will adopt this great technology.

Elephantine rules are slow rules. The ERP market is difficult to change. But again, it's huge, so that is the tradeoff.

The strategy therefore is to pick the sector of that elephantine market that will be easiest to change, and focus our efforts there. What's the sharp stick we can poke with?

• Sharp Stick: The vertical market or product catagory which will prod the elephant most effectively (and allow us to build a viable business).

iPad 34% Faster Than Workstation or Laptop, For Key ERP Functions

We test the tablet form factor in parts of the enterprise where one might expect it to be faster..and it is!

Up to 40% of corporate users could improve productivity

Used new Enterprise iPad Toolkit from iOptimal

In which parts of the enterprise does the iPad offer the best productivity gains? We set out to find the answer to that question, and the answer is: 20%, 40%, and 34%.

We chose a set of five common data entry screens from a corporate ERP suite – Financials, MRP, CRM, and Human Resources – from vendors such as SAP, Oracle, Lawson, and Salesforce.com. These screens were chosen as a cross-section representing (as best as possible) the thousands upon thousands of legacy database applications used in organizations across the world.

We built “iPad optimized” versions of those screens, which exactly duplicated the data entry functions in the standard Windows/keyboard versions. To build the iPad version we used the new iPad-enterprise prototyping tool just released by our partner firm iOptimal.

We chose these five functions carefully, to represent what we call the “40/20 rule." 40% of corporate users – generally managers, supervisors, and engineers – use only 20% of the ERP functions. By a happy coincidence, those 40% of users – our target audience – are also the ones that most likely to use a tablet, since they are generally people who “move around the office a lot” and have difficulties using laptops and workstations. Also by happy coincidence, the 20% of functions needed by these people are functions which don’t require large amounts of keyboard use, thus are well-suited for mobile tablets.

Converting that 20% subset of of ERP functions to the iPad should create significant time savings and a lot of happy users (and happy IT managers as well, since happy users become enthusiastic supporters for IT departments).

The Results

For our five representative tests, we had people perform the correct functions as fast as possible. We timed them by watching keystrokes and time motion study (using a stopwatch). On average these functions were 34% faster to perform on the iPad, for identical data entered, compared to the laptop or workstation.

Why Faster?

Quite simply, the screens typically used by supervisors and engineer lend themselves well to touchscreen interface. Using iPad user interface standards concepts, we were able to greatly reduce clutter on the screens, use finger gestures to quickly select options (more quiickly and intuitively than the mouse), eliminate almost all keystroke entry, and use location-based optimization to auto-fill and rearrange some fields.

The net result was, faster use.

Easier To Use

In addition, the screens were dramatically more enjoyable to use. Old style ERP is often quite crowded and complex to work with, with multiple layers of menu and complex coding structures; we took the opportunity to clean it up.

Caveats

• Some people might claim that the windows/laptop screens, if they were re-designed and improved, would show a lot of improvement as well. This is likely true. But the fact is, most ERP software isn’t being re-designed. So if the iPad serves as a catalyst to force us to clean up our designs, well, that’s a valid success.


• Note also that this 34% number does not include the fact that users can “carry the iPad everywhere” and would no longer need to walk back to their desks, re-log-in, or deal with charging a laptop. For some users, the iPad is faster simply because it can be carried all day long and eliminates more of the paper forms which still plague many organizations. If this mobility improvement was taken into account, this would add even more to the iPad’s speed advantage for this test. We are working to get an estimate of this number.


• Let’s reiterate that the iPad is unlikely to be faster (and might be slower) for functions that require heavy data entry or typing. For these functions, a keyboard is an advantage, and data-entry users who sit at their desks during the day won’t get much advantage from the mobility of a tablet.


• Finally we should note that these are preliminary results. We'd like to conduct this test again under more rigorous conditions. Nevertheless it does support what many users recognize intuitively: that a touch tablet with a highly tuned interface can increase the efficiency of business users.

Added note (9/14): People say we should do this test again, with a bigger sample set and with more "disinterested observers." Maybe even a media extravaganza! Great idea.

CIO Article Highlights Productivity Advantage

How does the "always-on" touchscreen tablet make people more productive? Read this article in CIO.

Excerpt:

Now decisions at meetings are made quickly thanks to the iPad, he says. In the past, no one fired up laptops at meetings in a conference room because it made the executive look disengaged. When a topic came up that required facts to make a decision, such as the difference in cost for an allocated requisition and an unallocated one, the vice president of HR would have to research it later. Thus, the topic would be tabled for the next meeting.

Today, the vice president of HR can look up the pay grades on the iPad, find the difference, and then ask the president if there's room in the operating budget. The president can look it up on the iPad and respond appropriately. "You can't get closure if you don't have the facts," Rennie says. "With the iPad, it's a very different conversation because everyone is armed with the facts at their fingertips."

This is a illuminating quote. Executives didn't want to use laptops because they would look "disengaged." So in theory laptops give people all the facts at hand, but in reality, human nature what it is, the design and form factor of laptops can make some people uncomfortable.

Is this true for all executives? Of course not. People who work at Google or Yahoo no doubt use laptops in meetings all the time. There are many corporate cultures where every meeting is a laptop meeting, and these organizations already make those faster decisions.

But there are many other organizations where the culture is different, and a touchscreen tablet can be quite a productivity enhancer.

Study Finds Big Gains for Mobility of ERP Data

Sybase and University of Texas Study Reveals 10 Percent Increase in Usability of Enterprise Data Can Translate to $2 Billion in Additional Revenue Every Year

...the study looks at five distinct attributes of data—quality, usability, intelligence, remote accessibility and sales mobility—and examines how a 10 percent improvement in any one or two of these attributes affects the metrics commonly reported for assessing the financial performance of businesses

Why is this relevant to iPad in the enterprise? Because the use of touchscreen tablets can be used to significantly improve access to enteprise data and user productivity. We can measure productivity increases by mobile devices and plug them into this 10%-2 Billion conversion, to give us a total dollar value for iPad usage.

Wall Street Journal: Business Use of Ipads

Businesses Add iPads to Their Briefcases Some Companies, Which Barred the iPhone, Build Apps for Tablet Computer and Give Apple Gadget to Employees

Tip of the iceberg.

A Magic Trident -- Mobile Tablets, CRM, and Enterprise 2.0

In a recent iPad/iPhone Meetup group meeting there was a wide-ranging talk about the “best opportunities for iPads in enterprise software” (a topic I keep bringing up, which doesn’t seem to be irritating people yet).

CRM, collaboration, and Enterprise 2.0 were the crowd favorites. Gartner has their famous “Magic Quadrant” analysis, so without further ado, here is our Magic Trident.

Why are these tools a winning combination?

1. CRM is customer-focused and therefore sales-focused. In a recessionary environment, any effort to improve or extend sales and customer relationships will be supported by management.
2. Enteprise 2.0 is about improving unstructured communication between employees in an organization. This type of communication is extraordinarily important to process of communicating with customers and closing sales.
3. The lack of mobility and frustration with ease of use often blocks participation by all employees in the corporate social discussion. This has been a thorn in the side off the CRM world for years … organizations implement CRM software and then the sales reps don’t use it. Enterprise 2.0 faces the same resistance. If the iPad provides essential improvement in usage patterns by employees (as we’ve discussed here) then it provides a boost to CRM and Enterprise 2.0.
4. The front-line sales representatives are highly mobile and need a convenient tool to keep them linked to the back office. The iPad provides that tool.
5. The iPad is being used for much more than just CRM or data gathering. It’s being used now as a tool for sales presentations, sales prospecting, and audience participation. This means it is inherently more valuable than laptops and again, we can expect sales reps to embrace it more fully. Increased adoption by sales reps translates into an overall improvement in the quality of data.
6. The iPad or other tablets become the conduit for feeding the social knowledge accumulated by Enterprise 2.0 systems to the employee who is most important to the company – the sales representative facing customers. The CRM system is crucial because it provides a structure/context that the sales rep will understand and which will prevent social knowledge from being delivered too quickly or at the wrong time.
7. The combination of these 3 factors give us a way to monetize Enterprise 2.0 information via CRM, injected into the sales process via the iPad. This increases the value of Enterprise 2.0 and CRM to organizational leaders.

Why IPad any more than laptop?

Since E 2.0 and CRM have been around for years, and the iPad is a newcomer, we need to explain the iPad’s equal footing. I imagine people saying “Why are mobile tablets a crucial part of this picture? Sales reps already carry laptops and already have access to CRM and E 2.0 information. The tablet plays no pivotal role.”

I think the iPad does play a pivotal role.

The touchscreen isn’t just easier and lighter-weight…it is a fundamental improvement in sales customer communication. This point is subtle and hard to explain, but so many sales reps are raving about this quality. Something about the form factor of an iPad makes it so much more useful compared to a laptop.

Laptops are akward. Any awkwardness in the sales call is poison, something to be avoided. On the other hand, iPads are lovely to handle and use, and this quality also impacts the sales rep’s attitude. iPads can be handed to the customer, and can easily be passed around a group. This can create the all-important first steps towards customer commitment.

As one sales rep said: “there is something powerful about handing an iPad to your customer and letting them drive the presentation with their own hands. It perks up the whole sales call. Maybe it’s some kind of psychology trick. I don’t know but I am using it ”

(Edit 10/26/2010): For a great discussion of this see "Enterprise 2.0 and CRM, Two Great Tastes That Taste Great Together" and another announcement from the Enterprise 2.0 conference.

Why iPad Could Bypass the GUI Gooey

Thomas Otter published an article last month called "GUI Gooey" discussing why enterprise software users are unlikely to get any relief from their daily dose of really bad user interfaces.

The average enterprise will continue to make ineffective use of any and all available UI technologies. The root problem is not lack of powerful UI technology. Instead, the root causes for a suboptimal user experience consist of lack of appropriate process and governance, and lack of a genuine commitment to a quality user experience....

Translation: Enterprise users get bad interfaces because enterprises aren't willing to spend the time and money to fix those interfaces.

We think the iPad might be a viable way to leapfrog this problem. This is the "paradigm shift" that iPad offers.

1. Large organizations will switch to the iPad (and other modern tablets) in order to get some very significant added productivity (which we aim to document here in this blog). Also the iPad is stylish in the executive suites.
2. IT departments will find more and more legacy applications to convert to the iPad. Once the devices are in use, why not add more to them?
3. In order to use the iPad, you are pretty much forced to clean up your user interface. The iPad requires this, to be useful at all. Enterprises who transfer legacy enterprise apps to the iPad will create new and better interfaces for those apps.

Remember again that enterprise applications salres are $60 Billion/year, for a cumulative total of half a Trillion dollars over 20 years, so that's a big legacy market to convert.

Links: ERP Market Searching for "New Value"

Here are articles, which discuss opportunities in the ERP industry, as IT managers continue investing in new value-add opportunities to their legacy investment.

ERP Investments Still Top the List for Corporate IT Spending

Forrester Research survey data shows that more than two-thirds of companies are still investing in their ERP systems--despite the recession, upgrade costs and maintenance fee complaints.

The Future of ERP

Since the dawn of automated, electronic capture of corporate financial, operations, supply chain, HR and sales information data—what's become, more or less, ERP—companies have cumulatively spent billions, if not trillions, on managing and trying to extract value from their vast data repositories.

ERP: How and Why You Need to Manage It Differently...Computerworld. Excellent discussion of real-world ERP managers and how they are testing a path forward.

ERP isn't much different today than the technology early adopters installed 15 years ago. But new technologies make traditional ERP seem dated. "The concept of ERP is not dead, but the technology under it is," says Bill Brydges, managing director of the ERP practice group at the consultancy MorganFranklin.

Cloud computing, mobile applications, social knowledge sharing and predictive analytics present trouble spots for CIOs trying to move ERP systems into the future.

Meanwhile, Christensen advises, CIOs need to keep making noise about bringing in upstart vendors that offer the technology the big guys don't. CIOs Galonis at Choice Hotels and Harten at Haworth are doing just that as they pressure their current vendors to hurry up with new capabilities.

Further out, Stanec, for one, dreams of seeing ERP vendors develop packages that help companies generate revenue. "Then," he says, "we'd have something interesting to negotiate."

A New Source of ERP Value

CIOs want better integration of analytics for data insight.

The same could be said for mobile.

Combine Legacy Corporate ERP With iPads to Get a Big Win For IT Departments

Depending on the industry, 20-40% of any given user population--typically the execs, managers, and engineers--need a mobile tablet for day-to-day use, because they don’t sit at their desk and can’t easily use laptops. These people only employ about 20% of the screens and functions in a typical corporate ERP suite, and by happy coincidence, that 20% is generally not keyboard intensive and thus perfect for a touchscreen interface.

So – this points to a great strategy. Find the right 20% of your ERP functionality, port it to the iPad (and make it look like an iPad app, none of that sneaky Citrix re-hashing of the same old ERP interface). You then become a hero to a group of highly influential users, get better participation in corporate systems, and provide a good starting point for the IT team to learn about mobile.

Strategy 3: Pick Subset of Features for iPad Conversion

How to develop a mobile strategy for your organization, part 3:

Focus resources on a subset of your features

As we said earlier, there is a specific group of high-value users -- on-premises managers, executives, scientists, doctors, etc. -- who are the most likely users for iPad versions of your ERP applications.

• These users are highly influential within the organization, so it's a great strategy to get their buy-in to this new platform
• They have been frustrated with ERP in the past because it didn't fit well with their fast-moving, professional status
• If IT departments can provide iPad-based systems, these users can be converted from skeptics to champions for the IT agenda, which is a big win for corporate IT
• Finally, these users use a certain subset of features from a typical ERP system. They use features that are "supervisory" in nature, usually not with a high degree of data entry or clerical functions

This is great news, because it points us to a simple, powerful strategy for succeeding with iPad ERP conversions. For your organization's mobile strategy, it makes sense to:

• Pick a subset of features from your ERP, Enterprise, or line-of-business application suite (whether purchased off the shelf from a vendor, or written as a custom application). Pick only those features used by your target group
• Focus on converting those high-value features "first" with your targeted resources
• Focus on quality over quantity; you must make these iPad versions significantly better, or in some cases, completely different from your legacy interfaces

This makes sense because with the iPad we don't want to just do a quick conversion of old, legacy designs. The touchscreen-mobile paradigm is a significant break from the character-based, screen-and-keyboard-based computing. To properly master this paradigm takes concentrated effort and is not straightforward. Our team and others are busily developing basic techniques for this conversion, but every organization will have its special needs that will require careful thought.

By narrowing your resources on a smaller number of features initially, you not only avoid getting too spread out (and rushing through a half-way version) but also get earlier wins with a few targeted, high-value, influential users who will then provide more internal support for the project.
Example: Creating an "iPad version" of an accounts payable system

1. First convert the accounts payable approval functions used by managers and VPs. These users are often mobile. Use the iPad or iPhone features to make this AP approval functions simpler to use and "touch centric". Make the old boring financial software interface better...make it intuitive and instantly understandable.
2. Don't include the payable entry screen in this first version. Payables entry is typically data-entry centric and used by accounts payable clerical workers or managers, and these people are already comfortable using workstations for their workday, and should not be the first choice for an iPad interface.

Strategy 2: iPad/iPhone System -- Greater Than Sum of Parts

How to develop a mobile strategy for your organization, part 2:
Take advantage of linkage between iPad (tablet format) and iPhone (smartphone format)

What is Apple's greatest strength compared to the competition? They offer both a smartphone and a tablet. This is a powerful competitive advantage, because the Phone and iPad form a linked, integrated platform which buyers perceive as a stronger long-term bet compared to other competitors who only offer smartphones. As developer or researcher, we can use this linked system in ways dramatically different from smartphones alone.

This linked system of smartphone + tablet uses a human interface design which is dramatically easier to use. Some consider the lack of a keyboard to be a problem. We consider the elimination of the keyboard to be not only necessary (keyboards are fundamentally useless in tablets) but also an opportunity to free ourselves from old, tired user interface standards which have been holding us back for years.

Now we can design software, which selectively and intelligently employs both form factors -- the tablet, carried as a clipboard by supervisors, managers, and engineers, and the smartphone, carried in the pockets of all employees. I can provide one set of features to a supervisor carrying the tablet, and a different set of features to a set of workers carrying phones, and design those features to optimize the functioning of the entire team.

There is a single common operating system, and a single code base for both form factors, supported by a single common vendor.

This linked system is greater than the sum of its parts. Vendors will soon begin releasing innovative new designs, which fully demonstrate this concept.

And when if Microsoft, HP/Palm, Google, and Blackberry come out with their tablets, following this same philosophy, then they will be more competitive. Maybe at that point we can change the title of this blog to "Tablet ERP Strategies."

Our Elevator Pitch

When people ask "can you summarize your work and findings" -- this is what we say:

"Our team has been looking at iPhone usage for several years, and iPad usage for the past couple months, in real corporate environments. We are finding dramatic improvements in speed and efficiency for iPad compared to identical Windows-based data entry screens for a certain percentage of enterprise corporate users...about 50% on average. For these people, not being tied to a desktop or laptop is crucial in the performance of their duties, and thus the iPad represents a significant time savings and relieves long-standing pain points."

This elevator pitch is subject to change at any time, depending on the cycle of the moon and the arrangement of the tea leaves.

A Great Quote: "Laptops are Cumbersome and Artificial"

This quote so perfectly explains why the iPad is so much more efficient than a laptop for a lot of users:

"Have you ever watched a teacher rotate around the room to observe student work with a netbook or laptop? It is cumbersome and artificial. The focus is always in the end on the hardware and not the student work. There is a stop point at which they need to put the machine down and type in it."

Now replace the phrase "teacher rotate around the room" with the following:

• Retail manager work with employees to manage the store
• Physician see patients
• Supervisor work on manufacturing shop floor
• Biologist work in laboratory
• VP of human resources interview a series of applicants

Now we can start to see a very sizable group of potential users. And this is just the start.
Sure there are a lot of professions for whom laptops (or desktops) work just great. For example; software developers, IT managers, accountants, and analysts.
But there are a lot of people (as we've said before, often the most influential people in an organization) for whom laptops and desktops are cumbersome and artificial to use in day-to-day work.

60 Billion/Year in Waste Due to Poor Software Design

From a CIO interview, coverage of Wrench in the System, a book that discusses the long-term problems with ERP software:

"Wondering why your company's staffers are using only a fraction of the software features and functionality that your bounteous enterprise software offers?

Harold Hambrose can give you an answer. In fact, Hambrose, founder of Electronic Ink, a consultancy specializing in designing and developing business systems, wrote a book about what he claims is the $60 billion that U.S. businesses will waste this fiscal year on poorly designed software."

It's easy to point out these problems, but as any IT manager can attest, it's very difficult to get agreement between groups of people as to how to "fix" the problem.

In many organizations, the problems are deep, and political.

That's where the iPad is a fantastic opportunity...a good rallying point, that could help your organization get past the problem of poorly designed software. It's new, it's technologically stunning, and it's popular.

Harness that popularity and "love affair with the new" to drive your projects forward.

Start now

Many enterprise firms are going full steam ahead with mobile ERP. Others say something like this:

"We're not going to invest effort in the iPad until we see it's a clear winner...and not going to be superseded by an equivalent tablet from Microsoft"

While I understand the caution, in this case, it's misplaced.

Sure, somebody else may come out with a highly competitive tablet that is similar to the iPad and sweeps away the market, in the same way that Microsoft Windows took over the graphical user interface market long ago.

But it doesn't matter. The iPad is the starting point; a very powerful starting point here and now, and it is well worth the investment of time to get a solid understanding of that class of device.

Whichever tablet takes the market, it will surely have the same approximate feature set as the iPad...the mobility, the sensors, the touchpad. The software vendors, who want to have a competitive advantage in the coming mobile-tablet-enabled market, and get the added boost of user participation for their product lines, need to start working now. This platform is a substantial change from the past and will take time to understand.

Prediction: At Least 1.2 Million iPads Sold to Enterprises. Here's Why.

In the past 80 days, 3 million iPads have been sold. Also we know that 40% of iPhone sales have been to enterprise users...so, let's make a prediction that those ratios hold and 40% of iPads are going to enterprise users, translating into 1.2 million units.

1.2 million iPads sold in first 80 days, currently in hands of executives and CIOs, who fully intend to use them to drive new efficiencies and solve real problems.

What efficiencies and what problems? Well as we’ve discussed in past posts, there have been gaps for many years, as large groups of users are not able to effectively use workstations and laptops to maintain enterprise data, causing trouble for both operations and IT departments. The iPad is an opportunity to fill those gaps, resolve those pain points, and get more users participating fully.

Here is a quote, from Tech Republic article from a few months ago. "CIOs say iPad and other slates have a place in business"

Donna Trivison, Director of IT for Ursuline College, said, “Yes, there is a business case which can be made for iPad or other convenient, easy to use tablet computers. The iPod Touch /iPad is instant on, instant off, and instant load. This aspect alone makes a compelling business case. Time is money. Though I’m not sure if that would be considered a function of tablet per se. It is more a function of iPhone operating system and multi-touch user interface, push one button, touch one icon. App loads and performs flawlessly. All apps (a.k.a., software) have a standardized look and feel… Elegant, functional, revolutionary.”

"Time is money." Also, time is an obstacle for millions of users, who don't have the time to constantly walk back to their desks to enter information into their enterprise software. The iPhone has been successfully removing that obstacle for many users, and the iPad is now doubling down on the concept.

ERP and iPad Part 3: $61 Billion in 2009

From AMR Research. Of course, this is per year, so the cumulative spending on ERP software over the past 20 years is many hundreds of billions.

Strategy 1: Mobilizing the Non-Mobile User

How to develop a mobile strategy for your organization, Part 1:
Choose the right target population for new iPad project to set the right course for future.

Most ERP tools on mobile devices are focused at “mobile” workers…which is assumed to be mobile maintenance, salespeople, mobile nurses, and others that drive or travel between worksites. Many vendors have built healthy product lines that sell just to these mobile workers.

While this is a great market, we think it’s the wrong place to focus ERP product development for the iPad. We believe that the focus for the next few years should be on:

• High value, professional workers who are on premises
• Work in the facility with have real-time access to Wi-Fi connections,
• Who are not depending on cell-phone connectivity
• Who walk around a lot to do their jobs every day
• Therefore cannot easily use laptops or workstations
• Not desk workers.

This is a big target group...for example:

• Healthcare: Physicians, nurses, technicians, administrators
• Retail: Store managers, supervisors, and employees
• Manufacturing: Workers, technicians, floor supervisors, job bosses, assemblers
• Municipal: Police, Fire, corrections; utilities, compliance, or inspection personnel
• High tech: Engineers, scientists, R&D workers, any manufacturing or prototyping
• Functional: any VP or C-level executives who spend a lot of time walking around the office buildings (in my experience, that means all managers and executives)

Again, we are talking about people who are working on-premises in their building, who are not generally classified as“mobile workers." This group:

• Comprises a significant portion of the user population for ERP/enterprise applications. Published numbers run anywhere from 40-80% of users. We say "approximately 50%."
• Are high-value, influential members of the organization. They are often the engineers, managers, and supervisors who “keep the operation running.”
• Historically have been the least likely to adopt and use enterprise applications software. This is because, again, they are often not at a desk and don't want to carry a laptop (too heavy, too short a battery life) so it's always been difficult for them to use the software properly.
• Are often unhappy with enterprise applications. Why? Because enterprise applications are designed for workstations and are primarily focused on character-based data entry. These high-value workers don’t have time to run back to their workstations during the day, and they don’t do a lot of high volume data entry. As a result they feel frustrated, don’t use the software regularly, and can become negative about the entire concept (which in turn is frustrating to IT managers).
• Are a fantastic opportunity for IT and vendors -- if they can be "converted" into supporters and enthusiasts, by providing them with well-designed iPad versions of the enterprise applications.

Design 2: Faster Without the Keyboard

Designing ERP software for the iPad, part 2:

Be relentless in eliminating keyboard use

Over time we're realized that, for our target user group, properly designed iPad applications don’t need much keyboard entry. In fact we have found that a tablet using "non keyboard” entry techniques is faster than a workstation using old-fashioned keyboard entry.

Our target group of users don't need the keyboard because they don't generally do data entry...they are more likely to be supervisors or managers "on the go" in their facility.

For example:

HR Data Entry Clerk

• Enters large volumes of employee data
• Sits at desk most of day
• Optimal system: Workstation/Keyboard

HR Department Manager

• Selects options from pull-down lists, reads emails
• Walks around most of day (to interview candidates or talk to managers)
• Optimal system: iPad

Finally it should be repeated that the lack of a keyboard on a tablet computer is not a flaw. Keyboards are essentially useless on the tablet form factor. This is why Apple computer chose, years ago, to bet on a touchscreen interface, and why most of the older, industrial tablets (used in healthcare, shipping, etc) are pen-based, and also why future tablet computers, we predict, will de-emphasize keyboard use, even if they include a physical keyboard to satisfy user demand.

Advantage of iPad: Immediacy

Another important quality of the iPad/iPhone system—which will make it a powerful change agent for the enterprise application market – is the immediacy of mobile devices.

Human beings in a fast-paced work are constantly prioritizing and building to-do lists, sometimes in their heads, sometimes on paper. As we mention in another blog post, there is a tendency in complex organizations (we use hospitals as an example) to carry clipboards with paper forms, because of the enormous quantity of complex information that organizations must process.

It’s not just “carrying” information, it’s also logging information. In hospitals for example, there are an enormous number of items that have to logged, tracked, checked, unchecked, underlined, added to care plans, to-do'd, and remembered. For the average doctor or nurse, this quantity of planning is enormous. To fight this tsunami of decisions, successful people learn to be immediate.
Immediacy is the foundation of personal efficiency. High performing professionals have this lesson pounded into their heads for years. This is part of doing the job. Anything you can do now, do now.

Why is immediacy so powerful? An action taken immediately is almost always more accurate and more effective. “Done while it is fresh in your mind”.

An action postponed till later is not done as accurately or as well, because by later you have forgotten much that you know about that issue, or you lose momentum, or you are tired or distracted.

If we can provide professional workers a system that allows them to instantly act on every problem they encounter, this increase their effectiveness significantly.

This is why physicians and other professionals are adopting the iPhone. Because it allows them to:

• Instantly see the latest data
• Not be required remember to pick up the right information and carry it to work, or walk back to the library
• Avoid writing notes and reminders
• Avoid the risk of forgetting something important
• Avoid the need to sit in the office at the end of the day, or on weekends, re-entering written notes
• Write emails, prescriptions, instrucdtions, designs, and other action items, immediately

The point of all this is…interface designers, time management pundits, and old-time time and motion engineers know, that simply making human work more direct, and more immediate, can have a potent and measurable effect on efficiency.

This is why mobile tools the iPhone and iPad are so popular. This is why we predict the iPad will be such a catalyst for revolution in the enterprise market.

The problem with the enterprise market is that most enterprise software is *not* in any way immediate. For most users, data entry or logging in enterprise terminals happens “later”. For many workers-- doctors nurses, maintenance workers, teachers, managers, store clerks, casino managers, truck drivers, floor supervisors, biotech scientists, etc, access to computers is something they can do only at the end of the shift.

It's the problem with enterprise software -- lack of immediacy. People hate to sit and enter “end of the day” data. They know it’s not accurate. They don’t have the mental bandwidth remember details at end of day, when they are tired and frustrated.

So if we can:

• give them a mobile tool which is fast, sleek, with an astoundingly easy and intuitive interface
• which is linked to the their enterprise applications
• that cuts out the junk they have to enter

then we are making their workday more productive.

ERP and iPad Part 2: User Dis-satisfaction

In Part 1 we talked about the general problems in the ERP industry. In our experience, the biggest of these problems is user dissatisfaction. Look at this graph from a presentation on ERP usage:





























Only 4 of the 27 categories listed showed user adoption rates above 50%. Half the categories listed had user adoption less than 10%.

After decades of effort and uncounted hundreds of billions of dollars spent on enterprise application software, that is not a great showing. These user adoption problems have many causes...just surf the available literature to see discussions of this.

The question important to us is: what is a solution? We believe that a great solution, and a way to heal the rift between IT and users, is to provide a friendly, more user-centric access point to ERP, via the iPad.

"Enterprise Software Bereft of Soul" WE HAVE AN APP FOR THAT

In his excellent and highly recommended blog, Vinnie Mirchandani discussed a quote by Dave Giroud of Google:

“Enterprise software is entirely bereft of soul”

Most enterprise software developers know this, and it can be mental torture to know that you work in an industry that seems so...well...soulless, so un-sexy, yet with so much un-realized potential.

Let's take a moment to consider that the New Wave of Revolutionary and Magical Mobile Tools (from Apple, and very soon, from a raft of other heavy hitting vendors) could be just the thing to spice up the enterprise industry.

To be blunt, we think that mobile tablets and smartphones are exactly the right tools to dramatically improve enterprise software...to add sex appeal and usability and to solve long-standing, significant pain points for customers.



[7/23/2010] Vinnie's new book: an amazing read:

Design 1: Not Just "As Good" But Dramatically Better

Designing ERP software for the iPad, part 1:

Make iPad version dramatically better than legacy systems.

ERP apps that are being ported over to the iPad/iPhone platform shouldn't aim to just duplicate the functionality of windows/keyboard platforms. iPad versions should be dramatically better, in the sense that they should leverage the unique features of this unique platform. They should take advantage of:

• Mobility
• Real-time business optimization
• Mobile capable workflow
• Slick user interface
• Form factor
• Location-based optimization of all types
• Bar code scanning, bluetooth data collection, video, audio, and photo

We hope to get into more detail in later posts.
Does this mean that any and all types of corporate applications should be converted to excellent iPad versions? Probably not. There is a certain class of users who are well suited to tablets. These target users have a certain set of functions they need. Any vendor porting enterprise applications to the iPad needs to start by choosing those target user functions, and create a "mini" version of the application for iPad.

Link: Why the iPad Absolutely Matters

Great article on ZDNET called "Why the iPad absolutely matters."

Although it's an educator, it applies to business as well. This clearly describes both the personal and organizational improvements of a mobile computer tool that travels easily and records data in "real time."

With the iPad, teachers can now easily walk around and record the information on an ongoing basis. Have you ever watched a teacher rotate around the room to observe student work with a netbook or laptop? It is cumbersome and artificial. The focus is always in the end on the hardware and not the student work. There is a stop point at which they need to put the machine down and type in it. With the weight, design, and simple kinaesthetic input, teachers literally can input 3-4 taps and have recorded all of the student’s information while maintaining focus and providing verbal feedback to the child.

What's the Opportunity for ERP and iPad?

The opportunity for ERP vendors and IT managers is as follows: to use the iPad and iPhone system to double the number of satisfied users of enterprise applications.

Key points:

1. A large subset of corporate users have laptops and workstations but don’t use them to access enterprise applications. This “resistant user” group comprises on average 50% and in many industries as much as 80% of the potential user base in a given organization. They are the doctors, nurses, retail store managers, shift supervisors at factories, sales managers at insurance companies, and scientists in laboratories. You name an industry, we will find users who can’t easily access or properly maintain the enterprise applications that their IT departments have so painstakingly installed.

2. Why? Because the systems are too hard to use for busy executives…too many features, and the features are designed more for data entry or clerical employees. From a purely physical standpoint, our executive users are “semi mobile” – they walk around a lot, and carrying (or using) a 6-pound laptop with a clumsy keyboard entry process is simply not viable.

3. However these users WILL happily use the system if they are given a 1-pound tablet they can carry in place of a clipboard (a very friendly form factor) which does not have the problems of prior tablet computers, and which has been connected in an optimum fashion to the existing enterprise application (not reproducing the poorly designed interfaces, but creating an entirely new, more human friendly and more agile interface, accessing the same database but with an interface optimized for the modern age). With this approach, you hit the “tipping point” of this user, and they jump on board with the enterprise software.

4. Is this easy or fast? Of course not. Is it worth is? Well, who wouldn’t like to double the number of effective users?

Prediction: iPad's Biggest Market Will Be ERP

Pundits are debating the biggest market will be for the Apple iPad. Will it be games or e-reading? But we think the biggest market for the iPad will be enterprise/ERP, software, human resources, finance, and customer management systems like those sold by industry giants SAP and Oracle.

The enterprise applications market is ripe for change. User adoption and satisfaction rates are dismal; customers have spent multiple millions of dollars and don't use even a fraction of the functionality; IT departments end up being blamed. It's a crisis for the entire industry.

The underlying problem with the enterprise applications market is user interface. The paradigm of enterprise software is to sit immobile in front of a terminal and enter a lot of codes and data. But that's just not the way people work any more. That is like going back and using the old mainframes. That paradigm assumes that the business functions change very slowly, if at all, which is no longer true. Large organizations change rapidly now, and the old style of software isn't keeping up.

We've studied this problem over several years and believe the iPhone and iPad will become the catalysts for change in this market.

Here is what's happening in hospitals. Doctors and nurses are adopting the iPhone, voting with their feet, and now jumping on the iPad too. They're using these tools for significant daily work, real patient and medical data management. We realized that these are enterprise data entry problems they are solving. The mobile paradigm, the Apple design with it's effortless user interface, provides a new approach to computing on a corporate scale, with less detail and less micro-management of workflow, but with massive and enthusiastic user participation. It's a completely different way of looking at enterprise computing.

Will the big vendors like SAP and Oracle re-write their product lines to fit the iPad and other upcoming tablets? It's likely, because in doing so they will gain market share. In the past they converted from DOS to Windows-based and Windows to web-based. This will be the third big re-write, from web-based to mobile.

ERP and iPad Part 1: Problems in ERP Industry

The ERP (enterprise application) market for large corporate software, one of the 3 largest sectors of software sales, is in big trouble, and has been for a long time. This isn't news to people in that industry...it is continually discussed. Here's a good summary article in CIO Magazine.

"The survey, based on the ERP experience of 214 business executives across a wide variety of midsize and larger industries, found that today's ERP systems "are not providing businesses with the architectural agility necessary to support businesses adequately in today's high-change, global environment."

That's not too shocking. But what is notable about the results (and what makes them different than your garden-variety ERP study that shows sky-high TCO, or application performance problems, or unfavorable implementation odds), is that this survey actually quantifies ERP system-related failings directly to business disruption—expensive, unpleasant and career-killing business disruption.

"Survey respondents said that the inability to easily modify their ERP system deployments is disrupting their businesses by delaying product launches, slowing decision making and delaying acquisitions and other activities that ultimately cost them between $10 million and $500 million in lost opportunities," according to the survey report. (That's a substantial gulf in "lost opportunities," but we'll chalk that up to the size differences in companies surveyed.)

That related impact is costly: 21 percent of respondents reported declines in stock price; 14 percent suffered revenue losses tied to delayed product launches; and 17 percent encountered declines in customer satisfaction.

A couple of verbatim responses from respondents should make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up: "Capital expenditure priorities are shifted into IT from other high-payback projects" just to perform necessary ERP changes, noted one respondent. Said another: "Change to ERP paralyzes the entire organization in moving forward in other areas that can bring more value."

How can the iPad and iPhone help fix this ERP industry problem? That's the question that our group has been studying and will discuss more in future posts.