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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

"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:

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.