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."