With all the buzz about how mobile devices will change our lives dramatically (and forever) it’s easy to see how mobile automation can be a really good thing. I know I tend to harp on the basics like making sure you have a plan before you start doing something impactful on your business. Don’t get me wrong, I am a shoot from the hip kind of guy (literally, I’ve got targets to prove it) but there is a time and place for careful analysis. Notice I didn’t say extensive. Careful implies that ‘care’ has gone into the process. As it should.
Every day brings a new whiz-bang mobile phone that I can have for merely pennies (and a 2-year contract with the usual early out penalties). Great! If only I needed whiz-bang in my life – but I’m too old for that kind of stuff. I have simple needs and look askance (I mean that, I look askance) at anything that has too many gizmos on it. I am a firm believer in Murphy’s law and that just invites trouble in my book.
Here’s a back in the old days story - some rep for a major cell phone company came to my QA lab to pitch his wares and bragged about their latest phone storing 250 phone numbers with the person’s name and number displayed (mind you this was in the analog days – if you don’t know what that means ask your parents). I asked why he thought this was such an important feature. His reply was astonishing, “Because it’s more than our competitor’s phone.” To which I replied, “That’s great but I don’t know 250 people, let alone 250 people that I would like to call for 45 cents per minute.” He was not amused.
This was my first experience with what I like to call the “more is better” syndrome (or perhaps ‘more is gooder’ would be better to say). Obviously if your competitor can store 100 phone numbers then you have to store more. Right? If our competitor’s phone is loud, we have to be louder? It’s the same thing in my book. How loud is loud enough? At some point enough is enough and that’s why God installs volume controls on everything (except for screaming kids and mothers-in-law). It’s just plain dumb to apply that type of logic since it is born from ignorance. It’s what I call the +1 theory and it usually only works on the playground with kids (think for a minute and it will come back to you…’Blah blah blah plus infinity…’).
Mobile Enterprise Projects – More is Gooder Too?
We worked recently with a company that had done a first generation mobility project. They were able to send a text message to a field dude or dudette, and he/she could reply to the message. It was limited to a little over 100 characters but it sure beat the old paper and clipboard process they used prior to this hop forward. They could text dispatch when they were done, though anything else had to be done over the phone. Not bad for a first step and based on how long ago they did it they were way ahead of the curve.
The time had come to update their application and the customer was way out in front of us. They had purchased all new mobile phone equipment for their field ops. Brand new shiny devices that were, in the words of one of the dudes, awesome. This was not a small investment and showed that they were serious about looking to the future. Which is great right? Well, sort of.
They just forgot one little thing: they chose the device before they really understood their needs. All of their assumptions about what they needed to do (and buy) were based on their now-legacy text-based app. So they were thinking that all they needed was what they currently had + 1. And one last note here: the devices didn’t have a touch interface.
I know you’re going to tell me to shut up about asking questions but this decision could have bit them on the butt and was easily preventable. Let’s examine what they were faced with.
They are a customer facing organization and require things like customer signature, credit card processing, receipt printing, barcode scanning, etc. All these things are easily doable using peripherals and the devices they had purchased. This is a great solution considering they already had the new phones and could hit the bricks running without any additional device cost. The only wild card in this mess is the field dude.
We designed a great solution that allowed them to use their non-touch devices and Bluetooth enabled scanners, signature pads and printers. It worked flawlessly and the field dudes absolutely loved it. They could now do almost everything they needed to do without ever calling dispatch (which is every field technician’s nirvana). They could get more done, faster and more accurately. They were very happy. This was a team that was used to technology so user adoption was rapid and unanimous. They lived long and happy lives – for a short while.
Things Were Good, Then Things Got Ugly – But Why?
OK, so now this solution has been out in the field for a while and the field dudesters have had their way with the equipment and things are starting to get a little bit ugly. All of the peripheral devices are battery powered and require the tech to charge them, which of course they sometimes forget to do. They have to carry all of these devices with them (!) which has lead some of the techs to develop a “Batman Belt” to carry all of this stuff. There are occasional challenges with the Bluetooth link dropping at inconvenient times and a host of other minor issues that are starting to add up. The bottom line is that the field dudes have forgotten that initial euphoria about how great this solution has made their lives and now they want more (or less in this case). So what have you done for me lately…
At this point the customer is faced with mounting support issues as the equipment ages and batteries start to fail and field folks grow ever more grumpy. Fortunately the customer is prepared yet again to forge headlong into the void but they have learned from the past. They are looking at the future to determine what they should do and have abandoned the +1 theory as a result. This looks promising. So we hope.
The bottom line is that just because you do it now doesn’t mean that you want to do it that way in the future and turning up the volume doesn’t make it better, just LOUDER (upper case – get it? I hear that’s how the kids show yelling in text form, who knew).
Our customer is looking at what they need to do to support their growing staff, and their current and future business requirements (with a keen eye on reducing all the moving pieces as well). Will they end up with the same type of device and peripherals design they used last time? I think not.
The balancing act will be to address the new requirements without developing the “Batman Belt II” complete with matching suspenders – the field dudesters will tell you, that’s just not a good look on anybody. And I think the company gets that.
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Tags: Brian Philbin, Enterprise Mobility, Field Service, Mobile Apps, Mobile Devices, Mobile Futures Today
