By Jason Flick
Take Your Business In Hand
How to Find Handheld Value For Your Business
Information: The Business Challenge
Information represents a constant challenge for those running
any business, and access to this information has become the competitive
differentiator for many. As small business people, we are constantly trying to answer such questions as:
How much does this article cost? When will that order arrive?
Are replacement parts for a specific machine still available?
What is the part number for a particular widget?
Most businesses have implemented various database and
reporting systems to make it easier to answer these questions. However, the computers we use to access our
business systems tend to be located at specific places. Often, they’re located where it’s convenient
to place them because of their bulk and because of the need to tether them to
power and network cables.
What happens though, if you need information at a place
other than where your desktop computers have been situated? What happens if you need to perform a
transaction where you or your customers are rather than where your computers
are?
In consulting us, our customers commonly complain of the lost
time spent filling out paper forms only to transcribe them into a computer at a
later time.
Not only are the delays and opportunities for error a nuisance to the business but the act of transcribing
data is definitely not enjoyable.
This is especially true as, in small business, the same person who is out driving
the company’s revenues often winds up in front of the computer doing an unrewarding
data entry job while missing out on a dinner with the family or, indeed, on
sleep.
Handheld Computers: An Alternative Approach
The fundamental principle should be to bring the computer to
where the transaction must occur rather than trying to bring the transaction to
the computer. The big businesses like FedEx, UPS, and all the car rental agencies demonstrate
great successes in this regard. They use handheld computers to record
transactions where the customer is rather than forcing the customer to go to
the computer. Of course, large companies could afford to develop custom devices at high
costs years before mainstream consumer devices became available.
The good news is that today’s handheld computers (also known
as Personal Digital Assistants or PDAs) now have even more power and
sophisticated features than those of most of the shipping companies. These small devices have been on the market
for a number of years. Initially they were seen as Personal Information Managers (PIMs) for executives, sales people,
and the technology guru who lived down the road. Unlike the personal computer which started in
business, the PDA trend started with the individual.
Thanks to these early adopters and the heated competition which
developed to own the market, these gadgets are now reliable and cost
effective. While the end user market for these devices has been ebbing somewhat, the number of devices
purchased by businesses is increasing.
The flexibility available from handheld computers derives,
in part, from the fact that, although small, they pack computing power rivaling
that available in the desktop computers of only a few short years ago. The addition of longer battery life and
wireless communications technologies known by such trade names as WiFi,
Bluetooth, GPRS, and CDMA allow handheld computers to be part of your network
almost without regard to their actual location.
Symbol, Intermec, and other manufacturers of ruggedized PDAs
often throw in bar code readers and extended life batteries that can run full
steam for days. These enable users to perform lookups, to enter transactions, and generally, to answer any of the
myriad of questions that come up during the course of a regular business day.
Today’s handheld computers come with a full list of useful
business tools. These can be supplemented by many companies offering products to solve common problems
encountered by mobile users. The major sites for such applications are www.pocketgear.com,
and www.handango.com, where, for around $20, you can obtain some of the handiest tools.
Mobile devices can also be programmed to automate tasks
specific to your business. Custom solutions can offer a competitive differentiator.
Surprisingly there are still many applications which have yet to be thought of.
It is rare to run into a business that couldn’t benefit in some way by
placing information into its employees’ hands.
Is Mobility Utopia Here?
We can certainly say that we are closer than ever to having
everything we would need in an ideal mobile computing package. Progress is being made with each passing
month. Some of the biggest strides have been taken with the development of recent hardware.
In most cases, we find that commercially available devices have all the functionality that a
company might need.
It is relatively easy to upgrade your desktop, or in some
cases, even your handheld PDA, but the software often lags. This problem may become worse before it
gets better, as the user focus and the Return On Investment (ROI) is driven by
the usability of the software and its ability to interact with your other systems.
What would Software Utopia involve? By most accounts Mobile Software Utopia will
be achieved when data can be retrieved from customers, bank, suppliers and all
your internal systems such as inventory and accounting, manipulated in some way
on a handheld computer at the transaction site, then returned in its updated
form to the same electronic partners.
Tremendous strides have been made in this direction. Standards continue to emerge which allow for
more general integration. A prime example is a data exchange technology known as XML which has allowed for
greater interoperability between applications. It accomplishes, in the field of data exchange, what HTML has
accomplished for the World Wide Web.
The technical standardization described above, has allowed many
Fortune 500 companies (banks, couriers, e-commerce sites) to open up their systems in specific
ways which allow networked transactions to occur at the site of the transaction.
So the question we are often asked is “How do I know that
the software I’m buying or building is going to fit into the big picture as my
company moves ahead to be come more competitive, add staff, etc.?” There are a couple of options.
One is to find a product that is specific for your industry and has all the pieces already
built and integrated.In this case, you want to ensure that it has been built by a team of software professionals who
have a solid history of creating quality products.Beware of products created by subject matter
experts who are not also software experts.These products often will not be scalable, flexible,
or easily upgraded.
The alternative is to have a custom product developed on your behalf.
Be sure you select a software team/company with the knowledge and experience to help you with the
initial architecture and platform selections.
Whether you decide to use appropriate ‘off the shelf’products or
well-developed, well-aimed custom solutions, measurable short term ROIs will accrue to you,
to your company, and to your employees. The evolution of handheld computers will ultimately
get you closer to a mobile utopia, allowing you to work where you need to rather than where a
computer is tethered.