Using Analytics for Better Mobile Technology Decisions
BY:
Jason Buk, Serious Networks
Different Perspectives on the Mobile Business Opportunity
Adding mobile computing capabilities has been proven to drive business value by providing
traveling executives, field and customer service personnel real-time access to customer data.
Better information shortens response times, improves accuracy and makes the workforce more
productive.
Your organization may agree that technology can improve business processes, but different
stakeholders—IT management, financial and business leadership and operations personnel—often
have different perspectives on the real costs and value of mobility.
The Operations group wants tools that help them work faster and better focus on the customer,
Finance wants the solution that costs the least amount
this quarter
, and IT executives want
projects that can succeed without draining resources from existing work.
It may not be obvious, but there are ways to achieve everyone’s goals. Honest analysis can help
Operations, Finance and IT find common ground by sorting complex projects into components that
can be agreed upon. When teams understand the data, they can understand the logic; when they
understand the logic they can support making the right decision.
Exposing the Formula
Deploying mobile technology is a strategic initiative with far-reaching consequences on the health
of an enterprise.
In the midst of running a project, it’s easy to forget that the
real
goal of hardware-
acquisition projects is to make the workforce more productive in service of improving both the top
and bottom lines.
Most decision-analytics tools focus on procurement questions alone because the numbers seem
straightforward and uncomplicated. But these analyses miss the point. The best analysis is one
that can determine which of the solutions will provide the most advantage to the workforce at the
lowest possible cost to the organization.
To achieve the best return on investment we must do more than recoup an out-of-pocket expense.
Are customers better served? Are employees working better, faster, smarter? Though hard to
quantify, these are the fundamental aspects that determine the ROI of technology.
It’s possible to build a vendor-neutral analysis to calculate the TCO and ROI of mobile computers.
Panasonic Computer Solutions Company, manufacturer of Toughbook notebooks, enlisted the
services of my analytics company, Serious Networks, Inc., to develop an unbiased TCO/ROI
application to help companies make better decisions.
The Panasonic-sponsored operational analysis tool provides statistically valid answers by
performing a simulation of the devices as they would be used and managed in the field, generating
a model that compares the costs and benefits of multiple manufacturers’ laptops. Purchase cost,
projected downtime, the range of wireless options, notebook features, support and other related
costs are all incorporated into this analytic toolset.
