Mobile data communication technology has transformed the way field service companies do business, and what was once a fairly niche field back in the early nineties has burgeoned into one very crowded marketplace indeed. There are now huge numbers of suppliers fighting for a piece of the action. But how are these developers and vendors differentiating themselves in order to get one foot in front of the competition, be it through technical innovations or rising to meet specific customer needs? And, more importantly, what are their field service customers demanding of them?

Lindsay Kennedy, managing director of Telepartner, a supplier of mobile data applications for field workers, says the issue of integration is currently a major priority for the company: ‘Just now we are finding that our customers are requiring more than just mobility; they want scheduling as part and parcel of the complete mobile solution and they also want built-in productivity reporting, so they can monitor performance and ROI. We have integrated these into our offering and are introducing them to both new and existing customers.’

He continues. ‘Another request is mobile management. A field service manager may be better off managing out in the field rather than from behind a desk. We can now deliver this and it is proving to be popular as it helps with training and supervision and some of our customers reckon its worth five per cent in terms of increased productivity.’
Julie Purves, managing director of B2M Solutions, specialists in the management of mobile enterprises, says B2M will be concentrating on enhanced management reporting over the next 12 months. ‘We will be focusing on enriching the levels of management data that we can extract from devices in the field and pass to the centre of the organisation. The high quality of this information, together with its ease of use and graphical display, are one of B2M’s unique offerings.’

She adds: ‘A mobile operation contains many elements, each of which needs to be measured and managed if the overall solution is be effective. B2M provides key management information on all elements to assist in measuring supplier activities against either informal or negotiated SLAs. Key performance data is collected on network, device and system level management and support for helpdesk activities includes comprehensive management of support incidents.

‘In term of the basic technology management, ie device and asset management, we will continue to build on our experience gained in providing our partners with a managed service capability. We will look to enhance the functionality required in this area. Our partners can then deliver a fully managed service to their customers.’

Purves says B2M is also branching out from its traditional rugged device market. ‘Building on our strong heritage in managing mobile devices in a rugged environment, we are now bringing that experience to a wider customer audience that use less rugged devices. These customers can now benefit from our experience in delivering a high level of functionality. They will have access to the comprehensive day-to-day management tools that enable organisations to manage many thousands of mobile devices.’

Although a little cagey about giving too much away, Marc Rogers, a security expert with Vodafone UK, is keen to stress that Vodafone is evolving into much more than a mobile network operator, and all the while putting people at the front of its service offering. ‘We see an explosion in mobile applications, support services, and naturally higher downlink and uplink network speeds will feed innovations. Today we think about mobility and, in our view, it’s people that are mobile. Wherever our customers are, our vision is to be behind them, delivering the insights, technologies and resources that will help them to do what they need to do and create value for their businesses. In effect, we are talking about mobility as a new category within ICT, and we want to own that category.’

Vodafone UK is currently focused on developing its capability in three core areas: applications, access and service. In the next three years the company intends to become more than a mobile network operator and wants to play a significant role in the delivery of enabling technologies and services. Progress has already been made with the acquisition of Aspective, a solutions provider for customer relationship management and field service automation, and the recent launch of Vodafone Applications Service, a new service for mobilising enterprise applications on to smart devices.

Rogers is keen to stress that any doubts the market might have about the inability of a mobile operator to change its spots will be unfounded. ‘We are encouraged that there is already a demand from our own customer base for this new kind of service and last year we did some research that showed that 86% of our business customers already regard us as a credible supplier of communications services beyond mobile. There are also figures from IDC [IDC 2006, European Wireless Enterprise Survey] that show that customers are three times as likely to ask for advice about mobility services from a mobile operator as from a systems integrator or ISV, for example. The bottom line is that we are moving in this direction because we know from our customers that both the demand and the need is there,’ says Rogers.

For Malachy Martin, mobile strategy manager with AMT-SYBEX, the focus going forward is what the company calls an ‘outside-in’ mobile working mantra. By this he means the focus will continue to be firmly on the fieldworker, making sure that any technologies they evaluate consider the field user first, then the processes they will enable, and finally the systems affected.
‘To that end,’ says Martin, ‘our focus during the next 12 months to three years includes developing mobile devices further to enable us to offer multiple fits to the field force. We aim to provide customers with GPS technology that is linked to SatNav, allowing for more efficient scheduling of resources, plus an improvement in health and safety when linked to lone-working. In keeping with industry demand, we’re also developing our mobility platform to operate in a service-oriented architecture. In addition, we’ll continue to monitor the communications market and as the industry gets closer to ‘always on’ capabilities, we will evaluate how our solution offering can be enhanced to give this to the fieldworker.’

Having grand ambitions for the future is all well and good, but what are the key challenges facing these vendors and developers in helping their service industry customers achieve their aims? According to Telepartner’s Kennedy, there are several. ‘Legacy systems is one, the reluctance to change being another, and frustratingly for us as system developers is the fact that mobile devices are still moving targets, meaning they never remain fixed,’ he says. ‘No device is the exactly the same when it comes to running applications and operating systems are constantly changing; so although we are device-agnostic, it is not guaranteed that a mobile app we develop for one Windows Mobile device will work on another. But this isn’t a change; it’s always been like this.’

Vodafone’s Rogers is adamant that the biggest challenge going forward is changing the customer perception of mobile data communications. ‘Many of our customers are initially intimidated by the thought of mobilising large-scale enterprise applications that have not been specifically designed for the mobile environment. They think it is going to be expensive, cumbersome and they see a lot of potential complexity. This was probably true up until a few years ago, but today these issues can be overcome.’

Rogers also stresses security is an issue that must be addressed with care. ‘We believe the implementation of mobile applications requires a careful balance between maintaining end-to-end data security and application usability on the device. The security should also be configurable, allowing customers to design a solution that meets their particular business requirements. Ultimately, customers want an overall solution that is simple, very secure and puts control firmly back in their hands.’

AMT-SYBEX’s Martin says that implementing a data solution will fundamentally change a service company’s working processes and impact on the whole business, in particular fieldworkers. It is therefore essential not to underestimate that impact and get early buy-in from the fieldworker. ‘Traditionally, mobile solutions have worked from an “inside-out” approach where large amounts of corporate data is pushed out to field workers who can’t cope with it,’ he says. ‘By connecting the field and centre through an “outside-in” approach, businesses will fully understand the needs and requirements of the fieldworker and will be able to provide a suitable mobile solution.’

Getting your mobile workers to buy in to your deployed solution is a theme that Paul Brownridge, director, Matthews Craig Consulting, also comments on: ‘In the last few years it was assumed that productivity gains would be delivered purely by implementing field devices to mobile workers and/or utilising dynamic scheduling to gain further field productivity and office resource savings. More recently, however, there has been the realisation that unless you can get your people to willingly follow processes consistently, the benefits will be small, not delivered at all, or even regress.’

Part of the battle of getting this buy-in from your fieldworkers is obviously won by giving them devices they actually want to use. Action taken in this area is something that Martin Morey, general secretary of the Mobile Computer Users Group, and a consultant in mobile IT, would like to see happening more. ‘I’m hoping that the message that mobile is all about usability and not just about faster processors continues to soak in to the manufacturers,’ he says, ‘and that better integration, battery life, weight, screens, et cetera all get a decent dose of R&D investment.’

In the final analysis, it’s what the field service community needs and demands that will drive the direction of mobile data communications in this area, and Morey puts reliability of the data connection as a top issue. ‘So many applications behave badly if the communication is poor and sessions have to be re-established – it really annoys the user. It’s not just about coverage, but how well the systems cope with the reconnections. After that we have the issue of usability, and priorities still tend to be battery life and screens washing out in sunlight. The ruggedness issue is covered by some very good products, but inevitably at a price.’

Purves of B2M cites the overriding priority for customers is for a robust, resilient and suitable infrastructure. ‘This is essential in terms of sending technological updates and receiving asset status information, as well as sending and receiving vital management data.’ This is a point picked up by Peter George, director, Wheatstone Consulting Ltd: ‘An increasing number of organisations have learned the hard way that the infrastructure they put in place to permit point-to-point remote access is not appropriate for use by mobile terminals which need to communicate over a growing diversity of wireless networks.’

Sometimes, though, this can be out of the customer’s hands. ‘Because the coverage and data connection issue is partly one to do with the operator’s network infrastructure,’ says Morey, ‘I see the challenge being met in being a smart user of communications, rather than hoping that performance will improve rapidly. I see all these issues, including power and screens, as work-in-progress, and people will just have to roll out with the best kit and software available at the time. In fact, I think that most users are fairly conservative on banking on innovation promises – which is sensible. The last thing anybody with a good business case should do is to wait for technology.’ And with all these developers, manufacturers, and vendors vying for the attention of field service customers, maybe now really is the perfect time to put that business case into action. SM