Mobile Applications - Guide to Cloud Computing for Business and Technology Managers - page 485

serving their customers in a near instantaneous fashion. Businesses are con-
tinuing basic drivers for addressing process mobility:
1. Process efficiency: : A set of factors that demand cost reduction and
improved customer service and response time. An example of
mobile enabling a process for efficiency is sales staff being able to
create online quotations and orders at the customer site using their
mobile devices.
2. Increased personal productivity of employees : Time and travel manage-
ment are some of the common processes for mobile enabling and
achieving significant productivity improvements.
In some areas of business, the benefits of enterprise systems cannot be fully
realized, as a large number of mobile workers cannot access wire-bound sys-
tems. As a result, many organizations cannot realize the expected return on
investments in expensive enterprise systems. In addition to that, most busi-
ness processes and supporting systems are designed around office-based
employees and are not friendly to mobile workers. A good example is an
expense claim form, which is typically made available on company intranets
and cannot be accessed by sales staff when they are away from the office.
Mobility of processes supported by systems can help achieve additional
return on investments in enterprise systems such as ERP, CRM, and SCM.
Business managers do not introduce new technologies into the business pro-
cesses to become technology leaders; they are interested in the added busi-
ness value and how technology contributes to it; in how they can achieve
the goals of streamlining their processes. From the point of view of mobility,
managers are interested in what value mobile enabling can add to the busi-
ness processes.
22.4 Mobile Enterprise
Businesses that aim to support mobile workers and enhance process effec-
tiveness will need to consider extending their process and systems beyond
the workplace. In order to achieve this, they will have to change their
processes and systems in line with the objectives of process mobility. An
enterprise that can transform its processes to make its mobile workers and
processes more effective can be considered a mobile enterprise.
Smart organizations will aim to leverage process mobility for strategic
advantages. Such businesses derive tactical and strategic value from mobile
enabling processes. In order to gain maximum benefits from mobility, orga-
nizations should have a mobility strategy defined—aligned to its business
strategy—and it should complement the IT strategy.