Mobile Applications - Guide to Cloud Computing for Business and Technology Managers - page 494

22.6 Mobile Field Cloud Services
Companies that can outfit their employees with devices like PDAs, laptops,
multifunction smartphones, or pagers will begin to bridge the costly chasm
between the field and the back office. For example, transportation costs for
remote employees can be significantly reduced, and productivity can be sig-
nificantly improved by eliminating needless journeys back to the office to file
reports, collect parts, or simply deliver purchase orders.
Wireless services are evolving toward the goal of delivering the right cloud
service to whoever needs it, for example, employees, suppliers, partners, and
customers, at the right place, at the right time, and on any device of their
choice. The combination of wireless handheld devices and cloud service
delivery technologies poses the opportunity for an entirely new paradigm
of information access that in the enterprise context can substantially reduce
delays in the transaction and fulfillment process and lead to improved cash
flow and profitability.
A field cloud services solution automates, standardizes, and streamlines
manual processes in an enterprise and helps centralize disparate systems
associated with customer service life-cycle management including customer
contact, scheduling and dispatching, mobile workforce communications,
resource optimization, work order management, time, labor, material track-
ing, billing, and payroll. A field Web Services solution links seamlessly all
elements of an enterprise's field service operation—customers, service engi-
neers, suppliers, and the office—to the enterprise's stationary infrastructure,
wireless communications, and mobile devices. Field Web Services provide
real-time visibility and control of all calls and commitments, resources, and
operations. They effectively manage business activities such as call taking
and escalation, scheduling and dispatching, customer entitlements and
SLAs, work orders, service contracts, time sheets, labor and equipment track-
ing, preinvoicing, resource utilization, reporting, and analytics.
Cloud service optimization solutions try to automatically match
the most cost-effective resource with each service order based
on prioritized weightings assigned to every possible schedule
constraint. To accommodate evolving business priorities, most
optimization solutions allow operators to reorder these weightings and
to execute ad hoc what-if scenario analyses to test the financial and per-
formance impacts of scheduling alternatives. In this way, they help
enhance supply chain management by enabling real-time response to
changing business conditions.