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Opportunities, Pitfalls, and Solutions
February 2001
C O N T E N T S
PeopleSoft White Paper
Overview .............................................................................................................3
Mobile CRM Business Case..................................................................................4
The Business Case for Mobile Sales......................................................................6
The Business Case for Mobile Field Service...........................................................8
Pitfalls and Recommendations ................................................................................9
Invest in Strategy; Not Hype .................................................................................10
Invest in Flexibility .................................................................................................11
Design for Ease of Synchronization ........................................................................12
Design for Ease of Use...........................................................................................13
Ensure Extra-Enterprise Collaboration....................................................................15
Interact Closely with Users to Guide Implementation ..............................................16
PeopleSoft Mobility for Sales and Field Service .....................................................16
Conclusion.............................................................................................................17
OPPORTUNITIES, PITFALLS, AND SOLUTIONS
Facing the prospects of a global recession, corporations are under increasing pressure to win over new customers and keep existing ones. The most critical personnel in this battle are sale representatives and field service technicians. Sales representatives seek every competitive edge to differentiate their offerings, find ways to establish tight customer relationships, and rely on fast access to information from corporate headquarters. Field service technicians not only directly impact the bottom line, but also interact with key customers often influencing future buying decisions. Greater visibility, speed, and responsiveness helps those in the field win customers and win with greater frequency. Mobile CRM solutions provide these front-line customer ambassadors with an invaluable competitive edge.
PeopleSoft defines Mobile CRM as solutions that extend the reach of customer relationship management applications to any user, whenever and wherever needed. The PeopleSoft approach to Mobile CRM is distinctive in that it includes all intra- and extra-enterprise participants in the customer life cycle. Customers, suppliers, employees and partners can all participate in collaborative CRM via connected and disconnected mobile devices, internet-based solutions and the wireless web. This collaboration, when applied to CRM mobility is, strategic to enterprise success. For example, in complex deals, sales people must collaborate with experts throughout the enterprise such as sales managers, product suppliers, legal, and product management. Field service technicians accomplish their customer satisfaction goals with the assistance of managers, engineers, and support center staff.
In the last few years, the mobile enterprise has transformed from vision to reality. Companies are moving from the trial stage to serious implementation, and adoption rates point toward a significant improvements in sales and field service operations. According to Harte-Hanks, 12 percent of North American companies provided corporate users with mobile CRM solutions in 2001. The Cahners In-Stat Group reports that 47 percent of US workforce will have access to personal digital assistants (PDAs), web-enabled phones, pagers and other mobile computing devices by end the of 2001, and 60 percent of the workforce will be using wireless devices by 2004. Companies are now clearly investing in mobility to cut operating costs and win market share.
To date, many mobile CRM solutions have not achieved their promise. Like all CRM initiatives, the success of mobile CRM depends on both the enterprise?s underlying business strategy and the technologies implemented. However, Mobile CRM solutions have additional characteristics that must be taken into account. Poor usability of the mobile device is by far one of the greatest obstacles to rapid and effective user adoption. To enjoy mobile CRM success, enterprises must fully examine mobile CRM from the standpoint of user behavior and information exchange requirements.
This white paper aims to cut through the confusion created by the hype and skepticism surrounding mobile solutions. PeopleSoft mobility experts have focused on the use of mobile CRM to seize opportunities quickly, serve customers effectively, execute business processes efficiently, and extend enterprise collaboration to business partners. The primary CRM application areas examined are sales and field service. Written for both business executives and IT professionals, this paper examines the business case for mobile CRM, common pitfalls and recommendations for future success.
Quantifying the value of mobile applications in the field is like justifying the need for email to employees, cell phones to executives, or pagers to doctors. These communication solutions all have one thing in common: the power of productivity lies in the speed and ease of communicating the most relevant information at the right time and place. In a similar fashion, mobile solutions for sales and field service close the missing link between field intelligence and the corporate office. When mobile solutions are appropriately mapped to business goals, they clearly deliver return on investment. Just as electronic communication systems have replaced paper-based systems within the office, mobile CRM will soon become standard industry practice.
The Traditional CRM Information Gap
An information gap exists in the traditional CRM life cycle. Sales people manage their sales call notes, contact information, and task list in a personal organizer, mobile phone, handheld device, or notepad. Field service technicians develop their own systems for managing their schedules, taking notes, and tracking inventory. Valuable data remains in these ad-hoc, manual silos and only part of it gets entered into CRM systems at the end of the day or week. By then, it is stale and incomplete. This information gap results in the inability for field sales reps and service technicians to access valuable product, customer, service order, and marketing information from the corporate office. They cannot answer customer questions quickly, and they must wait on hold until they get the proper information. Furthermore, if sales personnel or territories change, valuable information can be lost.
Corporate partners such as resellers and outsourced field service technicians face even greater challenges. These strategic allies frequently cannot access the customer, product, order detail, or pricing data needed to do their job effectively. Even if they are provided with access to corporate CRM applications, they may not have the computer hardware or device support to handle technology problems.
Another result of the information gap is the lack of visibility the corporate office has into field activities. Sales management, corporate executives, support desk personnel, and telesales staff cannot allocate resources, respond to emergencies, conduct strategic analysis, or manage ongoing relationships as effectively as possible with missing, incomplete, and stale information. This blind spot leads to risky delays in strategic responses, resource investments, and tactical decisions.
Mobile CRM solutions remove this critical gap between the field and the corporate office by capturing all this relevant field information. A true mobile CRM solution enables companies to extend their CRM system to sales people, technicians, and key partners wherever and whenever required. This fluid data exchange benefits the corporate bottom line. For example, in those critical moments when a salesperson engages with a prospect, every salient piece of information can be effectively leveraged to close the deal. A fluid information exchange also benefits the ongoing interactions between a field service technician and customer, possibly determining the future customer relationship and significantly impacting the company's operating costs.
Field sales encompass all remote sales activities ranging from lead identification to signed contract. The three areas where a mobility solution can make the greatest impact are in:
• Closing the deal.
• Increasing productivity.
• Improving information visibility.
Closing the Deal
Looking at the daily trials of a sales person, no one can deny that information gaps can lead to lost revenue. Throughout the sales process, knowledge at the right time and place is power. Consider the criteria for sales success:
1. Managing the pipeline efficiently,
2. Having the right information on a call,
3. Accessing corporate customer and product data quickly,
4. Responding to customer questions, and
5. Recruiting internal corporate support (product managers, technical experts) to close the deal. By extending sales applications to the user's customer location, enterprises can equip sales personnel with the necessary information to close a deal.
Mobile sales applications can provide dramatic productivity gains. For example, Dain Rauscher, a multi-billion dollar securities firm with 1,200 investment executives and research directors increased first quarter sales by 29 percent through a wireless solution that let sales people notify research analysts of customer queries through wireless email. The firm recouped costs within three months. An enterprise that hesitates in pursuing a mobile sales solution should consider the implications of the following scenarios:
• At the end of a quarter, a VP of Sales receives a RIM email from one of his sales people who needs approval on a customer quote. The VP approves the quote through his RIM instantly, eliminating the time required for 'phone tag.'
• A sales representative in the field receives new leads on her mobile phone. She does not need to wait a week, a day, or an hour to collect the leads at the office. She is able to call those prospects immediately.
• A channel partner accesses product inventory information in realtime to tell her prospect whether or not a desired product is in stock. With mobile CRM sales people have timely access to the critical information necessary to close the deal.
Mobile solutions let users minimize the time required for paperwork or information access, increasing client facing time and decreasing the propensity for lost sales. This also leads to better customer service. For example, AMF Bowling uses a mobile sales force automation (SFA) solution to gather value customer information, improve sales productivity, and increase information coordination between customer touch points.
The solution has resulted in more focused and successful sales efforts. In addition to maximizing productive time, mobile CRM solutions increase sales call effectiveness. Sales representatives have fewer callbacks because they can answer more questions in one meeting. If a salesperson has all relevant information at his or her fingertips when meeting with a customer, it is possible to go deeper into the sales process during that visit, or call on more accounts in a given week. Being better prepared for each call makes the critical difference in sales success. For example, sales reps at Cybex, a global provider of fitness equipment, can track orders using a mobile device and determine exact order status: where it is, when it will be arriving, and who will be delivering it. The information edge differentiates Cybex from its competitors. By empowering field sales personnel with mobile CRM solutions, an enterprise could enable the following:
• On the plane, a sales person can review and update forecasts. This frees up the rest of his non-flight time for sales calls.
• A sales representative reviews customer history immediately before entering a meeting. She reviews some incomplete order details and is prepared for any questions.
• A sales channel partner begins shifting a greater percentage of sales to the corporation that provides him with a system for tracking his prospects, leads, and tasks simply because he is able to be more productive.
• While waiting in the lobby on a customer call, a sales representative quickly and easily updates sales notes, assign tasks, orders some extra collateral, syncs up with corporate office and eliminates a trip back to the office at the end of the day.
Increased Visibility and Collaboration To leverage the full resources of the enterprise and optimize customer relationships, sales representatives to top executives need full information visibility. When implemented correctly, mobile CRM enables sales people and channel partners to easily update forecasts, opportunity information, and tasks from the field. This ability provides sales administrators the visibility needed to manage sales resources in an increasingly competitive and uncertain environment. A Sales VP should be able to look at a million-dollar deal and know exactly where his organization is in the sales cycle. Additional business benefits might include:
• The sales manager can see more updated forecasts and make optimal decisions based on a better picture of the sales environment.
• A sales person details a sales meeting directly after a call, rather than at the end of the day or week. This invariably provides more accurate information than if the person waited to return to the office.
• The VP of Sales can see that a product demonstration is scheduled for a major client next Tuesday and alter his appointment schedule to participate in this critical meeting. Increased visibility decreases delays in budget allocation, allows for more nimble territory management, and improves business decision-making.
The Business Case for Mobile Field Service
In field service, communication is critical. Without clear communication, costly mistakes are made and customers take business elsewhere. Technicians must clearly understand the tasks and responsibilities for each service order. The field needs to communicate contract entitlements to customers. Accessing product and parts information prevents pricing errors or ordering the wrong materials. Mobility solutions close the information gap by augmenting every component of the field service cycle, from initiation of a service order to closure of that order. A higher percentage of customers will renew contracts or upgrade systems when receiving responsive and successful service.
With a mobile field service solution, no data re-entry is necessary. This equals lower services costs, shorter payment cycles, and improved accuracy. Companies that outsource field service can extend these benefits to partners and increase the ability to measure performance. By exchanging information through mobile devices, technicians spend less time on the phone getting service order information or updating service details. For example, if 100 technicians take 6 calls a day and spend 10 minutes per call talking to the call center, the company is wasting 500 hours a week. If transmitting some of this information to a handheld or laptop computer cuts phone time by 50 percent, the company saves approximately 13,000 hours a year. Assuming a $100 hourly cost per technician, this is more than $1 million in savings.
Indirect cost savings can also be realized through mobile field service solutions. For example, a field service technician can be notified of a service order by his remote information management (RIM) device, and respond by accepting the scheduled time. This simple act can eliminate telephone calls back and forth between a waiting customer and a contact center agent, improving overall customer satisfaction. This concept of improved efficiency through mobile CRM can be extended to a field representative?s daily activities. If a technician can view orders, change order status, and reschedule tasks while on the road using a disconnected device, he or she has more customer facing time to improve relationships and impact customer loyalty.
The more information technicians have to solve a problem, the better they can serve the customer. Companies cannot afford to send field service people to service calls without a complete description of the problem, skills and equipment required, and warranty requirements. Mobile solutions enable dispatch centers to transmit the critical service order details to technicians. Rather than risk miscommunication through a phone conversation, information viewed on the device is clear and unambiguous. For example, a technician receives service order details from the call center on his portable HP Jornada, rather than wait on hold while calling into the dispatch center. There is a lower likelihood of errors due to miscommunication and all communication is tracked and recorded.
From a mobile device with a web connection, the technician can not only view and change service orders, but can also check material availability and order materials.
Increased Accuracy
Technicians want to fix problems, not fill out paperwork. Paperwork can account for 8 percent of a technician's day, a significant drain on valuable, customer-facing time. Technicians often wait until end of day to close out and detail service order history. By that point, the time, expense, and product details are at best written on notes of paper or at worst taken from memory. Valuable and costly details are missed. For example, a technician may forget to report a part used to fix a machine. Such an error creates an asset problem that can cost the company anywhere from a few dollars to several thousand. If technicians can close and update order status immediately after a customer visit, paper work time can be reduced and the most relevant data captured when it is fresh in the technician's mind, improving reporting accuracy and ultimately impacting the company's bottom line.
Some estimates indicate, that as many as 70 percent to 75 percent of companies that undertake a sales force automation implementation won't see the results they hope to realize. (Computerworld, March 12, 2001). The traditional causes of SFA implementation failure are an outdated application architecture, misplaced expectations, poor user adoption, and monolithic implementation approaches. In addition to these traditional obstacles, mobile CRM solutions introduce their own unique challenges. However, if implemented correctly, an enterprise can address both traditional and mobile-specific challenges while closing the information gap and increasing user adoption.
All mobile CRM vendors talk about the ability to deliver the right information anywhere and anytime. This is not enough. Mobile applications must be fast, easy to use, and flexible. This section examines several of the pitfalls and related solutions unique to mobile sales and field service implementations.
As with all enterprise applications, mobile implementations must be based on sound business strategy, but the nuances of user behavior become even more important. The application architecture must be flexible enough to allow for changes as the organization learns what information and processes best increase productivity. Screen layout, ease of navigation, synchronization speed, device speed, and data entry tools all become critical considerations. Lastly, enterprises should consider partnering with vendors that best allows for a multi-phase implementation strategies rather than monolithic development efforts. We will address each of these issues and how to evaluate mobile solutions.
1. Base your mobile CRM strategy on solid business strategy, not vendor hype.
2. Ensure flexibility by investing in proven internet architectures.
3. Avoid user alienation by designing for easy and fast synchronization.
4. Consider the user's environment in solution design and application selection.
5. Ensure enterprise collaboration by extending key applications to all relevant personnel.
6. Interact closely with users to guide development and reduce cultural barriers to adoption.
Pitfall: Unrealistic Expectations
Considerable market hype around mobile solutions has clouded their true potential. Many mobile CRM solutions failed to meet expectations precisely because their application vendors overloaded mobile devices with the entire enterprise application functionality. This approach leads to solutions that are slow and difficult to use. While laptops have the screen size, keyboard, memory, and processing power to handle the largest of corporate applications, other mobile devices do not. Mobile phones and handheld devices are not designed for many standard PC based functions such as: analyzing data, creating RFPs, complex file management, and reading detailed product information.
In the mobile world, less functionality often provides greater productivity and more value. Can a sales executive really expect his top sales performer to enter detailed sales call information through a phone keypad several times a day? For field service personnel, accessing schedule and contact information via mobile phone is a definite time saver, but will they read detailed technical diagrams on a handheld?
The first step is to understand how mobile CRM brings productivity to your specific field environment. The nature of the field environment, products being sold or supported, and steps in the sales cycle determine where and when information is needed and on what device. Once information flow is understood, it must be applied to the constrained capacity, screen size, and data input of mobile devices so that the most relevant data and features are delivered. An enterprise needs to be able to answer the following questions:
• At what points in the sales cycle and where in a service order process, can access to customer, product, or technical information help close a sale or resolve a service order issue?
• Does the service technician or sales person have the time, space or network access to boot up a laptop to access corporate office applications? If not, what devices are optimal for the users' information requirements?
• Where in the process do users lose time by waiting for pricing authorization or service order details?
• How much unproductive time is spent in airports or on the road when sales people could be updating forecasts and sales call information?
• How much valuable knowledge gets lost when a service technician or sales representative enters all the information at the end of the day rather than after each customer interaction?
• Do sales representatives need to use mobile devices for complex tasks and analysis or do they simply want access to relevant contact and transaction information?
After isolating what features and functions will impact your bottom line, identify application vendors that have optimized their mobile applications to support your unique needs. Avoid the failures of companies that bog down their mobile devices and cause user frustration with irrelevant functionality.
Inflexibility freezes strategic agility, and can be most insidious with mobile CRM solutions. Precisely because the sales force needs to rapidly respond to shifts in competitive tactics, they need to change and adapt information provided in mobile CRM applications. Inflexibility arises from poor architectural design and rigid applications.
Rigid application architectures and inflexible business rules of yesterday?s CRM solutions leave companies exposed to strategic threats or unable to move on new market opportunities. To respond quickly to new threats, an agile enterprise needs to dynamically adapt business processes. Some CRM solution providers force companies to redesign business processes to fit the applications, rather than the other way around. Can you leave your business processes alone, untouched for 12 months? 24 months? Can you afford to have a critical business process, such as a major territory realignment, limited by synchronization complications?
Since most CRM solutions adapt and change over time, ongoing application management costs must be considered. Companies must be able to adapt mobile solutions to changing business needs. Modifications and upgrades become time consuming and costly with outdated architectures and large mobile footprints. For example, some mobile CRM solution providers require an installation of 300 MB applications on every sales client whenever a major application modification takes place. The process requires training users, managing technical problems, and a loss of productive sales time. With such a major disturbance to sales or field service, modifications can happen no more than once or twice a year. Some vendors do not allow the addition of custom fields to mobile applications at all. As a result, your mobile CRM application will not match the intricacies of your business. It is analogous to poring cement over your CRM business process. The enterprise decision-maker must ask, as I expand my investment in mobile CRM, how hard would it be to add a new application to each users device?
Solution: Invest in Flexibility
Select application architectures which enable easy modification, trouble free upgrades, and device flexibility. Sales administrators should be able to control what information they want sales people to view and update on mobile devices. Each piece of data must have a definite value to the user or it should be removed. This level of control lets enterprises decide how much and what specific information is critical for the field. As a result, your users are not forced to navigate through multiple menus to find the right data. Furthermore, sales people do not waste time learning how to configure their user interfaces and data extractions.
Do not constrain your flexibility by selecting an application restricted to a small number of devices. Mobile device technologies are improving at a rapid pace. In order to upgrade flexibly, select an application vendor that supports internet standards for web accessible devices.
Questions for the Enterprise:
• Can you customize the data delivered to a device so that only the most relevant information is displayed? How easy is it to change the content and structure of the display interface?
• Does an application modification or upgrade require significant changes to the client software? What is the time and cost involved in such updates?
• Do changes or upgrades require the user to turn in the device to IT staff? What is the impact to the Sales force and technician work force if their mobile device is taken away for an extended period?
Many managers complain that they cannot get personnel to use CRM applications regularly. It is now well established that the benefits of CRM features must exceed the complexity of their use in order to drive high user adoption. If devices are too complex, adoption does not take off. One of the key usability issues arises from slow synchronization.
By definition, sales and field service productivity requires fast access to critical information. Even a slight delay of a few minutes on a mobile device leads to frustration and abandonment. The speed of mobile solutions is determined by the synchronization technology. Synchronization is the process of updating data between a mobile device and back office application. The mobile software client is the piece of software that sits on a mobile device to interact with the back office application. Large mobile clients can slow down network connections if they must transfer or synchronize significant amounts of data. Thin clients are faster, less likely to crash, and require less technical maintenance.
Every mobile client must synchronize its data with corporate systems to keep up to date. Some of these technologies can require hours of database extraction for every single synchronization. For example, if a field technician comes back from vacation or a sales territory realignment takes place, device synchronization could take as much as a week. Such technologies represent the virtual equivalent of forcing the Nile River through a straw. Unfortunately, when the straw breaks, it must be shipped to IT for repair and the user must fend for himself.
Slow application synchronization on laptops is frustrating, and for mobile phones and handheld devices these delays become unforgivable. A field service technician cannot risk his credibility in front of a customer with a slow sync. Customers and prospects associate such technical difficulties with poor service quality.
To ensure user adoption, a database synchronization should only take a few minutes, and require minimal IT support. CRM decision-makers should ensure that sales representatives and field service technicians will not have to waste valuable time waiting for database extractions or troubleshooting technical problems.
Questions for the Enterprise
• Pay close attention to the footprint of the mobile client. Is it under 5MB or over 100MB? Can you email the installer to someone? Even for laptops, heavy client applications increase the frequency of system down time.
• Is the software on the mobile client lightweight and designed to quickly and efficiently synchronize only the most relevant information? Can the mobile client sit on virtually any mobile device without slowing down the connection or device speed?
• How much time does the entire sales team currently waste while synchronizing mobile contact information with back office servers?
• Will users need to periodically reload the database because the synchronization fails?
• Does the application have a synchronization system that handles data conflicts and removes this issue from the user's hands?
• To fix problems, will users need to install software at the office? Will this require mailing in the laptop, or running a CD?
PeopleSoft Recommendation #4: Design for Ease of Use
All the functionality in the world is worthless if your users cannot find the data they need when they need it. Put a priority on testing and configuring your mobile solution for ease of use. Mobile CRM solutions with sound business logic can completely fail because of poor technology and user interface design.
Pitfall: Poor Form Functionality
In the last few years, mobile applications have become significantly easier to use, but only after careful consideration of the form factor constraints. Enterprises who fail to take screen layout, navigation options, and data entry tools into consideration risk alienating their users. After a brief orientation of the navigation options, users should be able to navigate and access information by intuition.
Solution: Elegant Screen Layout and Navigation
Intuitive navigation depends on using the few square inches of screen real estate wisely. Users do not have time to scroll through extensive option lists or read reams of information on small screens. For example, scrolling left and right to read information leads to a bad user experience. Questions for the Enterprise:
• Does the application display data in an easy to find, logical manner so that users can view, add and update with ease?
• Does the interface design minimize scrolling on both handhelds and mobile phones? Does it require scrolling from right to left?
• Can sales people update forecasts on the device without being burdened with unnecessary information? Can field service technicians update service orders with ease?
• Can applications be tailored to fit the device size?
The Mobile CRM solutions provided by most application vendors do not address the needs of channel and field service partners. Sales channel partners need access to customer, product and pricing information to help close the deal. Third party field service technicians also need access to customer, order, and product data to provide a consistent level of service to customers. The requirements for flexible, easy-to-use, and secure mobile clients become even more acute in these situations.
Partners invariably have different IT systems than the enterprise?s sales and field service staff. Even if large, proprietary applications could be loaded onto partners? mobile devices, the resulting technology problems would overload the enterprise?s IT staff. IT personnel are likely to be unfamiliar with the different devices and systems that partners may use. Fixing technical problems often requires physically shipping CDs and enabling database extracts. This simply does not scale.
Similarly, many companies outsource their field service operations on a regional basis. The size and technical infrastructure of these field service partners varies widely. Without an open internet architecture, the mobile CRM solution cannot be deployed to all partners. Downloading a 200MB client over a 28.8 connection is infeasible. The result is inconsistent service to customers and information discrepancies reported to the corporate office.
A proven, pure internet architecture is necessary to achieve a collaborative enterprise. Only an internet architecture enables deployment of a mobile CRM solution across almost any device or computer. Consider the unique needs of your sales channel partners or third party field service technicians when selecting a mobile CRM vendor and application architecture.
ING, a global financial service provider, is one example of a large enterprise that could benefit from collaborative, mobile CRM. The company sells financial services through independent agents, relying on a massive channel organization. Independent brokers require access to ING?s systems to enter orders, look up customer information and configure prices. When a broker sells a package of ING financial services to customer, she wants to bring up ING?s information on a disconnected laptop while at the customer site, configure services options on the spot, and close the sale. If ING could deploy mobile CRM solutions to these external brokers, it would gain a valuable competitive edge while building greater loyalty among its brokerage network.
Questions for the Enterprise:
• Does the architecture permit extending mobile CRM to any type of user, regardless of the device, computer or operating system? Is it a proven pure internet architecture?
• Does the solution vendor offer connected and disconnected devices, Internet connectivity and the wireless web options?
• What does it cost to support partners using mobile CRM?
We have established the importance of selecting, designing, and deploying mobile solutions that improve user productivity. This strategy requires proactive and frequent input from users during the implementation process. Implementations that fail to get this input in an iterative fashion risk wasting several months of development effort and can significantly impact future user adoption.
Many mobile solution implementations are multi-phase processes that let the enterprise gather feedback from key internal user groups. In each phase, business executives, users, and IT staff can learn more about how to best optimize a mobile solution to their unique needs. Including users in the development cycle not only leads to a better solution, but helps erode cultural barriers and mitigates obstacles to adoption.
Solution: Phased Implementation Process
Enterprises should look for vendors that can act as partners in this learning process and provide a core technology that overcomes the most serious adoption issues. Users are not familiar enough with the form factor issues of the wireless environment to aid in developing clear business requirements at the outset. Before implementing a mobile solution, the enterprise should develop a phased approach with specific milestones. At each milestone, the company can deploy a subset of functionality and measure the productivity gains. The enterprise can learn more about its unique user requirements and evolve forward. For example, at AMF, involving the sales force in the application development process not only provided the necessary user input but eventually accelerated user adoption. Sales representatives were more open to adopting technology that had successfully improved the effectiveness of their efforts.
A strong partner will meet the requirements listed above, such as a small mobile client footprint, easy customization, and a solid architectural framework. The software should also extend the reach of CRM applications to any user, whenever and wherever needed.
PeopleSoft CRM solutions were founded with a dedicated focus on the user. Its mobile sales and field service applications continue this promise. PeopleSoft Mobile CRM emphasizes productivity by focusing on rapid access to the most relevant information. The Pure Internet Architecture and flexibility of People Tools are designed with the user in mind. PeopleSoft's mobile solutions are evidence of this commitment.
• PeopleSoft?s CRM Sales and FieldService Mobile Solutions let users synchronize with corporate information quickly, reliably and without the user having to manage any database administration.
• Unlike many vendors, PeopleSoft Mobile CRM enables the enterprise to define data needs once, and then apply those requirements to all devices rather than requiring painstaking customization for each one.
• Enterprises can install, maintain, upgrade, synchronize, and secure the mobile solution on any browser-based device, using internet standards.
• Users can easily set their user preferences to further tailor the data to the way they work. Each individual can make the tool relevant to his or her own needs.
• PeopleSoft has developed a synchronization system that takes the technical issues out of the user's hands.
• At less than 5MB, the PeopleSoft mobile client can sit on virtually any mobile device and can be deployed to any user that can benefit, including partners. Other mobile CRM solutions maintain a device footprint greater than 200MB.
Field service and sales represent two of the most critical customer touch points. These front-line customer ambassadors drive corporate revenue and help manage costs. In this competitive economy, they need relevant information at their disposal to act responsively and decisively with each customer encounter. Now that mobile solutions have demonstrated their first successes, it is time for all enterprises to examine the impact that such solutions can have on the bottom line. Analysis requires a strong understanding of user needs, existing business processes, and the field environment. Mobile solutions have unique form factor requirements and adoption issues, but if addressed appropriately, they can fulfill the promise of CRM. From this foundation, enterprises should look to partner with applications vendors like PeopleSoft that provide a solid architectural foundation and produce a true strategic advantage.