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There is simply no such thing, says Russell Glass, as a
“mobile and wireless problem.” There are only business
problems – to which wireless apps may indeed be a
powerful and effective solution.
IF YET ANOTHER SALES REP WALKS INTO YOUR
office and says, “I have the answer to your mobile and wireless
problem,” you should take three courses of action. First, aim
squarely and throw the massive stack of wireless marketing materials
that have been accumulating
on your desk. Then, pitch a
heavy book or stapler to really
emphasize the point. Finally,
swiftly kick the salesperson out
of your office.
The simple fact is that you
don’t have a mobile and wireless
problem. You never have and you never will.
The wireless software space, however, is riddled
with vendors and their sales reps trying
to convince businesses that this is their primary
problem and that their competition will
destroy them if they don’t act quickly.
Nonsense. The competition doesn’t have a
mobile wireless problem either, and spending
money trying to solve it is – quite simply –
money wasted.
What these businesses do have, like every
business, are real business problems that can
be solved through some of the benefits that
mobile and wireless technologies can deliver.
How to Save $3.6 Million a Year
For example, I recently spent time with an executive who has an
interesting and expensive distribution problem. He is trying to
manage the delivery of food to thousands of restaurants per day.
Every day, a number of customers are past due on their accounts,
forcing food shipments to be held so his company does not risk
further losses from delinquent payments. Withholding shipments
as a form of protection for the distributor, however, often causes
loss in other ways. As an example, food shipments that are withheld
on the docks too long will spoil, forcing the distributor to
incur considerable additional costs.
The current solution to this problem involves a chain of events
that begin with a notification to an accounts-receivable representative.
The accounting software alerts the representative that there is
a delinquency and a subsequent shipment hold. The notification is
passed to a call center that identifies and contacts the field-sales
representative who owns the account. The sales representative
contacts the account to rectify the situation by requesting a pur-
GUEST EDITORIAL
by Russell M. Glass
Stop Selling Mobile and
Wireless Technology…
…and start selling business benefits
Russell Glass is VP of strategy at AGEA Corporation.
chase-order number to release the goods for shipment.
Upon receipt of the purchase-order number, the sales
representative sends the number to the call center. The
call center relays the purchase-order number to the
accounts-receivable department, and the shipment is
released. This extensive information-exchange process of
phone calls, messages, returned calls, and research generally
entails four to 16 hours of work, costing an average
of $7.3 million per year.
Note that this company does not have a mobile and wireless
problem – it has a problem that can be solved by an application
incorporating mobile and wireless technologies. This is the critical
distinction that wireless vendors
do not recognize, and this lack of
recognition will kill them. Look
no further than the advertisements
in many business and
technical magazines to see that
by and large, these vendors do
not know how to solve business
pain. Instead they push technology attributes
such as “always on,” “XML-based,” and “JMS
messaging” that are irrelevant to most software
purchasers and users. Consider, for instance,
whether users really care about the type of
hard drive in their PCs, or care only that the
hard drive actually stores what they request.
Vendors Are Solving “Problems”
That Don’t Exist
This technology-centric approach has
caused confusion about the necessity and
value of mobile and wireless technologies. As
a result, business decision makers have
become exceptionally wary of adopting these technologies to solve
their real business pains. More significant, the mounting confusion
has created a misperception that mobile and wireless technologies
are not feasible. This inaccurate notion has largely been spread by
businesses with little understanding of how wireless technologies
can be effectively used. How could they understand? These companies
have been pitched again and again by vendors trying to solve a
mobile and wireless problem that they do not have.
The example cited above is a typical and painful business problem
solved by strong software that leverages the benefits of mobile
and wireless technologies. The solution requires a thorough and
detailed understanding of enterprise systems, wireless networks,
and mobile devices – but it’s simply installed and used.
Remove Latency from Business Processes
In the food distributor scenario, with the engagement of extended
technologies, the notification received by accounts payable
—continued on page 23
rglass@agea.com @
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