Continuing from last week, more areas of design issues faced by mobile application developers

These issues are to be kept in mind while developing mobile applications by developers.

Warehouse Management Systems

Traditionally, the warehouse/DC functioned with legacy system had specialized applications to upload information from the warehouse to the centralized systems in batch. Warehouses today are moving to WMS (warehouse management systems) applications using wireless LANs with mobile devices to manage all worker activities and record events in real-time. And, a single mobile device today can deliver a variety of applications—from imaging at receiving, to high bay scanning at put away, to voice picking and RFID at the loading dock. The ability of mobile computing to get the right person to the right job at the right time with the right information is a major advantage for improving productivity, accuracy, and reducing labor costs. Modern manufacturing warehouse facilities are hundreds of thousands of square feet in size. Having real-time mobile capability from any point in these facilities allow companies to track both people and assets. The manufacturing and warehousing environments are dynamic and change constantly. With optimization through real-time mobile communications, the instantaneous changes can be delivered.

Location Based Couponing

For a retailer location information is an absolute necessity for user-centric management. Though it has been present over a long time, today it has diverged into a major opportunity in the form of location based couponing. This allows companies to send out coupons or digitize weekly mailers based upon a user’s location.

With the rise in business of customer/consumer mobile applications being deployed on Smartphones such as the iPhone, Droid, and Blackberry, many companies are taking mobile couponing to the next level. With the actual customer’s location available to the retail companies via the geo-location on their phones, savvy companies can target promotions and couponing down to a city block. The company can send out updates via their mobile application, and base the promotion on many variables such as zip code, city or region. By working with strategic enterprise mobility partners, companies can turn this tool into an inventory management system. By tying into back-office systems, the mobile device and digital merchandisers could offer promotions based on inventory levels.

The merchandiser can develop a geo-targeted couponing campaign based upon real-time mobile analytics during a new product launch. The campaign is pushed to the company’s customers’ mobile devices during the application launch. The promotion can be targeted to individual buyer groups, giving the firm’s customers a targeted and compelling value proposition to encourage purchase. Users who bring in a coupon on their mobile device are 30% more likely to convert or purchase the promoted product or service.

While innovative application developers continue to incorporate the latest technology into their applications and follow industry trends to provide the firm’s customers with best-of breed mobile applications, the mobile marketing landscape will continue to evolve dynamically.

Enterprise Mobility (EM) is the buzz nowadays. It will be a tool for innovations in multiple industries and already few industries are leading the innovation game. In the following series of blogs, we will see how different industry verticals are adopting EM & why EM will be the center of gravity for industry defining innovations !!

Watch out for this space for more ….

Innovations on mobile consumer devices make mobile retailing prime targets for in-store retail applications that would normally be the purview of only expensive, retail-specific hardware. “The success of the mobile channel by 2013 should not be determined by its percentage of overall sales, but by the sales uplift it can create across all the retailer’s channels.” says a Gartner Report. Typically, the retail-specific hardware devices cost approximately twice as much as an iPhone, even when purchased in bulk. Today’s smart phone is much more powerful than the latest generation of purpose-built handheld mobile computers and, because they are consumer technology, they are manufactured in sufficient quantities to drive down per unit costs.

When investing in mobile Point of Service (POS) solutions, retailers should consider options that support the use of consumer device-based implementations, such as the Apple iPod touch or smart phones, to increase returns and reduce overall costs.

The mobile POS system must be a true extension of the retailer’s existing POS system, with seamless integration. Electronics retailers, for example, will benefit greatly from direct integration for full order management including merchandising, pricing, warranty contracts, etc. For all retailers, integration enables richer interaction with the customer to build loyalty and customer satisfaction. The mobile interface, therefore, should be just another view into the retailer’s traditional POS environment.

A mobile POS solution that effectively mimics the existing POS environment will simplify the process and add to the efficiency, effectiveness and confidence of the in-store sales associates.

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