Empowering FSOs with Rapid Mobile App Development

Mobility can work wonders for enterprise operational efficiency, boosting productivity and customer engagement. Learn more about how it can help your business.

It’s no secret mobile apps provide enterprises myriad benefits, from operational efficiency to new revenue opportunities and superior customer experience. Our June 2015 survey of 3,000 developers, CEOs and IT professionals found that improved operational efficiency was most often cited as a key reason for building mobile apps, followed closely by creating revenue opportunities, increasing employee productivity, improving customer service and engaging customers in more meaningful ways. With everyone flocking to cash in on the benefits of mobile apps, the global market for enterprise mobility is expected to grow from $72 billion today to $285 billion by 2019, according to MarketsandMarkets.

Improve Operational Efficiency with Mobility

Mobility is beneficial—crucial even—for multiple scenarios across every industry, and field service organizations are at the top of the list. In particular, it simplifies Field Service Management (FSM)—managing a company’s remote field workers. Examples include:

• Telecommunications and cable industry: Technicians who install cable or run phone lines into residences or businesses
• Healthcare: Mobile nurses who provide in-home care for the elderly or disabled
• Gas utilities: Engineers dispatched to investigate and repair suspected leaks
• Mining, industrial and manufacturing: Technicians dispatched for preventative maintenance and repair

These are just a few scenarios in which mobilizing FSM can boost operational efficiency. Recent research from Aberdeen Group found that 82% of field service organizations identified mobility as a strategic initiative to empower field service employees with real-time intelligence, enabling them to make decisions and resolve issues quickly. Given that field workers are one of the most important direct iterations your business has with your customers, empowering them with the tools they need to succeed in the field is essential to success.

Mobile Apps Empower a Workforce

Progress customer Power and Telephone Supply Company (Power & Tel) is one field service organization that leverages mobile development to empower its field workforce. Using Telerik Platform to extend its OpenEdge infrastructure, Power & Tel built two mobile apps:

• Mobile App Foundation, which enables customers to track and control assets to the end of the supply chain, beyond the distributor’s typical exit point
• Mobile Metrics, which provides real-time metrics and a visual status of affairs, enabling Power & Tel’s customers to make timely, critical decisions in the field

These apps are delivered over the cloud, enabling cross-platform access on multiple devices, at a low cost to Power & Tel’s customers. You can read the full story here.

The Right Development Tools Matter

Power & Tel’s success is due in large part to the development tools used. In a previous post, David Martin, Partner Account Manager at Progress, summarized Gartner’s recommended best practices for organizations struggling with the challenges of mobile development. Gartner lists rapid development tools as key to help companies to bridge the gap between available apps and user demand. Power & Tel’s success with Telerik Platform and OpenEdge is testimony that doing so works.

By enabling rapid development of cross-platform mobile apps for Android, iOS and Windows Phone that extend your existing OpenEdge applications, Telerik Platform for OpenEdge enables you to modernize and mobilize enterprise apps with the resources you already have, in less time, and start reaping the benefits of operational efficiency and an improved customer experience. Schedule your demo of Telerik Platform for OpenEdge today.