Best practice can make perfect

BMW Group Financial Services has been successfully experimenting with handhelds to allow salespeople to work more effectively with customers.

The company's Swiss dealerships, for example, wanted a mobile solution so that its salesforce could devise accurate lease and finance quotes on the forecourt.

Over half of all new purchases from BMW in Switzerland are under lease or finance.

'When a customer shows interest in purchasing a vehicle, it is paramount that leasing and finance information is available as soon as possible to help facilitate the purchase decision,' says Patrick Cupelin, Palm project manager at BMW Financial Services.

The car giant worked with Palm to devise a system for its salesforce.

The system combined Palm PDAs with a bespoke finance application developed by BMW.

Cupelin says that the mobile system provides a way for dealers to make complex, on-the-spot calculations.

'Dealers now feel more confident about calculations and the accuracy of the lease and credit rates they offer to customers,' he says.

Requirements for the second version of the bespoke application are now under evaluation.

BT

Companies keen on making their workforce mobile should take a long, hard look at the processes at policies of incumbent telecom provider BT.

The telecom giant began implementing teleworking in 1990 and now has 6,000 registered teleworkers. It aims to have 15,000 employees on the scheme over the next five years.

'Everybody and anybody at BT is working flexibly - personal assistants, directors and IT support teams,' says Brain Walshe, head of mobility propositions at BT global services.

The primary aim is to encourage office-based employees to become staff without any fixed workspace. 'We can see the benefits from an economic perspective,' says Walshe. 'We've centralised our London facilities and our workers can be offered flexibility about where they live and work.'

BT currently saves about £50m a year on its building moves programme by allowing people to work from home. It also saves an estimated £12m annually in telephony charges.

Teleworkers receive a fixed sum to equip a home-based work area. All teleworkers receive a broadband link-up, a laptop and access to a helpdesk.

Homeworkers have full access to the BT intranet and communications systems. They also retain the right to use BT offices for hot-desking.

'The reaction has been immense - people support the initiative,' says Walshe. 'Workers can see the return, they can see the benefits of saving an hour of not commuting.'

Walshe is personally committed to the teleworking programme - and can see the benefits that mobile technology affords.

'I've not had an office in my three years of working at BT,' he says. 'I get to work around my commitments outside BT. I can go and watch my son play football in the afternoon if I work in the evening instead.'

Walshe says the biggest challenge is fostering inclusion for physically detached teleworkers. BT actively encourage one-to-one meetings every five to six weeks, where managers meet homeworkers to discuss staff development issues.

'Mobility requires a combination of technology, services and philosophies - but successful flexible work is actually about support and guidance,' says Walshe.

Instant messaging technology is used to reproduce the spontaneity of office communication. And a bespoke managed support system provides specialist assistance to teleworkers.

BT is looking to the future and its 'main plan' will focus on tablet PCs and wireless LANs.

'We're looking at using tablet PCs to increase mobility, so workers can tap into corporate resources at wireless access points dotted around the UK,' says Walshe.

One hundred sales workers and senior managers are currently involved in a pilot using Compaq and Toshiba tablet PCs. Walshe says it will be 18 months before BT is ready for a company-wide roll-out.

BT will ensure security is satisfactorily developed before its tablet PCs are deployed at a wider scale.

Walshe says that IT managers considering similar systems should remember that the human element is important when implementing mobile technology.

'Don't just chuck IT at people,' says Walshe. 'Provide them with training and support to make your system a success.'

Britvic

Soft drink supplier Britvic was keen to improve the efficiency and productivity of its field-based workers - so it replaced legacy infrastructure with mobile web services technology.

Britvic's communications infrastructure relied on standard handheld devices, through which field-based technical service representatives received details of their next job.

'The old legacy system was about nine years old,' says Lisa Heron, customer system manager at Britvic. 'We could get messages to and from the workers and the company's processes had moved on.'

The legacy system demanded that off-site workers dial-in to find out information about their next job. An improved system for receiving job details could create valuable business benefits.

Business technology provider Conchango was contracted to deliver a Microsoft-based system that could integrate new handheld devices with Britvic's existing back-office system.

The replacement system is based on XML web services technology. It works in real-time, so that workers don't have to input information on current job status.

Britvic's employees in the field communicate through Itronix FeX21 handheld devices. A bespoke application provides basic email and text messaging facilities.

Workers in the field communicate with the Britvic back-office system through a bespoke server application that provides the interface between the mobile device and legacy AS/400 software.

All engineers completed a three-day training course following system implementation. Britvic spent £1.2m on the system, including hardware, software and worker training.

The up-and-running system saves about 40 minutes per employee per day through the reduction in telephone calls.

'We run a regular census of our customer's equipment, and engineers used to complete the check by pen and paper,' says Heron. 'It used to take 15 minutes - it now takes 3 minutes by mobile device.'

The mobile system has also reduced the company's mobile phone bill by £25,000. The system's in-built text-messaging tool allows managers to message many engineers simultaneously, instead of phoning each worker individually.

'The managers can assign the workers - and they now have absolute visibility,' says Heron.

The company is looking to extend the system further in September. A handheld-based bar-code reader will automatically feed data back to the company during the product census.

Sugarcube

Sugarcube deliver marketing campaigns for some of Europe's biggest companies - and they rely heavily on mobility to run their business.

The company has developed systems that enable its clients to manage their marketing campaigns remotely and securely using mobile technology, including phone, laptop and PDA.

Nokia, Heineken and Diageo have used the marketing company's services - and they also ran the marketing campaign for Pink Floyd's 2002 concert in Dubai.

'It just wouldn't be possible for us to do what we do with our small team without mobile, working mostly over wireless,' says Errol Maxwell, managing director of Sugarcube.

Sugarcube developed marketing software so that NTL Business could track the success of an advertising campaign.

The system monitored web site hits and sent SMS text messages to registered users.

Placing the customer in charge of their promotion saves Sugarcube about £25,000 a year, across 10 campaigns.

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