Mobile-Enabling the Enterprise Workforce: Harnessing the Power of Java ME Sreekumar Pillai , CTO, Experion Manoj Balraj, Partner, Experion

Competitor Tracking

Relationship Building

Product Sales

Stock Confirmation

Order Taking

DSR Fax/ Email – Daily, Retailer wise

Phone Calls – Stock availability, delivery status

Order Entry

Consolidate Orders

Intelligent Reports

Plans/ Strategies

Decision Making

Field Sales Team

Operations Team

Management Team

Delivery

Schedule Delivery

Manage Returns Manage Collections

Raise Invoices

Retailer

The Distribution Process

Information updates from Operations Team and sign off day’s plan with Manager

Visit retail outlets as per plan & book orders/ collections

Update daily sales reports and fax to Operations team, prepare plan for next day

Update sales orders on ERP/ Accounting system, raise invoices and schedule delivery

120 min 30

min 360 min

30 min

Phone clarifications with Operations team for delivery status, price updates, stock position...

Time Motion Math

120 min

Get information updates from Operations Team and sign off day’s plan with Manager

Visit retail outlets as per plan and get orders/ collections

Update daily sales reports and fax to Operations team, prepare plan for next day

Update sales orders on ERP/ Accounting system, raise invoices and schedule delivery

120 min 30

min 360 min

30 min

Phone clarifications with Operations team for delivery status, price updates, stock position, etc.

Time and Motion Revisited

120 min

The answer is YES! §  Eliminate paper work §  Automate data exchange §  Effective use of IT investments §  Maximize field time

Mobile - Features

Order Picking •  Pick orders based on routes, shops, products •  Replaces the paper forms •  Orders booked real-time

Stock Update •  Check stock real-time with warehouse •  Make judicious commitments to customers

Payment collection •  Capture payments •  Get receivables from each shop •  Better cash flow management

Sales return •  Capture sales return •  Capture with reason for return

Pocket MIS •  Reports for the sales staff •  Sales performance , debtors aging reports etc extended

India is one of the fastest growing Enterprise Mobility Market in APAC region

700+ million subscribers (and growing)

70+ handset manufactures dominated (90%) by low cost feature phones

Enterprise mobility - Key driving factors

Market size Large group of SMBs

Rural Connectivity High speed networks – 3G

Enterprise mobility - Key challenges

Cost Poor backoffice infrastructure (e.g. ERPs)

High customization requirements Device compatibility

Which devices to target ?

PDAs vs

Feature phones vs

Smart phones

Emerging markets – Feature phones are here to stay for a longer time !

Thin or Thick ?

Usability is the prime concern Offline usage is a must

Thick clients are obvious choice

Mobile Client

Mobile Client

Mobile Client

Dedicated Server

Desktop Client

http/ GPRS

http/ GPRS

Mobile Application

Backoffice Application

Internet/ Intranet

An enterprise deployment architecture

Anatomy of an Enterprise app

User authentication Master data access from backoffice

Data entry screens Transaction update to backoffice

Reports

Desired features

Location tracking Drill down reports

Dynamic forms Printing Support Camera Support

Technical requirements

Offline usage Backoffice Integration Uniform user interface

Technical challenges

Mobile phones are not small PCs Power, CPU, Bandwidth, Memory, Screen Size

Data usage – metered Latency vs Responsive UI

Data volume

Why did we choose Java ME?

Target was mass market phones

Supported on a wide range of phones

Java ME Runs on more devices than any other platform

How we built FieldMax

LWUIT (com.sun.lwuit)

FieldMax was one of the early adopters

Started from V1.1 updated till 1.4

Rich UI controls Consistent Look & Feel across devices

Theming, Fonts, Transitions Tabs, Tables, Multi line text

XHTML Support

LWUIT - XHTML (com.sun.lwuit. HTMLComponent)

Drill down reports configured from server

Dynamic Data collection forms

(no client app changes)

RMS APIs (javax.microedition.rms)

Master data to be stored in device for offline

usage

Field users prefer to work on offline mode due to network latency

Alternate storage to reduce memory usage

Location APIs – JSR 179 (javax.microedition.location)

Exposes uniform API to access location info

Used for

annotating sales orders data captured from field

Third-party Libraries

XML parser JSON Parser

Conclusion

Java ME provides an excellent platform for building an enterprise mobile application.

The platform is capable of providing near

Smartphone features in a feature phone which makes it an excellent choice for emerging

markets

Discussions...