Mobility Solutions for ERP
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A Rimini Street White Paper Mobility Solutions for ERP
About Rimini Street, Inc. Rimini Street is the global leader in providing independent enterprise software support services. The company has redefined enterprise support services since 2005 with an innovative, award-winning program that enables Oracle and SAP licensees to save up to 90 percent on total support costs. Clients can remain on their current software release without any required upgrades for at least 15 years. Over 1000 global, Fortune 500, midmarket, and public sector organizations from a broad range of industries have selected Rimini Street as their trusted, independent support provider. Rimini Street and the Rimini Street logo are trademarks of Rimini Street, Inc. All other company and product names may be trademarks of their respective owners. Descriptions of mobile products and services (pages 4-7) are from vendor-supplied information sources. Copyright © 2015. All rights reserved. www.riministreet.com LT-US-081315
White Paper Mobility Solutions for ERP
Contents
Executive Summary.............................................................................................2
Mobility Extends ERP...........................................................................................2
Enterprise Mobility Solutions.............................................................................. 3
Mobility Integrators ............................................................................................ 3
Social Apps Integration ...................................................................................... 5
Mobile Supply Chain .......................................................................................... 5
Pre-Built Mobile Solutions .................................................................................. 5
Rimini Street 1White Paper Mobility Solutions for ERP Executive Summary ERP mobility is the set of people, processes and technology focused on managing the increasing array of mobile devices, wireless networks, and related services to enable broad use of mobile computing in business. This is an increasingly important discipline within the enterprise as more and more workers use smartphone and tablet devices in the workplace. But to be truly useful, these new mobile devices need access to business information in ERP systems. It is IT’s challenge to build a solid mobility platform by determining the best ERP/CRM enterprise strategy for integrating mobile devices with business processes. Mobility Extends ERP Mobile devices are becoming an important extension to ERP. The goal is to unlock workforce productivity with two distinct benefits of mobility devices. The first benefit is the mobile devices’ enhanced user interface which features portability, high screen resolution and finger-swipe functionality that promote productivity. The second benefit is extending the reach of ERP systems to emploees, partners and even customers, when they need it, where they need. The combination of mobile devices and ERP business systems empowers workers and makes it possible for them to engage more fully with their peers and customers. With the rapid adoption of mobile devices in the workplace, the ERP vendors have realized that they cannot keep up with the needs of the ever-growing mobile workforce with their existing functionality. As a result, the vendors have had to acquire rather than build the new mobile apps, creating hybrid ERP systems -- a combination of on-premise, cloud services, and mobile apps. While this brings mobile functionality to a wider market, it results in features being released as part of the regular vendor software lifecycle, forcing major upgrades — at major costs — just to implement mobile access. Many companies are reevaluating the wisdom of paying hefty fees for maintenance services that deliver little in way of innovation, and in particular, mobile functionality. By using independent support to free up significant operating budget, organizations are using the savings to more quickly add mobile functionality from third-party mobility vendors, while extending the life of their ERP systems for 10–15 years. Rimini Street provides its clients with technology roadmaps that help future-proof their stable ERP systems against changes in the technology stack, while adding new technologies to the core business systems as needed. Gartner on Mobility According to Gartner Group, the proliferation of mobile devices represents a real opportunity to increase the penetration of ERP for all types of workers -- in healthcare, manufacturing, finance, even charity organizations -- and overcome some of the resistance to ERP usability. However, deploying ERP on mobile devices presents many challenges, due to the rapidly evolving mobility device and app landscape. High user expectations -- keep it clean, simple and fast -- and the proliferation of mobile devices with different platforms means that, so far, most ERP vendors have done little more than provide generic mobile “gateways” to enterprise data with technologies such as HTML5, iOS and Android. This does little more than poorly present the standard ERP on mobile devices, which only reinforces the complexity and frustration for users. Mobility does not come free from the ERP vendors. It requires expensive upgrades to their newest technology platforms and constant patching as the vendors deliver functionality a little bit at a time. The best long-term strategy is to do what the vendors are doing themselves: acquire additional software mobility products and use a hybrid of loosely coupled and on-premises applications to best serve the needs of the workforce. This way the ERP system remains on-premise but becomes augmented by mobile applications from vendors such as Appcelerator, Kony or IBM. Kony, for example, is well-suited for projects in which large, diverse populations must be supported and development needs to be outsourced. Kony has a strong integration with both SAP and Oracle back ends such as JD Edwards, PeopleSoft and Siebel. Rimini Street 2
White Paper Mobility Solutions for ERP
Key Takeaways
• The ERP vendors are acquiring technology for mobility and not building it from scratch, which means their
mobility enhancements will require expensive and time-consuming upgrades and additional software
licenses by their customers.
• The ERP vendors have all adopted a Software Development Life Cycle approach for adding enhancements,
which means that you have to continuously apply their updates as functionally is slowly and incrementally
released.
• You don’t need to undergo complex and costly ERP upgrades to add mobility applications to your
technology stack.
• With the move to postmodern ERP, within five years hybrid ERP environments -- loosely coupled on-
premise applications and cloud-based services -- will become the norm.
• Increased delivery options, mobile engagement, and greatly enhanced user experience have created a new
competitive market place for hybrid applications that connect to traditional on-premise ERP applications.
To keep up with workforce and customer expectations, organizations need to offer great apps that run on
a range of mobile devices and connect to an ever-growing set of back-end data. Rimini Street provides
technology roadmap advisory services to help its clients evaluate mobile technologies -- among others
-- and choose solutions that enable them to incorporate mobile devices into their technology stack without
risking an expensive ERP upgrade.
Enterprise Mobility Solutions
Based on a client’s requirements Rimini Street Technology Support Services can recommend an appropriate
mobility toolset and vendor. Mobility vendors range from companies that provide Mobile Application Development
Platforms (MADP) that enable IT to build custom mobile applications that interact with ERP systems; pre-built mobile
applications that integrate with specific ERP systems; and social network integration platforms. This white paper
lists a few of the mobility leaders — according to Gartner Group — that Rimini Street recommends or works with to
enhance our clients’ mobile access to their ERP systems.
Mobility Integrators
Appcelerator
Appcelerator solves the issue of mobile integration by delivering native cross-platform apps at Internet speed,
mobilizing any data source, and driving success with real-time analytics — all from an open, cloud-based platform.
• Deliver a real-time view of your mobile app portfolio for business and project stakeholders alike.
• Create amazing app experiences across multiple operating systems and devices from a single JavaScript
code base.
• Mobilize any data source — public or enterprise.
• Test apps faster with improved quality and control.
• Gain end-to-end visibility into test coverage, API usage, user experience, app adoption and performance.
Rimini Street 3White Paper Mobility Solutions for ERP
Kony
Kony understands how to harness mobile technology so your brand can pursue its full mobile potential without
risks or boundaries. Let Kony worry about new hardware requirements, operating system updates and rich user
experiences while keeping your costs and resources low. You focus on delivering new mobile experiences that
empower your customers and employees.
Kony apps power the mobile experiences of the largest airlines, the biggest banks, the largest insurance companies
and hotels, manufacturing giants, utilities providers and dozens of other global industries.
iEnterprises
iEnterprises brings you Swift MEAP, the award-winning mobile enterprise application platform. Swift MEAP works
with virtually any existing application/datasource and smart phone or tablet — including iPhone, iPad, Android and
BlackBerry — to mobilize the critical information your field workforce needs to drive success for your business and
increase customer satisfaction.
Whether you are using Siebel CRM, Salesforce.com, SAP, JD Edwards or a custom mainframe solution, iEnterprise’s
mobile platform provides enhanced access and thereby helps you deliver the corporate goals of increasing
productivity, revenues, customer satisfaction and loyalty.
Infosys
Infosys offers comprehensive and innovative enterprise mobility solutions, giving you the right platform to embark on
your mobility journey. Infosys solutions have been designed to cover varied industries and business functions, so you
can empower your teams with “on-the-go” services.
• Enterprise-on-the-go: Provides anytime/anywhere access to core ERP and CRM enterprise functions.
Your employees can access essential functions on their smartphones and tablets on-the-go, act on critical
business needs, and make better decisions.
• Approvals-on-the-go: Helps your managers act on pending business approvals/transactions.
• Sales-on-the-go: Enables your sales teams to focus on revenue generation, improve sales productivity,
and maintain and grow existing accounts — by accessing and managing real-time customer and pipeline
information.
• Service-on-the-go: Helps your managers in real-time dispatching and workforce optimization; helps your
technicians in effectively servicing customers and preventing breakdowns through real-time information
availability.
• Expense reports-on-the-go: Gives your employees an easily accessible platform to submit, update, withdraw
and duplicate their expenses.
• Projects-on-the-go: Enables your managers to view and update overall project status, and assign resources
to a particular activity. Resources can also update their activity completion status.
Verivo Software
The Verivo Software team is committed to accelerating its customers’ business results via enterprise mobility. For
more than a decade, Verivo’s enterprise mobility experts have been helping companies meet the demands of the
emerging market and contributing to the transformation of the mobile enterprise with their insight and innovation.
• Unique enterprise mobile app platform designed to radically simplify the complexities of building, securing
and controlling custom enterprise apps.
• Verivo has dramatically transformed its go-to-market strategy to meet today’s market demands.
Rimini Street 4White Paper Mobility Solutions for ERP
Social Apps Integration
IBM
IBM Connections is a leading social software platform that can help your organization engage the right people,
accelerate innovation and deliver results. This integrated, security-rich platform helps people engage with networks
of experts in the context of critical business processes. Now everyone can act with confidence, anticipating and
responding to emerging opportunities. IBM Connections deployment options include on-premises, hybrid and in-
the-cloud.
• Eliminate guesswork by providing full-featured social analytics and metrics to foster vital networks and
communities.
• Unlocks creativity everywhere with a social platform that is ready to be delivered to virtually any mobile
device including tablets.
• Provides a flexible and security-rich foundation for a comprehensive bring-your-own-device (BYOD)
strategy.
• Integrates with IBM software and third-party applications to extend your enterprise social business
platform.
Mobile Supply Chain
WaveMark is the market leader in real-time healthcare supply chain innovation. WaveMark solutions drive innovation
from point-of-manufacture to point-of-care, enhancing patient safety and regulatory compliance while improving the
economics of healthcare.
WaveMark provides actionable, real-time information on the movement and usage of healthcare supplies and
implantable devices.
• WaveMark’s Mobility Software uses the latest in mobile computing technology for tracking healthcare
supplies in procedural areas, distribution areas and storerooms.
• WaveMark is the only healthcare supply chain technology company to offer this level of supply chain
mobility for both RFID and non-RFID tracked supplies.
Pre-Built Mobile Solutions
MobileFrame
MobileFrame is a complete enterprise mobility solution that lets you gain a competitive advantage by replacing
inefficient and error-prone paper forms with automated mobile solutions that boost productivity and increase
revenue. MobileFrame’s code-free enterprise mobility platform enables businesses to easily create, deploy and
administer sophisticated custom mobile applications. MobileFrame eliminates time-consuming and expensive
custom coding and includes the management tools necessary for a successful mobility project.
aMind Solutions
With deep roots in the Siebel CRM world, aMind Solutions is the leading provider of technology and implementation
and consulting services for Oracle’s Siebel CRM solutions. By complementing and extending Siebel CRM, aMind
Solutions helps companies deliver a seamless customer experience across all touch points — web, partner portal,
contact center, and more. aMind Solution’s patent-pending software framework provides high-performance, efficient
extensions of enterprise systems to your mobile users.
For more information, ask for the Rimini Street Technology Solution Brief: Mobile Devices
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