Marshall Lager writes:
Businesses have gotten the message that wireless will be increasingly important to all areas of operation, including CRM. Even back in 2004, "Mobilizing the Enterprise," an IDC survey of its mobile advisory council (a group of early-adopter businesses that had mobilized at least one function) showed that about 34 percent had CRM access on wireless devices, 32 percent were using field service apps, and 22 percent had wireless SFA. The survey for 2005 indicated that wireless use had grown among early adopters, with functions as diverse as data collection, sales, supply chain management, time reporting, inventory, and customer service getting mobilized.
"The trend is simplification of CRM, as wireless becomes more and more mainstream," says John Carini, CEO and chief architect of wireless for iEnterprises, an integrator of wireless CRM. "Users in the field have driven enterprise applications onto mobile devices, since those are the people who are most closely interacting with the customer." The ability to check on order status, provide updated price quotes, and reschedule meetings on the fly can make the difference between success and failure on the road. Because of this, according to Carini, we can expect to see more applications making their way onto BlackBerrys, Treos, and Smartphones this year. "Email is still important, but it isn't the killer app anymore," Carini says. "What brings value? CRM. Expect to see much more in the way of account management, opportunity management, sales forecasting, and alerts."
Computing power, GPS capability, and network coverage have come together in such a way as to allow easy access to location-based services (LBS), including real-time travel directions, dynamic routing of service trucks, and recommending a restaurant to take a client to, based on where the meeting will be. A Frost & Sullivan report states revenue for enterprise LBS will grow from the current $160 million to about $1 billion by 2010, with the total market growing from a current 390,000 users to more than 1.6 million by 2007.
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