Enterprise mobility – From “outside-in“ to “inside-out”

By Israel Beniaminy, Senior Vice President of Product Strategy at ClickSoftware

The enterprise is going mobile. You’re experiencing it yourself, and you’re not alone: according to a forecast published by research firm IDC in February 2010, the number of mobile workers accessing enterprise systems worldwide will top the 1 billion mark this year on the way to 1.2 billion by 2013, or more than a third of the world’s workforce. The proportion of mobile workers in the US workforce is predicted to surpass 75 percent, or 119.7 million people, in 2013.

However, not all mobile workers have the same needs. So far, we are mostly seeing the growth in what I'd like to call "outside-in mobility". In this kind of mobile application, most of the activities which are possible when sitting at the office desk are also accessible from anywhere in the world. The most pervasive example of outside-in mobility is, of course, the "anywhere, anytime" e-mail (let's skip the discussion of whether this is a good thing). There is room for many other "outside-in" applications, including purchasing, inventory management, expense accounts, to name just a few.

With outside-in mobility, time and location become less meaningful: any coffee table, at any time of the day or night, is brought inside the office and becomes almost equivalent to the worker's own desk. As a result, knowledge workers are becoming mobile.

Inside-out mobility, on the other hand, is for work that needs to be done at a specific place and time, such as many kinds of inspection, field service, insurance assessment, roadside repair, sales, transportation and public safety. These tasks have always been mobile, but with modern mobile technologies, it is as if the full capabilities of the whole corporate (and often the larger ecosystem), which used to be accessible only inside the office, are brought outside and applied right where and when they are needed.

Let's take a concrete example: Andy, a field service technician, is responding to a customer complaint regarding bad cable TV reception. When he is 20 minutes away from the customer location, the service management software detects his location and automatically notifies the customer, reducing the risk finding that the customer is not at home, and with no need for taking hands of the wheel to find and dial the customer's number. On arrival, Andy quickly finds that there's a need to make some adjustments to settings controlled by the central office, but fortunately he can make these adjustments with a few touches on his mobile device.

The problem is now solved, and the satisfied customer decides this is the time to upgrade one of the set-top boxes to HD. A couple of years ago, the customer would have had to call the company's corporate phone number, agree to a price, and then arrange for an additional visit. For the company, this meant lower chance of closing the deal, and higher expense on a second drive to the same location; the customer was also inconvenienced, having to stay at home again. With "inside-out" mobility, Andy can engage the complex process of deciding how much the customer should pay, get an answer immediately, and - if the customer agrees - install the new set-top box. If he doesn't have one in his van, he can ask the service management software to check whether any other technician in the vicinity has the required equipment.

Now, Andy is less familiar with the new set-top box, and needs some guidance. One touch on his mobile application screen causes the service management software to send Andy the installation and setup instructions. It also looks for one of Andy's peers who is familiar with the new box and who is currently available for a short chat. It turns out that Mary is currently between tasks, so her mobile device beeps and lets her know Andy might need help. She can then use one or more ways to communicate with Andy - text chat, voice call and even video (where she can remotely view Andy's steps and correct if necessary).

In this example, we saw the full power of the organization's assets - hardware, software and, most importantly, people - being brought to bear on making sure the service experience is performed as quickly and effectively as possible. Andy is not a salesperson and is not an expert on each and every type of job (who is?), but the customer doesn't and shouldn't care - all the tasks and interaction were performed perfectly, by bringing out, into the customer's home, everything that used to be locked inside the organization's headquarters.

Clearly, many mobile applications will have both inside-out and outside-in aspects. Still, it pays to think carefully about the differences. One of the most important differences is the user interface: The typical interface of outside-in applications is borrowed from e-mail, and from the even older "in-tray": It consists of batches of things to do - approval requests, tasks, forms to be filled etc. Users select one item from the batch, in whatever order that makes sense for them. Once done, workflow software usually moves it to some other user's in-box. Inside-out applications are very different: Instead of the batch, there is one task that needs to be done, here and now, as in our field service example. If the technician requires help from additional workers, the application should bring them in (in the sense of "virtual presence") right now. This also leads to many other differences, such as design for real-time response, the importance of collaboration, and the blending of roles (as when Andy became a salesperson for a couple of minutes).

Designing "inside-out" mobility is much more challenging than the older and more familiar "outside-in" breed. However, applications which combine both inside-out and outside-in promise to bring on a second mobile transformation, no less revolutionary than the transformation that made e-mail available anywhere and anytime. This second transformation will be highly beneficial to the organization's workers and customers.