Understanding Effects and Determinants of Mobile Support Tools: A Usability-Centered Field Study on IT Service Technicians

The integration of mobile workplaces is a major challenge for companies. First-wave mobile solutions mostly support existing business processes through adding value in terms of increased efficiency. Second-wave mobile solutions comprise a re-engineering of the mobile business processes, add value through increased effectiveness and may even enable new forms of mobility. In order to achieve a systematic approach to mobile integrated business processes it is important to analyze existing processes, focusing on the effects and determinants of mobile solutions that might be used to support those processes. For this purpose we examined a typical example, the field technician support process of an IT service providing company. Our research approach combines usability and process performance issues. The results show which tasks are suitable for mobile application support, which personnel is most likely to benefit from mobile technology and what improvements on business metrics such as labor time, back office capacity, and invoice cycle are to be expected.

Adoption and Impact of Mobile-Integrated Business Processes - Comparison of Existing Frameworks and Analysis of their Generalization Potential

The integration of mobile workplaces in the (electronically mapped) intra-enterprise value chain is a major and still increasing corporate IT issue. Although the usage of mobile technologies for this purpose is far behind expectations and numerous failures can be observed,still little work has been done on theory building in this area. In this contribution we identify and compare existing frameworks for adoption and impact of mobile technology to support mobile business processes. The hypotheses underlying these frameworks are challenged with experiences from three long-term case studies which are diverse in industry, company size and other factors in order to scrutinize their potential for generalization. The outcome is a set of hypotheses that show robustness against variation of major parameters and thus may be suitable to serve as a basis for a generalized and unified framework on mobile-integrated business processes.

Adoption and Impact of Mobile-Integrated Business Processes - Comparison of Existing Frameworks and Analysis of their Generalization Potential

The integration of mobile workplaces in the (electronically mapped) intra-enterprise value chain is a major and still increasing corporate IT issue. Although the usage of mobile technologies for this purpose is far behind expectations and numerous failures can be observed,still little work has been done on theory building in this area. In this contribution we identify and compare existing frameworks for adoption and impact of mobile technology to support mobile business processes. The hypotheses underlying these frameworks are challenged with experiences from three long-term case studies which are diverse in industry, company size and other factors in order to scrutinize their potential for generalization. The outcome is a set of hypotheses that show robustness against variation of major parameters and thus may be suitable to serve as a basis for a generalized and unified framework on mobile-integrated business processes

Usage of mobile technolgies to support business processes

Recently, companies start realizing the necessity to equip their mobile workforce with a mobile solution. But this is not enough to integrate the mobile workforce into the business process. Therefore it is necessary to find for each mobile employee a mobile solution that supports his/her whole range of activities of work. To use the new potential efficiently, a Business Process Reengineering (BPR) is essential. This can be supported by use of the “Mobility-M” that was developed exclusively for analysis and concept of mobile business processes.

Measuring the Value of User Participation in Change Projects - Results from Case Studies in the Mobile IT-Service Sector

Mobile devices offer great potentials for business process change and reengineering. However, realizing these potentials in practice still faces serious problems. While technologies are now widely mature, the problems still lie in the adoption and usage of mobile technology. In this paper, we analyze the contribution of user participation to the successful improvement of business metrics. This paper presents results from five case studies conducted in the IT-Service sector. The paper gives an example of a process calculation before and after mobile tool integration. Major findings include (a) user participation leads to improvements in business metrics and, (b) faster adoption and payback periods

THE IMPACT OF USER EXPERIENCE ON HUMAN COMPUTER INTERACTION - RESULTS FROM A USABILITY STUDY

For a large number of applications, mobile devices offer a manifold variety of potentials to improve business processes. However, most projects still fail to be successful with regard to key performance indicators (KPI). There is a growing understanding that human computer interaction is a key factor for the successful use of mobile devices in practice. However, it is still unclear how interfaces can be designed according to the specific needs of a user applying mobile devices in a business context. In this study we show that user experience has a strong impact on efficient human computer interaction. We present the results of a usability study on a mobile tool for IT-Service technicians. The results show that (a) even low experienced users can achieve sufficient task performance with a usable tool and (b) that participants of all experience groups perform better in the field setting compared to the lab

Understanding Effects and Determinants of Mobile Support Tools: A Usability-Centered Field Study on IT Service Technicians

The integration of mobile workplaces is a major challenge for companies. First-wave mobile solutions mostly support existing business processes through adding value in terms of increased efficiency. Second-wave mobile solutions comprise a re-engineering of the mobile business processes, add value through increased effectiveness and may even enable new forms of mobility. In order to achieve a systematic approach to mobile integrated business processes it is important to analyze existing processes, focusing on the effects and determinants of mobile solutions that might be used to support those processes. For this purpose we examined a typical example, the field technician support process of an IT service providing company. Our research approach combines usability and process performance issues. The results show which tasks are suitable for mobile application support, which personnel is most likely to benefit from mobile technology and what improvements on business metrics such as labor time, back office capacity, and invoice cycle are to be expected

Einsatz mobiler Technologie zur Unterstützung von Geschäftsprozessen

Recently, companies start realizing the necessity to equip their mobile workforce with a mobile solution. But this is not enough to integrate the mobile workforce into the business process. Therefore it is necessary to find for each mobile employee a mobile solution that supports his/her whole range of activities of work. To use the new potential efficiently, a Business Process Reengineering (BPR) is essential. This can be supported by use of the “Mobility-M” that was developed exclusively for analysis and concept of mobile business processes

Einsatz mobiler Technologie zur Unterstützung von Geschäftsprozessen

Recently, companies start realizing the necessity to equip their mobile workforce with a mobile solution. But this is not enough to integrate the mobile workforce into the business process. Therefore it is necessary to find for each mobile employee a mobile solution that supports his/her whole range of activities of work. To use the new potential efficiently, a Business Process Reengineering (BPR) is essential. This can be supported by use of the “Mobility-M” that was developed exclusively for analysis and concept of mobile business processes