It has been estimated that in Finland, around 40% of all the emergency calls come from mobile phones. How many lives could be saved by providing the location of the caller? Emergency solutions in the USA are actually driving the technical development of location-based services. There, mobile operators have to be able to provide the location of the caller in the future. Because of this, all the operators are installing location technology as a part of their network. In the future, location-based emergency services will be an integral part of mobile communication.
Location based emergency and security services
November 22nd, 2009Construction
November 22nd, 2009Construction workers may not be accustomed to using a computer at the construction site. Compared to PDAs, PCs require a certain level of background information because the use of applications and peripherals is more complicated. Because of their easy to use interfaces and small sizes, PDA devices are suited better for the construction environment. Zero boot time and instant data connectivity are other strong points for PDAs. Read the rest of this entry »
Mobile remote control
November 22nd, 2009Mobile remote control can be used across industries to decrease operational costs, provide security and enhance customer service. The components of remote control utility are normally a GSM, TDMA or CDMA unit, battery, built-in antenna and, possibly, a GPS receiver. The GPS receiver is used if the equipment needs to be located. The Yankee Group predicted, in 1999, that the number of telemetry units in service would grow more than 500% over the next five years. The growth is likely to be very fast in sectors such as heath care, security, transportation, utilities, municipal services and atmospheric control.[1]
Mobile Supply Chain Management
November 22nd, 2009Supply Chain Management (SCM) is an industry term for managing the flow of finances, information and materials among suppliers, manufacturers, wholesalers, retailers and consumers. Therefore, supply chain management is actually the oversight of the value chain and the different intermediaries of it. The ultimate goal is to reduce inventories by optimizing material and information flow without sacrificing service level. Therefore, there have to be enough products in the inventory to satisfy the demand. Industries with short invention and product cycles, such as high tech and consumer electronics, are highly dependent on supply chain management. This way, the interaction with numerous suppliers and retailers can be optimized. Read the rest of this entry »
Mobile self service
November 17th, 2009Mobile Customer Relationship Management
November 12th, 2009Customer Relationship Management (CRM) consists of methodologies, software and Internet capabilities which help a corporation to manage customer relations in an organized way. A CRM application has a database that describes customer relations in sufficient detail. It includes information about contacts, history, ratings and personal interests. This way, management, salespeople and service personnel are able to make more informed decisions regarding suitable products and sales offerings. A CRM solution can be opened to a customer as well. This way, he is able to order new products and review support information for the existing ones. Read the rest of this entry »
Mobile Enterprise Resource Planning
November 3rd, 2009Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) is an industry term for a wide array of activities used to manage manufacturing or similar actions. With ERP software, a company is able to manage inventories, product planning, interaction with suppliers, order tracking, parts purchasing and some parts of customer service. Modern Enterprise Resource Planning packages have also introduced modules for human resource management and finance. The software is typically purchased in modules (e.g. inventory, order, human resources) and integrated with a relational database. SAP, Peoplesoft, Baan, Oracle and J.D.Edwards are some suppliers of ERP solutions. Recently some suppliers, including SAP, have introduced ERP outsourcing which enables third parties to take care of software management.
Locate your friends and family
October 22nd, 2009Pull applications are generally easier to implement than push applications because location of the user is updated only when the services are really needed. Therefore, the mobile network does not have to “follow” the user actively and spot his location on regular basis.
The only exception to the picture above are those pull services that spot the location of other people or vehicles. In these cases, the mobile network can monitor the location of all the parties on regular basis, or the service can be controlled by the users. In a user-controlled solution, instant messages are used to notify the parties and authorize the users.
Locate your friends and family
Location-based entertainment and community services require less collaboration between different providers. Therefore, some of them can be produced by mobile operators wanting to increase customer loyalty by offering exciting premium services. Basically, the service provider offers a framework for the service. The users actually create the content they desire. Therefore, the operating cost of the service is low while potential revenue expectations are high.
What kind of entertainment and community services are possible with location technology?
· A group of people decide that they will “see” each others’ positions. Therefore, everyone needs to give permission to the other members of the group. Those having permission can request location of the other members and arrange meetings according to information provided by the service. For example, Jeff is able to see the location of all the members in his family. When they go shopping on Saturday, he can constantly keep up with the others and suggest meeting points based on the location of the others. Additionally, an alarm service is able to notify him when some of the other people belonging to the same location service and group are close by. Therefore, his mobile handset beeps when Joe Copper, his uncle, is within a radius of 200 meters. Using his mobile phone, Jeff can call him up and arrange a meeting point immediately.
· A shooting party is heading for elk hunting. Everyone knows the position of the others based on the location service. After the elk has been shot, the location of the animal can be communicated to everyone. Also, some of the members could monitor the hunting situation with their laptop computers and communicate possible security risks.
· Amy belongs to the Redwood Stamp Collectors Club. She has agreed to use a location-based community service with her friends. On Friday night, she enters the password-protected web site of the group and checks where everybody is hanging out. Using her personal computer, she is able to see a graphical map and the location of all the friends within the location service. After a quick look, it seems evident that most of the friends are hanging out at the local McDonalds. Amy sends a short message to the friends suggesting a visit to the stamp exhibition not far from there.
For entertainment and community service, the operator has to provide a secure connection between all the participants. In addition, a Web interface, together with integrated message capabilities, is useful. It is very likely that location-based entertainment and community services will be a killer revenue generator for mobile operators. In addition, they are a way to differentiate mobile operators from each other. Young people, especially, are likely to choose their mobile operator according to the services they are able to offer. If all of their friends are using the location-based community service of a particular mobile operator, it is highly unlikely that someone would choose another operator just for lower prices. The same applies to families and other closely related groups.
Emergency and healthcare
October 22nd, 2009Several professionals of the emergency and healthcare industry are still heavily dependent on call centers. In many situations, communication is a crucial part of delivering effective healthcare or emergency services. The professionals have to be available for colleagues, patients, patient family members and several other parties, such as insurance companies, regardless of their location. In addition, their access to medical records and various other resources is becoming one of the competitive advantages for various companies.
Measuring success
October 22nd, 2009Corporate applications cannot be measured in the same way consumer applications are evaluated. There are basically two different approaches towards corporate measurement: value analysis and technical analysis. Value analysis is based on earlier defined business expectations and requirements that have to be met in order for the application to be successful. Management sets the indicators before application development takes place. At the initial stage of mobile application design, the value drivers of the company are defined based on strategy and core business processes. At that point, the value indicators for a mobile application should also be defined.
