The Case For Mobile Forms

More and more, organizations both large and small have critical business processes which involve mobile employees who work in the field and capture data using paper forms that are returned to the head office. There are numerous examples of mobile data collection –

• retail inspectors go from store to store auditing product placements and promotions on paper forms
  
• healthcare workers track patient visits in order to submit timesheets
  
• field maintenance workers capture work performed and get client sign-off to allow invoicing to occur
  
• building inspectors spend their time in the field going to buildings, conducting assessments and documenting their findings by filling paper forms on clipboards

Daily, or every few days the mobile worker drives to the office and drops off the completed forms. A data entry clerk interprets and transfers the data from the paper forms to the company’s computer systems.  In a time where businesses are ever-more challenged to cut costs and improve time-to-revenue, this is a slow, error-prone and inefficient process that is crying out for a simple and cost-effective mobile technology solution.

Picture a solution that simplifies and speeds up all of that paper processing. In this new world,

•  the retail inspector moves around the store recording findings on his BlackBerry™ handheld, noting where each store is compliant to current programs and not
  
• the healthcare worker captures the start and stop time on her Windows Mobile™ device, and has the patient sign on the phone to confirm the details
  
•  the field maintenance worker updates his work order on his smartphone and chooses parts from a list that is stored on the PDA
  
• the building inspector enters his findings in an electronic form stored on his laptop or handheld device, adding photographs, drawings or voice notes as required

In each case, as soon as the form is completed, data captured in the form is transmitted wirelessly to the office, so that processes like reporting or invoicing can begin immediately.  The process of mobile workforce management is now significantly simpler.

Until now however, adoption of traditional mobile solutions that replace paper forms and clipboards has only been cost-effective in enterprises with large field workforces. Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) have often been challenged to justify the considerable investment and upfront cost of such deployments. This has resulted in a large pent-up demand for a cost-effective mobile forms solution that can serve as a replacement for paper form clipboards and voice-based exchange of data.

With small and medium businesses looking to manage costs more than ever, the need has never been greater for a cost-effective service that allows them to easily design, deploy, and operate mobile forms for mobile data collection.

A hosted mobile forms solution offers compelling reasons to both management and mobile workers of enterprises of all sizes. For business owners, the benefits are especially attractive in tough financial times:

• Greater worker productivity: Reduced downtime enables workers to take on more jobs per day thus increasing the company’s revenue, as well as improving the accuracy of captured data and exchanged information.
  
•  Reduced operational expenses:  A mobile forms system allows customers to reduce the number data entry clerks, as well as optimize the management and dispatching of a field force.
  
• Reduction of billing cycles: Transmitting data in electronic form directly from the field allows the billing process to begin immediately after the delivery of service is completed.
  
• Improved customer service: Mobile forms enable mobile workers to meet tight service delivery windows and get the job done the first time, while enabling the enterprise to react more quickly and systematically to recommendations and leads generated from the field. 

The benefits for mobile workers include:

• Greater convenience: Known information on forms, such as customer name and address, can be automatically pre-filled, making the job of the mobile worker easier.
  
• Reduced downtime: Completed forms can be sent wirelessly to and from the field, eliminating the need to drive back and forth to the office.
  
• Less paperwork: Paperwork and duplication of effort are minimized as forms are completed electronically only once. This allows field workers to complete the task they like least – paperwork – faster and easier.
  
• Multimedia capabilities: Mobile workers can add photographs, signatures, drawings, voice notes, bar code readings, and GPS coordinates to forms, as needed. They can also print, fax, or email form data on site.
  

Thanks to these benefits, businesses that decide to deploy a hosted mobile forms solution today can achieve immediate, tangible savings and revenue growth. This translates to measurable return on investment and a substantial improvement of the company’s bottom line – a critical concern in today’s challenging economic environment.

If you’re interested in exploring how mobile forms technology can work in your company, consider the following in your research:

User-friendliness:  One of the barriers to adoption of mobile forms solutions is the complexity of set up and ongoing administration. Look for a solution where mobile workers with little computer experience can learn it in a matter of minutes, which allows you to save on training expenses.

Simplicity: When you have little or no IT support, a solution where mobile forms can be developed and deployed in an afternoon, with no coding, and no knowledge of mobile devices is the ideal.

Cost-effectiveness: Look for a service where a business can get up and running rapidly for a low monthly fee and no start-up costs. This makes it affordable even to smaller companies that have not been able to purchase old-style mobile forms solutions.

Enhanced data security: You’ll want a solution that can maintain data security over diverse mobile devices and wireless networks without the need for complex and costly VPN technologies. If your business requires it, look for a solution that also has the ability to store data directly behind your firewall when confidentiality of data is a particular concern.

Simple back-office integration: As a first step ‘zero-effort’ back-office integration option, your chosen mobile forms service should easily replace existing paper processes. The solution should provide simple conversion tools that allow your business to manipulate the data in common tools, such as Microsoft Excel.  For more sophisticated needs, a solution which allows forms data to be pre-filled, dispatched, viewed, printed and updated by PCs and browsers at the head office is highly desirable. Expanding on this, your solution should allow completed forms data to be pushed into the enterprise in a standard format such as XML that can be manipulated by your back-end system.

Pilot friendliness:  Look for a service provider that encourages you to start small with a pilot, and use this process tomake sure the solution delivers the expected benefits before you proceed with a full rollout.

Mobile Device Management: if you’ve got more than about fifty mobile workers, you’ll want a solution that includes a mobile device configuration and management module, allowing devices to be configured, provisioned, and updated via a web browser; this avoids you having to purchase a mobile device management software solution separately.

Mobile Content Management: as you gain experience with mobilizing business processes, you’ll find there additional avenues to leverage your mobile forms solution investment.  To build upon your mobile data capture tasks, look for a service that allows additional content, such as documents, files and applications, to be pushed to mobile devices using business and network usage policies.

Mobilizing paper forms processes helps businesses achieve significant productivity gains and enables them to generate more revenue while reducing operational expenses. This translates to a measurable and compelling business case for mobile forms solutions in a range of functions including field service automation and support, inspection, healthcare as well as for field sales and sales executives. Hosted mobile forms solutions are now within reach of small and medium businesses and we expect to see widespread market adoption as these small businesses look for ways to improve efficiency in challenging economic times.