According to Julian Hewett, Chief Analyst at Ovum Research, “2004 will be a defining year for wireless data.” Data has accounted for a growing percentage of Average Revenue Per User (ARPU) since 2002 but Hewett expects that rate of change to increase in 2004. There have been a number of challenges that have delayed wireless adoption by enterprise customers. As they’re addressed and data-enabled handsets continue to proliferate, market conditions will finally be present for mainstream penetration.

Mobile Workflow Defined
Three problems have significantly delayed the adoption of wireless applications that eliminate the gap between mobile employees and their desk-bound tools:
• Lack of end-user personalization
• Little or no automatic device optimization
• Lengthy deployment time requiring programming or third party consulting

Now, applications exist that are built from the ground up to support mobile interaction. The benefits are evident: mobile solutions facilitate improved customer support while reducing support costs and improving the strategic value of desktop tools that track field work.

The best Mobile Workflow Management solutions consist of the following components:
• Ability for end-users to configure their own applications
• Push-initiated transactions with two-way actionable alerting
• Seamless combination of “push” and “pull” modes
• VPN-level wireless security
• No Programming required to integrate with existing
desktop applications
• Automatic device optimization for new devices

Mobile Enterprise Trends
Three trends are catalyzing enterprise wireless adoption:
1. More mobile employees: By 2006, 60 percent of enterprise employees will be mobile. The rapid propagation of Wi-Fi hotspots, and secure, reliable wireless devices are making the wired to wireless transition easier. New behaviors also demand new software solutions for managing mobile workflow.
2. Strategic service providers: mobile IT organizations can finally shift from providing reactive, tactical services to proactive, strategic services. Strategic service providers are demanding more intelligent mobile tools.
3. Outsourcing: as non-core operations are outsourced abroad, the volume of disconnected work and disconnected workers has increased.

Strategies to Consider
Having reviewed the components of an ideal MWM solution and the trends that are generating increased demand for wireless tools, here are ten best-practice tips for implementing a successful MWM project :
1. Ask your users what they need: There’s no such thing as a one-size-fits-all wireless application and no project succeeds in a vacuum. The single greatest reason wireless projects fail is because users can’t control their applications - so they stop using them.
2. Weigh the pros and cons of buying vs. building: Off the shelf solutions generally yield lower total project costs. Verify that the solutions you’re considering integrate with your applications and are consistent with your short and long-term device strategies.
3. Avoid cutting corners when it comes to ease of integration and support for standards.
4. Leverage productivity solutions you already have in place: look for an “adapter”–based architecture where a single mobile gateway is pre-integrated with multiple applications.
5. Support the devices your team already uses: Nobody wants to build a wireless money pit. Your project costs will be significantly lower if you start with devices you already have. If your project is successful, you’ll have the political support you need to upgrade.
6. Look for quick results and ROI: Measure value through a combination of “hallway” feedback and industry metrics like mean time to resolution or mean cost per transaction.
7. Plan for growth: When it rains it pours. If your techs like it so will their managers. And so will their managers’ managers. Plan ahead.
8. Identify and cultivate internal champions. Get continuous buy-in from the stakeholders.
9. Identify the cost of not having a solution: It can be quantified in hard terms like the cost of hiring new employees or penalties paid for missed SLAs, or in soft terms like lost productivity or system downtime.
10. Learn from the experiences of your peers: Work with your vendor to get objective advice from other customers who have implemented successful projects.

Success Stories Abound
Wireless can work for you too. Consider the case of the global media company that delivers millions of newspapers daily to homes across Europe. Their industry is now wireless and they followed suit to avoid being at a competitive disadvantage. In the span of one week, IT developed a mobile application for field operations that allows them to scan newspaper kiosk bar-codes, capture real-time inventory information, track delivery status, and significantly reduce operational costs. With mobile workflow designed for their business processes, employees now self-define what they need in the field, receive targeted, actionable alerts, and get credit for the work they’re doing as they do it. That’s similar to the solution that a major North American grocery store chain developed to reduce the cost of downtime for critical IT problems like malfunctioning cash registers. It’s also similar to what hundreds of other global IT organizations have done to generate productivity dividends and it’s similar to what you may want to consider as well.

For the first time, all enterprise wireless indicators are firmly pointed in the direction of growth after years of false starts. Each vertical and geography will progress along different trajectories but overall the pace of change seems to be accelerating as subsequent industries adopt mobility.