Live Blog: How Will Mobile Change Your Business and Cost Structure?

Social Marketing Specialist, Enterprise Business Group

Welcome to our first live blog on the Business of Work! We’re excited to cover today’s panel “How Will Mobile Change Your Business and Cost Structure?” This panel is one of many during the 2-day mNext Forum, hosted by IDC in San Francisco. For those of you who cannot attend the event, we wanted to give you the chance to listen in to a topic that is affecting all business professionals – mobile.

The panel will discuss the follow key issues:

• How is mobile changing decision-making structures?
• What should enterprises do to leverage the forces of consumerization and BYOD?
• What are the tenets of next-generation mobile policies?
• How should enterprises plan for the economics of mobile?

Rick Dastin, Xerox Corporate VP and President of the Enterprise Business Group will be participating in the panel. Among Rick will be several other executives discussing how their companies are adapting to the new mobile framework, including:

• Ki S. Kim, Corporate Vice President, Global Head of Enterprise Mobility Solutions Business, LG Electronics
• Matt Berardi, Managing Director, Operations Technology, FedEx
• Randy Nunez, Workstream Lead, Mobile Computing, Ford Motor Company
• Rick Peltz, Senior Vice President and CIO, Marcus and Millichap

Today, at 2:15 p.m. EST/11:15 a.m. PST we will begin live blogging comments from the panelists about every 10 minutes. Remember to refresh your page to see the latest input. Also, please let us know what you think in the comments below.

[1:50 p.m. EST] Starting early – Part I of the panel began. Matt Berardi from Fedex is on stage discussing how their company has a strong history of mobile computing innovation that started in the 80’s. They plan to provide all drivers with rugged mobile devices with full wireless integration, GPS, key information, and a frontline management device.

[2 p.m. EST] Randy Nunez from Ford Motor Company takes the stage. They faced a challenge with millennials, who began to influence changes to their business. Ford’s Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) program began in 2007, which allowed their employees to choose their mobile devices. The employees covered cost plans and support, while Ford covered back end costs and their branded email on personally-owned devices (epod).

[2:07 p.m. EST] Rick Peltz from Marcus and Millichap is up next. They’re a real estate broker with 1200 agents and 2000 users on the network. Today, the company has an Android and iPhone app to locate agents, find contact information, view office webpage, etc. Rick says,”this is the only application they know of that can send text, email, or call their agents, all in one spot… it allows instant and direct communication.”

[2:13 p.m. EST] Ki S. Kim from LG Electronics discusses the consumer mobile experience and how it can be transferred to the enterprise workforce. Ki explains that all solutions will have to live in a device. LG will provide a virtualized phone that will offer separate operating systems for work and personal use.

[2:20 p.m. EST] Xerox’s Rick Dastin takes the stage. He explains that Xerox is transforming – 50% of the business is technology, the other 50% is services. Cloud and mobility are changing the Xerox business experience and business model. Today, it’s more complicated with all the systems, Xerox will simplify the process. Xerox solutions need to be secure. The first solution Xerox provided was for mobile printing. Rick says Xerox is taking their devices and hooking them up to an ecosystem – real estate, legal, professional services – “these are important verticals for our solution.”

[2:25 p.m. EST] Rick Dastin continues, “MPS is a big part of our mobile strategy.” Xerox is also considering finding new revenue streams. Mobile-to-mobile campaigns, personalized, 1:1, unified marketing messaging are all important today. Lastly, the future of the document is changing – Document 3.0, which is all about getting access to the document, and liberating it from wherever it is. Rick says, “we think the migration of the document will change dramatically.”

Question and Answer Session:

[2:35 p.m. EST] Question to Rick Dastin – “Most of your devices have call home capabilities, and is it secure, and do you use sensors?”

Rick’s answer: Our devices have many sensors and a back end engine that analyzes them. Many times we can detect that the MFP does not need a new part,  then we can remotely fix, without sending a service technician.

[2:40 p.m. EST] Rick Dastin from Xerox explains the value in the Mobile Print Solution following a question asking how the panelists’ companies funded app development during a slow economy. Rick says the solution is self-funding. In a services environment we can show the customer how they can get a return on investment with the services, and how we can track the document, and give them a true understanding of what they are spending.

[2:50 p.m. EST] Question posed about what mobile platforms the panelists’ companies support. Rick Dastin responds, saying Xerox supports all platforms, which is why they chose email for the Mobile Print Solution, but as Xerox continues to create apps, their customers require Xerox to support all platforms.

[2:57 p.m. EST] Rick Dastin is asked about Document 3.0 from audience – “For people that are really out of their office and primary workspace, how do you see that playing out?”

Rick’s answer: We are thinking about the document services highway – is there an architecture that we can set up in the cloud where we can securely allow our customers to access those documents? In a mobile world, the user would access the doc, bring it down, transform it, put it in a form, change the format, then free up that container. Xerox is looking at a standard way to do this for our customers. In addition, the user could take that document and put it in a mobile workflow.

[3:00 p.m. EST] Question to Rick – “You have the opportunity to see other organizations, what are the best companies that have driven change?”

Rick’s answer: The best are IT companies. The IT department feels it is important to bring technology to help the employees. The innovators are the best when they attach themselves to the line of business they are most successful in. “The IT engine is the place to grow, and help to grow business.”