Mobility at SAP for Utilities 2013

Reflecting on this year's SAP for Utilities conference, two presentations about mobility solutions stand out in particular. Greg Rimmer of the Water Corporation of Western Australia presented a number of key take-aways from their mobility implementation:

• It's not just another IT project. 
• Solicit input from end users on hardware usability.
• Develop apps that add real, measurable value.
• Apps should run without an connection.
• Data entry screens should be intuitive and context-sensitive.
• Allow collection of all data, then reconcile it after upload.
• Be extensible.
• Enlist field associates for training.
• Again, it's not just another IT project.

The following day, John Northko of Aquarian Water and Florian Ganz of Energy4U spoke about Aquarian's mobile asset solution. One of Florian's comments struck us as particularly noteworthy: get the software right, and users will treat the hardware as their own--that is, carefully. Experience showed that ruggedization is far less important than usability, and that even relatively fragile tablets can tolerate everyday use just fine. In fact, Florian found that iPads were most often returned not due to damage or abuse, but rather from worn batteries and other normal wear-and-tear.