AirClic Marks Breakout Year in Delivering Mobilization Solutions for Extending Core Business Processes
Expanded product set, management team and market opportunity lead to 300% sales growth and record customer acquisition.
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AirClic MP Platform wins two Mobile Star Awards. AirClic MP Platform has won two Mobile Star Awards™ from MobileVillage in the categories of Enterprise Software for Supply Chain and Enterprise Software for GPS & Location Based Services. Read more
AirClic Partners with CXT
Leaders in Business Process Mobilization and Courier Resource Management to Provide Integrated Solution for Mobilizing Core Processes of Courier Software.
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View the AirClic MP XPress demo. See how AirClic MP XPress automates and optimizes mobile processes for small- and medium-sized businesses.
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Profit and Productivity Potential Drives Adoption of Item-Level RFID
RFID (radio frequency identification) tagging of merchandise at your local retail store? So far, the tagging has been mainly at the pallet or case level—not at the level of individual items for retail sale. But the profit and productivity potential of RFID could drive the tags to spread across store shelves at the item-level within the next two to three years.
Driving the adoption of “item-level RFID,” as it’s called, are financial changes at both ends of the RFID equation. In the past, the high cost of the tags themselves was an obstacle to item-level use. Less than two years ago, the cost of each tag was 50 cents. At that price, item-level RFID was attractive to high-end clothing retailers and the pharmaceutical industry, but not to mass merchandisers. Now, the cost per tag has fallen to around 10-15 cents, making them cost-effective for a much wider range of products. And growth of the industry will drive down prices even further.
On the other side of the equation are the cost savings and increased profits to be gained from the use of item-level RFID. Pilot programs have shown that RFID-based inventory processes boost employee productivity and help reduce “out-of-stock” situations dramatically. That means that more customers are able to find what they want, instead of walking out of a store disappointed—and empty-handed. In addition, RFID has shown that it can play a major role in reducing retail “shrinkage” (a.k.a. theft).
The benefits, moreover, accrue not just to the retailer, but to others along the supply chain as well. RFID information from the retail floor can flow back to suppliers through a Web portal, enabling them to fine tune their production and distribution volumes. The head of Best Buy’s RFID program told BusinessWeek, “We’ll be able to buy more but carry less inventory, so the [total] amount of inventory moving through our stores would increase.”
The full potential of item-level RFID is just starting to be realized. Yet, many cannot afford to wait until RFID standards and successful deployments are realized. With AirClic, you are already well-positioned to take advantage of the technology, as AirClic MP will allow you to switch seamlessly between proven systems (like bar codes) and yet-to-be proven RFID.
Two Kinds of Mobile Workers; One Set of Best Practices
Every day, it seems, we hear more about the increasing mobility of work. Studies, surveys and white papers talk of a “new mobile work paradigm,” and experts predict that an astonishing two thirds of the workforce will soon be considered “mobile.” But there are two very different kinds of mobile workers.
One is the familiar “road warrior.” A professional on the go, this mobile worker often travels great distances, visiting a company’s branch offices, meeting customers, or attending conferences and events. The other mobile worker is the one who is out in the field but usually not far from home, performing the core functions of the business. These mobile workers pick up and deliver packages, repair equipment on site, cater banquets, install machinery, and perform a thousand other essential tasks.
Mobile technology is vitally important for both types of mobile worker. Yet both do not always receive the same level of attention from the organization. As an article in Information Week observed, “Most companies have a good grip on managing their laptops, but not on managing cellular devices or mobile devices, although both should be treated equally.”
Nevertheless, many of the same best practices apply when adopting a mobile solution for either group. Here are three important ones:
- Make mobile operations an integral part of the organization’s IT planning and strategy. But don’t place extra demands on the IT department if outsourcing to a solution provider can deliver the same results at lower cost.
- Encourage user adoption by seeking input from those who will actually use the devices day after day. (AirClic, for example, is popular with mobile workers because it offers them the simplicity of two functions combined in one device, so there’s less equipment to carry, less to keep track of.)
- Ensure that security protocols are in place, whether the mobile device is a laptop or a handheld. Surprisingly, in a survey of more than 700 telecom decision makers, Forrester Research recently found that security was the single largest obstacle to acquiring wireless technology.
Though their needs are different, the functions of these two mobile groups are complementary. Specifically, the real-time information that enters the corporate infrastructure through mobile workers in the field informs the decision-making of the office professionals on the road, providing a competitive advantage for the organization. Still, in spite of the speed with which the mobile workforce is growing, a study by one major hardware provider concluded that “today’s organizations underestimate the impact of mobile technologies on the day-to-day operations of the business.” As the world gets more and more connected, that impact will only increase, no matter what kind of mobile worker you are.
McCall Associates
Meeting the needs of anxious brides and demanding dignitaries is all in a day’s work for McCall Associates, one of the busiest and most exclusive caterers in the San Francisco Bay Area.
But in addition to delivering fine food and outstanding service, a necessary part of the business is tracking the comings and goings of hundreds of waitstaff at different event locations. In the past, McCall’s employees would sign in on printed timesheets, which the company’s payroll department would then manually transfer into a database. The process was both time-consuming and error-prone. But with help from AirClic, McCall was able to automate the process.
Managers now use an AirClic scanner attached to a mobile phone to record the arrivals and departures of employees. The data is transmitted to the secure AirClic network, then downloaded into the payroll database. The result is a process that is simpler, faster, and much more accurate. And that allows McCall’s on-the-scene event managers to focus their attention where it should be—on their customers, their customers’ guests, and on the “art of catering.”