 Wireless in the EnterpriseNetwork World's Wireless in the Enterprise Newsletter, 09/26/07DIRECTV mobilizes CRM application for sales forceBy Joanie WexlerJust a few short years ago, the effectiveness of pushing back-end business applications onto small mobile devices was mediocre, at best. The devices weren’t that powerful. Mobile networks were orders of magnitude slower than LANs. And most attempts at mobilizing traditional business applications tried to replicate a complex PC experience on the ultra-small screen of a handheld device, which went over like a lead balloon. That situation is turning around. Smart phones are as powerful as PCs. 3G (and forthcoming 4G) mobile WANs are nearly as fast as fixed broadband access networks. Web services are making real-time back-end data available from any Web portal. At least, that’s been the experience of DIRECTV. The company is using Antenna Software’s Antenna Mobility Platform (AMP) and client software to provide CRM data to its 60-strong sales force, which supports about 7,000 nationwide dealers selling subscriptions to the company’s satellite services. When visiting a dealer, sales reps need up-to-date information from reports such as sales metrics, activation metrics, trending and availability of support tools and promotions, explains Erik Walters, project manager, sales operations, at DIRECTV.
The company has been using Oracle’s Siebel CRM On Demand hosted service, which allows access to this information from any Web connection. However, the service by itself is PC-centric, attempting to jam a whole PC screen onto the sales forces’ Research In Motion BlackBerry 8700 devices, which proved too complex to use. The Antenna Software client software – which runs on RIM, Symbian, Palm, Microsoft Mobile devices - rolled out as a small-device complement to Siebel CRM On Demand at DIRECTV in January 2007. “It breaks the On Demand information into categories so the sales force gets real-time information in the best presentation,” Walters says. Plus, the sales rep can pull multiple reports from a single application, rather than having to piece them together from five to seven locations to bring them to a dealer, only to find out upon arrival that they might already be out of date. DIRECTV reports the following payoffs: “Mobility used to be a pipe dream,” Walters continues, “because everyone was thinking ‘laptop.’ We don’t want to see a 20-page spreadsheet on a BlackBerry – we need the Cliff Notes version of the bigger tool. With the [portable CRM], we’re really impressing the socks off our dealers.”
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| Contact the author: Joanie Wexler is an independent networking technology writer/editor in California's Silicon Valley who has spent most of her career analyzing trends and news in the computer networking industry. She welcomes your comments on the articles published in this newsletter, as well as your ideas for future article topics. Reach her at joanie@jwexler.com. ARCHIVEArchive of the Wireless in the Enterprise Newsletter. BONUS FEATUREIT PRODUCT RESEARCH AT YOUR FINGERTIPS Get detailed information on thousands of products, conduct side-by-side comparisons and read product test and review results with Network World’s IT Buyer’s Guides. Find the best solution faster than ever with over 100 distinct categories across the security, storage, management, wireless, infrastructure and convergence markets. Click here for details. PRINT SUBSCRIPTIONS AVAILABLE International subscribers, click here. SUBSCRIPTION SERVICESTo subscribe or unsubscribe to any Network World newsletter, change your e-mail address or contact us, click here. This message was sent to: security.world@gmail.com. Please use this address when modifying your subscription. Advertising information: Write to Associate Publisher Online Susan Cardoza Network World, Inc., 118 Turnpike Road, Southborough, MA 01772 Copyright Network World, Inc., 2007  |
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