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A colleauge pointed me to an interesting study in which companies were asked questions about various trends in the post-PC work environment, including a question on which types of "alternative endpoint computing devices" (i.e., devices not considered desktop computers) are in demand by users for completing work-related tasks. Perhaps not surprisingly, smartphones top the list followed by tablets.

This follows earlier trends we've discussed here before, like the fact that mobile devices are now outselling PCs nearly 3 to 1 or how Google's Android has reached one billion users in under five years. Clearly mobile computing is here to stay, and it appears mobile users want to take advantage of this trend not only as consumers but also as employees on the job.

This mobile ubiquity is good news for IT teams that often fret over the high cost that can be associated with user adoption of any major shift in the computing paradigm. But in this case, the workforce is already so familiar with touch inputs, mobile apps, and overall gesture-based computing. There has never been a better time to take advantage of such widespread tacit knowledge while simultenously increasing productivity and giving employees the tools they already want for the job at hand.

SAP knows this and wants to enable quickly and efficiently this process of employees "going mobile" in the enterprise. For example, SAP Work Manager is a SAP mobile app focused on Enterprise Asset Managment (EAM) that faciliates the maintenance, inspection, and repair of mission-critical assets. Think of any employee out in the field who does some kind of maintenance work or repair. It allows these field workers to be more productive by cutting out the need for return office trips and physical paperwork.

The offline, non-mobilized world requires many manual steps including printing out of forms, collating & stapling requests, distribution of assignments to work areas, etc. This is then followed by the field worker needing to return to the office after a completed task in order to turn in paperwork orders and allow for admin personnel to key in work order details into the system.

But SAP Work Manager eliminates the need for so many steps and automates much of these processes through workers in the field having a direct connection to their enterprise systems (see graphic below). This paperless workflow allows for a significant gain of work time per worker per day, provides access to all data while in the field, and eliminates the need for re-keying information into multiple systems. All this leads to a a 47% increase in productivity.

But what does it take to get to that end state of increased productivity through a mobilized workforce? SAP knows that different customers have different business and technical needs for implementing SAP Work Manager. That's why the most common scenarios have been put together as a rapid-deployment solution (RDS) inclusive of best practices, preconfigured software and services, tools, end-user guides, and educational materials. This SAP Work Manager RDS allows for go live to happen in as little as 5 weeks! And even in that short timeframe, there are still customization options.

So to sum up: as a result of employee enthusiasm for going mobile at work combined with SAP's drive to make mobile solution implementations as painless (yet still flexible) as possible, now may be the time to consider going mobile. For more details on the SAP Work Manager RDS, check out the SAP Work Manager RDS page on the SAP Service Marketplace or feel free to leave a question or comment below.

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