Mobility has become the recent buzzword, and companies across industries are evaluating options to get business benefits from the adoption of this technology. While the first generation mobile apps were more productivity accelerators, increasingly companies are looking to use this technology for more serious business process transformation. There are certain industries that are at the forefront of this trend but others are gradually catching up. I discuss how mobility is changing the world of supply chain, from increasing productivity of supply chain professionals to affecting generic and industry specific supply chain processes.

Categorization of Mobile Supply Chain Applications

To help explain the changes that mobile technology is having on supply chain professionals and supply chain process area, I have divided the mobile application space in three different categories:

• Category 1: Applications that increase productivity of supply chain professionals
• Category 2: Applications that support specific supply chain processes
• Category 3: Applications that support industry-specific supply chain processes

Category 1: Productivity Applications

The applications in this category can be used by supply chain professionals to help them increase productivity. Table 1 provides some of the most commonly used applications.

Table 1

Examples of mobile apps that improve productivity of supply chain professionals

Category 2: Supporting Specific Supply Chain Processes

These applications help supply chain professionals in specific process areas, such as procurement, sales, or warehouse management. These applications meet a variety of business needs. There are applications that facilitate mandatory approval processes by appropriate authorities for different business processes, such as approvals of Purchase Requisitions, Purchase Orders, Shopping Carts, or Invoices. These applications help users by providing relevant information, such as customer information, stock or material availability, or stock values. Users have access to the most recent statuses, such as the status of a booking or consignment, and users can track information, such as a customer order or an asset.

Some of these applications are available off the shelf, whereas more complex applications need to be built by the companies that adopt the technology. Table 2 provides a list of some of these supply chain applications and identifies the related SAP module.

Table 2

Examples of mobile applications that support specific supply chain areas

Category 3: Supporting Specific Industries

The third category of mobile application is for managing specific supply chain process for a particular industry – for example, a point of sales process in retail or a direct store delivery process in the consumer goods industry. Some industries have shown a higher adoption of mobility than others. Although some of these applications are available off the shelf, in most cases, such applications are custom built. Table 3 provides a list of mobile applications associated with a specific industry.

Table 3

Examples of mobile apps across industry-specific supply chain processes

Emerging Trends on Supply Chain Mobility Adoption

There are several trends emerging with mobile supply chain applications adoptions:

• Mobile applications are maturing: Because mobility applications are maturing from mere productivity accelerators to more serious business-process enablers, there are more adoptions.
• Mobile technology is maturing: With newer and better innovations of mobile technologies, in addition to higher bandwidth infrastructure, it is technically more feasible to put transaction-intensive processes on devices.
• Specific supply chain processes are early adopters: Early adoptions of mobile applications and technology for supply chain processes include warehouse management, enterprise asset management, field service, workforce scheduling, sales force applications, and customer-facing applications.
• Certain industries are early adopters: Certain industries use mobility more than others. Consumer goods, retail, utilities, healthcare, banking, and oil and gas are a few examples. However, the kind of processes for which mobility is being used varies across industries. While consumer goods and retail industry uses mobility more for a better customer experience, the utility industry uses it more for field service and workforce management, and oil and gas uses it more for managing assets.
• Mobile applications generally cater to a specific part of the business process: Most mobile applications do not cater to an end-to end-business process, such as an entire order-to-cash process. Mobile applications typically focus on a part of the process (e.g., order status monitoring) on a mobile device. This part of the process should ideally maximize the effect at the point of use. A better status management application can create an immediate impact on customer experience.

Rajesh Ray

Rajesh Ray currently leads the SAP SCM product area at IBM Global Business Services. He has worked with SAP SE and SAP India prior to joining IBM. He is the author of two books on ERP and retail supply chain published by McGraw-Hill, and has contributed more than 52 articles in 16 international journals. Rajesh is a frequent speaker at different SCM forums and is an honorary member of the CII Logistics Council, APICS India chapter and the SCOR Society. 

You may contact the author at rajesray@in.ibm.com.

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