Tobias Brockmann

Mobile Applications for Knowledge Workers and Field Workers

In recent years, the diffusion of mobile applications (mobile apps) has risen significantly. Nowadays, mobile business apps are strongly emerging in business, enhancing productivity and employees’ satisfaction, whilst the usage of customized individual enterprise apps is still an exception. Standardized business apps enable basic functionalities, for example, mobile data storage and exchange (e.g., Dropbox), communication (e.g., Skype), and other routine processes, which support mobile workers. In addition, mobile apps can, for example, increase the flexibility of mobile workers by easing the access to firm’s information from outside the enterprise and by enabling ubiquitous collaboration. Hence, mobile apps can generate competitive advantages and can increase work efficiency on a broad scale. But mobile workers form no coherent group. Our research reveals, based on two case studies, that they can be clustered into two groups: knowledge workers and field workers. Knowledge workers and field workers fulfill different tasks and work in different environments. Hence, they have different requirements for mobile support. In this paper we conclude that standardized mobile business apps cannot meet the different requirements of various groups of mobile workers. Task- and firm-specific (individualized) requirements determine the specification, implementation, and application of mobile apps.

Virtual Worlds as Environments for Virtual Customer Integration

Since companies have recognized that the integration of customers into processes of product innovation has become a critical factor for success, new concepts of virtual customer integration have been developed to investigate customers needs and to identify customer-generated ideas. Virtual worlds seem to be promising in means of support customer integration because of their three-dimensional environments, their ability to support immersion, and their advanced approaches of communication and collaboration. However, until now very little research exists about how to adapt virtual worlds to this field. In our contribution, we analyze different types of virtual worlds and identify their specific characteristics and abilities to support virtual customer integration.

User Acceptance of Mobile Business Intelligence Services

In the last years the rise of mobile devices and mobile applications alike changed the working environment massively. Within this realm mobile Business Intelligence (mobile BI) currently is one of the trending topics, however, until now very little conceptual work exists in this field. Therefore, we provide an overview of related work in the fields of business intelligence and mobility. Based on our results we derived success factors for mobile BI which shall help academics as well as practitioners to better understand challenges of mobile BI services and their potential solutions.

Social Collaboration and Gamification

Despite the fact that enterprise social software solutions such as IBM Connections and Microsoft Sharepoint are able to increase the communication as well as the collaboration among employees, companies are constantly confronted with the necessity to improve their employees’ motivation to interact with the system. Since gamification has been identified as an effective tool to enhance user acceptance, software developers adopt an increasing number of gamification elements to take advantage of it. Based on an in-depth analysis of the international market leaders in enterprise social software solutions, this chapter examines the implementation of gamification elements and critically reflects on how well they fit with the current insights of flow research in motivational psychology. We argue that current gamification elements predominately aim at the augmentation of the users’ extrinsic motivation whereas intrinsic motivation has mostly been ignored. Furthermore, we identify a trend in which gamification solutions primarily focus on rewarding quantitative improvement of work activities, neglecting qualitative performance. Subsequently, current solutions do not match recent findings in research and ignore risks that can lower the employees’ motivation and work performance in the long run.

The Impact of Smartphones on E-Participation

In the last years social media as well as mobile applications are of growing relevance for public political discussions and therefore for the approach of e-participation. However, studies show that there is still a low degree of involvement of politicians and citizens. Current research regularly focuses on how citizens can be enabled to more effectively share their ideas and opinions regarding political processes. However, the role of politicians themselves is rarely discussed within the academic discussion. In our study we attempt to better understand the impact of the growing diffusion of smartphones among politicians on e-participation. We conducted an online survey and asked members of the German federal parliament about their usage of mobile devices in order to interact with citizens. We show that smartphones lead to an increasing intensity of dialogue between politicians and citizens based on social media. Furthermore, we suggest that the level of e-participation grows by social media and mobile devices.

Impact of Mobile IT Consumerization on Organizations – An Empirical Study on the Adoption of BYOD Practices

The last few years have seen more and more employees using their personal mobile devices for work-related tasks. This phenomenon is part of a broader trend known as IT consumerization. Enterprises and employees have recognized that they might profit from these developments and implemented “Bring Your Own Device” (BYOD) policies, but they also have to face new challenges. This study investigates which types of employees adopt BYOD and how they benefit from it. To address these questions, the authors conducted a survey with 219 participants. Participants were classified into adopter types based on the Diffusion of Innovation Theory. The results indicate that early adopters and the early majority use their personal smartphones more often for work-related tasks than laggards, and that innovators and early adopters more often receive work-related email on their personal smartphones than other adopter types. It is concluded that DOI can successfully be applied to explain BYOD adoption behavior. Differentiated management strategies have to be applied in order to address the whole workforce.

Specification of mCRM Enterprise Applications to Support IT-Consultants

This article describes the conceptual design of a mobile enterprise application prototype that supports mobile knowledge workers, especially IT-Consultants in the exercise of their activities. The demands on flexibility and accessibility of employees as well as cost pressure in the company are growing. Furthermore, the line between professional and private activities is blurring. Major goals by providing mobile apps within the enterprise are to reduce problems of information retrieval and notification and to increase the efficiency of workers as well. As part of a joint project with Microsoft and Dissert, a company focused on the distribution of CRM software, specific requirements for the mobile workforce were identified and implemented as a prototype. This paper describes the requirements engineering and the implementation of an application, which is based on the information behavior of IT-Consultants.

Mobile Enterprise: Erfolgsfaktoren für die Einführung mobiler Applikationen

ZusammenfassungIn diesem Beitrag werden auf Basis einer Umfrage unter 200 Entscheidungsträgern in deutschen Unternehmen der Status quo und die Erfolgsfaktoren für die Einführung mobiler Applikationen hin zu einer Mobile Enterprise vorgestellt und diskutiert. Begünstigende Faktoren sind demnach der Integrationsgrad der Anwendungen in Workflows und Kommunikationsprozesse sowie die Wahl einer geeigneten Zielgruppe im Unternehmen. Weiterhin zeigt sich, dass für Unternehmen die zukünftigen Herausforderungen vor allem im Management der Endgerätevielfalt und der Bewältigung von Sicherheitsproblemen liegen.

Einsatz mobiler Anwendungen im Unternehmen

Der Artikel greift die aktuelle rasante Entwicklung im Bereich der mobilen Kommunikation im Unternehmenskontext auf. Ausgangsfragestellung ist hierbei: Wie konnen Unternehmen mobile Endgerate und mobile Applikationen so in ihre Geschaftsprozesse integrieren, dass Mehrwerte entstehen? Basierend auf einer empirischen Umfrage unter 200 Entscheidungstragern in deutschen Unternehmen wird zunachst der Status Quo zum Einsatz mobiler Applikationen in Unternehmen vorgestellt. Es werden Strategien fur die Einfuhrung mobiler Applikationen vorgestellt und diskutiert. Besonders entscheidend fur den erfolgreichen Einsatz mobiler Applikationen im Unternehmen sind laut den Befragten insbesondere der Integrationsgrad der Anwendungen in Workflows und Kommunikationsprozesse sowie die Wahl einer geeigneten Zielgruppe im Unternehmen. Hier stehen Unternehmen vor der Schwierigkeit eigene Applikationen (Enterprise Apps) entwickeln zu mussen, wenn diese optimal an den Geschaftszielen ausgerichtet sein sollen. Weiterhin zeigt sich, dass fur Unternehmen zukunftige Herausforderungen auch im Management der Endgeratevielfalt und der Bewaltigung von Sicherheitsproblemen liegen. Es zeichnet sich klar ab, dass Unternehmen in Zukunft noch starker unter Zugzwang stehen, sich mit mobilen Technologien zu beschaftigen. Hierzu tragen nicht nur verbesserte Netze und Kostentarife bei, sondern insbesondere auch immer neu aufkommende Endgerate und mobile Applikationen.