Source Refrigeration Selects Agile Mobile Platform Approach for its Large In-Field Workforce

Transcript of a BriefingsDirect podcast on how a nationwide company has harnessed the power of mobile applications to increase the productivity of its workforce.

Listen to the podcast. Find it on iTunes. Get the mobile app for iOS or Android. Download the transcript. Sponsor: Kony, Inc.

Dana Gardner: Hello, and welcome to a special BriefingsDirect interview coming to you from the Kony World 2015 Conference in Orlando.

Gardner

I'm Dana Gardner, Principal Analyst at Interarbor Solutions, your host throughout this series of penetrating discussions on the latest in enterprise mobility. We're here to explore advancements in mobile applications design and deployment technologies across the full spectrum of edge devices and operating environments.

Our next innovator interview focuses on how Source Refrigeration and HVAC has been extending the productivity of its workforce, much of it in the field, through the use of innovative mobile applications and services.

We'll delve in to how Source Refrigeration has created a boundaryless enterprise and reaped the rewards of Agile processes and the ability to extend data and intelligence to where it’s needed most.

To learn how their successful mobile journey has unfolded, please join me now in welcoming Hal Kolp, Vice President of Information Technology at Source Refrigeration and HVAC in Anaheim, California.

Welcome, Hal.

Hal Kolp: Thank you, Dana.

Gardner: Good to have you with us. It’s interesting to me, as I look at different use cases for mobility, how important the advancement is for organizations like yours with that mobile workforce?

It’s my understanding that there is something on the order of several hundred field-based service and installation experts serving the needs of 2,500 or more customers nationwide. Tell us a little bit about why mobility is essential for you and how this has created better efficiency and innovation for you?

Convert to electronic

Kolp: I'd be glad to, Dana. Source started to explore mobility back in 2006. I was tasked with a project to figure out if it made sense to take our service organization, which was driven by paper, and convert it to an electronic form of a service ticket.

Kolp

After looking at the market itself and at the technology for cellular telephones back in 2006, as well as data plans and what was available, we came to the conclusion that it did make sense. So we started a project to make life easier for our service technicians and our back office billers, so that we would have information in real time and we'd speed up our billing process.

At that time, the goals were pretty simple. They were to eliminate the paper in the field, shorten our billing cycle from 28 days to 3 days, and take all of the material, labor, and asset information and put it into the system as quickly as possible, so we could give our customers better information about the equipment, how they are performing, and total cost of ownership (TCO).

But over time, things change. In our service organization then, we had 275 guys. Today, we have 600. So we've grown substantially, and our data is quite a bit better. We also use mobility on the construction side of our business, where we're installing new refrigeration equipment or HVAC equipment into large supermarket chains around the country.

Our construction managers and foremen live their lives on their tablets. They know the status of their job, they know their cost, they're looking at labor, they're doing safety reports and daily turnover reports. Anyone in our office can see pictures from any job site. They can look at the current status of a job, and this is all done over the cellular network. The business has really evolved.

Gardner: It’s interesting that you had the foresight to get your systems of record into paperless mode and were ready to extend that information to the edge, but then also be able to accept data and information from the edge to then augment and improve on the systems of record. One benefits the other, or there is a symbiosis or virtuous adoption cycle. What have been some of the business benefits of doing it that way?

Kolp: There are simple benefits on the service side. First of all, the billing cycle changed dramatically, and that generated a huge amount of cash. It’s a one-time win, whatever you would bill between 3 days and 28 days. All of that revenue came in, and there was this huge influx of cash in the beginning. That actually paid for the entire project. Just the generation of that cash was enough to more than compensate for all the software development and all the devices. So that was a big win.

But then we streamlined billing. Instead of a biller looking at a piece of paper and entering a time ticket, it was done automatically. Instead of looking at a piece of paper, then doing an inventory transfer to put it on a job, that was eliminated. Technician’s comments never made it into our system or on paper. They just sent a photocopy of the document to the customer.

Today, within 30 seconds of the person completing a work order, it’s uploaded to the system. It’s been generated into PDF documents where necessary. All the purchase order and work order information has entered into the system automatically, and an acknowledgement of the work order is sent to our customer without any human intervention. It just happens, just part of our daily business.

That’s a huge win for the business. It also gives you data for things that you can start to measure yourself on. We have a whole series of key performance indicators (KPIs) and dashboards that are built to help our service managers and regional directors understand what’s going on their business.

Technician efficiency

Do we have customers where we're spending a lot of time in their store-servicing them? That means there is something wrong. Let’s see if we can solve our customer’s problems. We look at the efficiency of our technicians.

We look at the efficiency of drive times. That electronic data even led us into automatic dispatching systems. We have computers that look at the urgency of the call, the location of the call, and the skills necessary to do that service request. It automatically decides which technician to send and when to send them. It takes a work order and dispatches a specific technician on it.

Gardner: So you've become data-driven and then far more intelligent, responsive, and agile as a result. Tell me how you've been able to achieve that, but at the same time, not get bogged down in an application development cycle that can take a long time, or even find yourself in waterfall-type of affair, where the requirement shift rapidly, and by the time you finish a product, it’s obsolete.

How have you been able to change your application development for your mobile applications in a way that keeps up with these business requirements?

This last year, we converted to the Kony platform, and all indications so far are that that platform is going to be great for us.

Kolp: We've worked on three different mobile platforms. The claim in the beginning was to develop once and just update and move forward. That didn’t really work out so well on the first couple of platforms. The platforms became obsolete, and we essentially had to rewrite the application on to a new platform for which the claim was that it was going to survive.

This last year, we converted to the Kony platform, and all indications so far are that that platform is going to be great for us, because we've done a whole bunch of upgrades in the last 12 months on the platform. We're moving, and our application is migrating very quickly.

So things are very good on that side and in our development process. When we were building our new application initially, we were doing two builds a week. So every couple of days we do a little sprint up. We don’t really call them sprints, but essentially, it was a sprint to add functionality. We go into a quick testing cycle, and while we're testing, we have folks adding new functionality and fixing bugs. Then, we do another release.

At the current stage where we are in production really depends on the needs of the business. Last week, we had a new release and this week, we're having another release as we fix some small bugs or did enhancements to the products that came up during our initial rollout where we are making changes. It’s not that difficult to roll out a new version.

We send an alert. The text says that they have got a new version. They complete the work order that they're on, they perform an update, and they're back in business again. So it's pretty simple.

Field input

Gardner: So it's a very agile, iterative, easily adaptive type of development infrastructure. What about the input from those people in the field. Another aspect of agile development isn’t just the processes for the development itself, but being able to get more people involved with deciding features, functions, and not necessarily forcing the developers to read minds.

Has that crept into your process? Are you able to take either a business analyst or practitioner in the field and allow them to have the input that then creates better apps and better processes?

Kolp: In our latest generation application, we made tremendous changes in the user interface to make it easier for the technicians to do their job and for them to not have to think about anything. If they needed to do something, they knew what they had to do. It was kind of in their face, in other words. We use cues on screens by colors. It’s something that's required for them to do, it’s always red. If there is an input field that is optional, then it’s in blue. We have those kinds of cues.

We also built a little mini application, a web app, that's used by technicians for frequently asked questions (FAQs). If they have got some questions about how this application works, they can look at the FAQs. They can also submit a request for enhancements directly from the page. So we're getting requests from the field.

If they have a question about the application, we can take that question and turn it into a new FAQ page, response, or new question that people can click on and learn.

If they have a question about the application, we can take that question and turn it into a new FAQ page, response, or new question that people can click on and learn. We're trying to make the application to be more driven by the field and less by managers in the back office.

Gardner: Are there any metrics yet that would indicate an improvement in the use of the apps, based on this improved user interface and user experience. Is there any way to say the better we make it, the more they use it; the more they use it, the better the business results?

Kolp: We're in early stages of our rollout. In a couple of weeks we'll have about 200 of our 600 guys on the new application, and the guys noticed a few things. Number one, they believe the application is much more responsive to them. It’s just fast. Our application happens to be on iOS. Things happen quickly because of the processor and memory. So that’s really good for them.

The other thing they notice, is that if they're looking at assets and they need to find something in the asset, need to look up a part, or need to do anything, we've added search capability that just makes it brain-dead simple to find stuff that they need to look for. They can use their camera as a barcode scanner within our application. It’s easy to attach pictures.

What they find is that we've made it easier for them to add information and document their call. They have a much greater tendency to add information than they did before. For example, if they're in their work order notes, which for us is a summary, they can just talk. We use voice to text, and that will convert it. If they choose to type, they can type, but many of the guys really like the voice to text, because they have big fingers and typing on the screen is a little bit harder for them.

What's of interest?

Gardner: We are here at Kony World, Hal. Did anything jump out at you that’s particularly interesting? We've heard about solution ecosystems and vertical industries, Visualizer update, some cloud interactions for developers? Did anything really jump out at you that might be of interest for the coming year?

Kolp: I'm very interested in Visualizer 2.0. It appears to be a huge improvement over the original version. We use third-party development. In our case, we used somebody else’s front-end design tool for our project, but I really like the ability to be able to take our project and then use it with Visualizer 2.0, so that we can develop the screens and the flow that we want and hand it off to the developers. They can hook it up to the back end and go.

I just like having the ability to have that control, and now we've done the heavy lifting. For the most part, understanding your data, data flow or the flow of the application is usually where you spend quite a bit more time. For us to be able to do that ourselves is much better than writing on napkins or using PowerPoint or Visio to generate screens or some other application.

It’s nice because ultimately we will be able to go use Visualizer, push it into the application, take the application, push it back into Visualizer, make more changes, and go back and forth. I see that as a huge advantage. That’s one thing I took from the show.

When your business says that you can't mobilize some process, it's probably not true. There's this resistance to change that's natural to everyone.

Gardner: With this journey that you've been on since 2006, you’ve gone quite a way. Is there anything you could advise others who are perhaps just beginning in extending their enterprise to that mobile edge, finding the ways to engage with the people in the field that will get them to be adding information, taking more intelligence back from the apps into their work? What might you do with 20-20 hindsight and then relate that to people just starting?

Kolp: There are a couple of things that I’ll point out. There was a large reluctance for people to say that this would actually work. When your business says that you can't mobilize some process, it's probably not true. There's this resistance to change that's natural to everyone.

Our technicians today, who have been on mobile applications, hate to be on paper. They don't want to have anything to do with paper, because it's harder for them. They have more work to do. They have to collect the paper, shove the paper in an envelope, or hand it off to someone to do things. So they don’t like it.

The other thing you should consider is what happens when that device breaks? All devices will break at some point for some reason. Look at how those devices are going to get replaced. We operate in 20 states. You can't depend upon the home office to be able to rush out a replacement device for your suppliers in real time. We looked pretty hard at using all kinds of different methods to reduce the downtime for guys in the field.

You should look at that. That’s really important if the device is being used all day, every day for a field worker. That’s their primary communication method.

Simpler is better

The other thing I could say is, “simpler is better.” Don't make an application where you have to type-in a tremendous amount of data. Make data entry as easy as possible via taps or predefined fields.

Think about your entire process front to back and don't hesitate to change the way that you gather information today, as opposed to the way you want to in the future. Don't take a paper form and automate it, because that isn't the way your field worker thinks. You need to generate the new flow of information so that it fits on whatever size screen you want. It can't be a spreadsheet or it can’t be a bunch of checkboxes and stuff, because that doesn't necessarily suit the tool that you are using to drive the information gathering.

Spend a lot of time upfront designing screens and figuring out how the process should work. If you do that, you'll meet with very little pushback from the field once they get it and actually use it. I would communicate with the field regularly if you're developing and tell them what's going on, so that they are not blind-sided by something new.

The simpler you can make your application, the faster you can roll it out, and then just enhance, enhance, enhance.

I'd work closely with the field in designing the application. I'd also be involved with anybody that touches that data. In our case, it's service managers. We work with builders, inventory control, purchasing people, and timecards. All of those were pieces that our applications touch. So people from the business were involved, even people from finance, because we're making financial transactions in the enterprise resource planning (ERP) system.

So get all those people involved and make sure that they're in agreement with what you're doing. Make sure that you test thoroughly and that everybody signs off together at the end. The simpler you can make your application, the faster you can roll it out, and then just enhance, enhance, enhance.

Add a new feature if you're starting something new. If you're replacing an existing application, it's much harder to do that. You'll have to create all of the functionality because the business typically doesn't want to lose functionally.

Gardner: Well great. Thank you for that. I'm afraid we'll have to leave it there.
We've been learning about how advancements in mobile applications design and deployment technologies are bringing new productivity benefits across the growing spectrum of edge devices and types.

And we've seen how quality, speed, and value are rapidly increasing, thanks to the Kony Mobility Platform for such innovators as Source Refrigeration. So a big thank you to our guest, Hal Kolp, the Vice President of Information Technology at Source Refrigeration and HVAC in Anaheim, California. Thank you, Hal.

Kolp: Thank you, Dana.

Gardner: And a big thank you to our audience for joining us for this special podcast series coming to you from the Kony World 2015 Conference in Orlando.

I'm Dana Gardner, Principal Analyst at Interarbor Solutions, your host throughout this series of Kony sponsored BriefingsDirect IT discussions. Thanks again for listening, and come back next time.

Listen to the podcast. Find it on iTunes. Download the transcript. Sponsor: Kony, Inc.

Transcript of a BriefingsDirect podcast on how a nationwide company has harnessed the power of mobile applications to increase the productivity of its workforce. Copyright Interarbor Solutions, LLC, 2005-2015. All rights reserved.

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Kony Visualizer Puts Mobile Apps Features Control in Hands of Those Closest to the Business Processes

A BriefingsDirect interview on creating dynamic and engaging user interfaces for mobile apps with drag-and-drop ease.

Listen to the podcast. Find it on iTunes. Download the transcript. Sponsor: Kony, Inc.

Dana Gardner: Hello, and welcome to a special BriefingsDirect interview, coming to you from the Kony World 2015 Conference in Orlando.

Gardner

I'm Dana Gardner, Principal Analyst at Interarbor Solutions, your host throughout this series of penetrating discussions on the latest in enterprise mobility. We're here to explore advancements in mobile applications design and deployment technologies across the full spectrum of edge devices and operating environments.

For our next innovation interview, we welcome Ed Gross, Kony Vice President of Product Management. Ed is focused on the Kony Visualizer Product, including requirements prototyping, development oversight, release planning, and lifecycle management.

Welcome to BriefingsDirect, Ed.

Ed Gross: Thanks, Dana. Glad to be here. It's an exciting event that we're having here at Kony World. We're in the process of educating our customers on our latest releases in our product portfolio. One that I'm most excited about is the 2.0 release of our Visualizer product, which brings a number of next-generation capabilities with it.

Visualizer is a tool by which you can create engaging and dynamic user experiences on all platforms for mobility, including tablet and desktop as well. What it does is present an opportunity for designers to take back control of the development process of both designing applications and creating rich next-generation user experiences.

Gross

If you look at how applications are designed typically, it's a very rigid process of creating wireframes and mockups and then throwing those materials over the wall to developers. Designers today, prior to the Visualizer, didn't really have a suite of tools that they could  use to create these applications directly using the technology.

Right now, designers create sort of mockups and proxies of that design to hand over to a developer to implement. We thought it would be great if designers had a tool by which they can directly create that user experience in the native and Web channels using the underlying Kony framework.

With Visualizer you can go in with this what-you-see-is-what-you-get (WYSIWYG) environment. It’s actually called WYSIWYM (what you see is what you mobilize). It’s a term that we coined because it’s a unique approach and something we believe to be a new paradigm in designing applications.

What I can do as a designer is just drag and drop widgets onto my forms. I can create dynamic interactions that really showcase the native capabilities that we have with Visualizer. I can then take that design and publish the actual app to the Kony cloud. Then,  using an app on my phone or tablet, I can then download that design directly, look at all the native interactions, review them, and get a feel for the actual application without having to write any code.

This is a true native experience, not some sort of web-based proxy, mockup, or set of wireframes. I'm actually creating the app product itself within Visualizer with this WYSIWYG canvas.

Native capabilities

We provide access to all the native capabilities. For example, I can use a cover flow widget, a page widget, a calendar, or a camera. I get access to all those rich native capabilities, using what we call actions, without having to go down and write code for all these different platforms.

Fundamentally, what this also represents is a collaboration opportunity with business and IT. If I'm a designer working under the marketing arm of an organization or I'm a designer or a developer in the IT organization, by using what we call app preview, I can take this design, publish it to the Kony cloud, and bring it into the shell application that you could download from any of the app stores.

Then, I can review and  write notes on this design. I can send those notes back to the cloud. Ultimately, the Visualizer user can see those comments that I've left across the entire application. They can act upon them and iterate through that design process by republishing that app back to the cloud so that the business user or the developer, the designer, whoever is actually reviewing this application, can annotate on it.

The fundamental principle here is that you are not just creating a set of assets to hand over to a developer. You’re actually creating the app itself. What’s really fundamental is that we're essentially giving all of the power and all of the control back to the designer, so that the designer can finalize this application and then simply hand it over to the developer using Kony Studio.

The developer can take it from there without having to rewrite any of the front end of the application. The developer doesn't need to be concerned with creating all of the user experience components by writing code or creating views. They focus on what they do best, which is hooking that application into back-end services and systems, such as SAP, Siebel, or any enterprise service bus connectors.

What we saw before Visualizer was that most development projects had very large numbers of defects associated with the user experience.

If you want to integrate with a Web service like an XML, SOAP, or JSON service, you do all that in the studio. You don’t worry about writing all the front-end code. You make it production ready, you wire it, and you do the fundamental business logic of the application and the integration with other products.

Because what the designer has given you is already complete, and so it cuts down all those cycles. It also cuts down on defects. What we saw before Visualizer was that most development projects had very large numbers of defects associated with the user experience.

What I mean when I say is that if today you take an application that was developed using other technology and you break down all the defects according to what category they belong in, such as, integration defects or user experience defects, or performance defects, we find that 70 percent to 80 percent of the defects categorically are associated with poor implementation of the user experience.

In that typical waterfall process that I mentioned earlier, there are a lot of gaps We hand those assets over to a developer, and the developer has to make a lot of assumptions in that process. They have to fill in a lot of the holes that the designer may have left, because the designer is not going to make sure that they design and spec out every single tiny component of that application.

What winds up happening is that a developer somewhere in that lifecycle will make assumptions and implement something in a way that doesn't satisfy the requirements of the business. So you have to go through that whole process of designing and developing over and over again.

Rapid iteration

With Visualizer, you have the capability to quickly iterate. You publish that app design, you get feedback from the business, as I had mentioned earlier, and even during the development process, reiterate through that design process. That integration between Visualizer and our studio project is completely bidirectional.

At any point in that development process, you can transfer that application design back in Visualizer, make any adjustments, and then reimport it back into Studio. So your product suite is very well-integrated. At Kony, it’s something that we believe is a true differentiator.

Our core focus is mobility. So we ensure that the developer and designer experience is world class by tightly integrating the entire design and development process and making sure that those two processes are as close as possible to what we call the metal, the underlying channel, and that they can occur in parallel streams. You no longer have to go through sort of a tradition paper-based design process to move forward with implementing your app design.

Gardner: What is specifically new or some of the highlights in Visualizer 2.0 as well as Framework 6.0?

Gross: Historically at Kony, we have supported a broad swath of devices. From 2008, look at all Symbian devices, BlackBerry devices, all the way up through iOS, Android, Mobile Web, and even Desktop Web, Windows, etc. What we did is look at our layout model where we had previously recognized that we're going to push forward to the next generation of application design.

It's focusing on those devices, those smartphones, that can provide that next-generation level of experience that we’ve become used to.

By doing so we introduce the different paradigm to layout your application using what we call flex layout that’s supported on the next generation of what we call Hero devices. It's focusing on those devices, those smartphones, that can provide that next-generation level of experience that we’ve become used to.

If you look at Android, iOS, and Windows devices, that’s our core focus as well as Web and Mobile Web. We really up-leveled the entire experience so you can design very engaging experiences using flex layout. We've also introduced a number of capabilities around animation, so that you can get those advanced animation and dynamic interactions that you become used to in consumer grade applications with Kony.

We've also introduced a suite of APIs around this as well. The developer can create very dynamic experiences, or the designer in Visualizer can create these wonderful experiences using what we call Action Editor to access all of those animation components and a bunch of native components, such as the ability to advanced device level actions like invoke a camera or map widget or send an SMS or an e-mail, all without having to write code.

Gardner: A recurring theme here and in the industry at large is the need for speed, closing the gap between the demand for mobile apps and what the IT organization and the developer core can produce. Is there anything about Visualizer and Framework that helps the DevOps process along. Perhaps it's being able to target a cloud or platform-as-a-service (PaaS) type of affair, where you can get that into production rapidly. How does what you brought to the market now help in terms of speed?

Reducing time

Gross: There are number of things. The first principle here is that we're significantly and seriously reducing the time it takes to get from design to development through this process. We're seeing a 15x or higher improvement in the time it takes to develop the front-end of an application, which is significant, and we believe in that very much. That's probably the most important thing.

There are tools underneath the hood that support that, including the app preview that I’d mentioned that lets you get on the device native without having to go through any of the development cycles. So it’s a drastic improvement.

There's also, a huge reduction in the amount of errors in the process. It also increases your capability to iterate. That is really core. You can create multiple designs and use those designs to socialize your idea, your business process, or what impact that will have on your users upfront.

The first principle here is that we're significantly and seriously reducing the time it takes to get from design to development through this process.

So I don't have to go through an entire waterfall process to discover that my user experience may not be right and may not be an effective use of my information architecture, for example. I'm able to do all that up front. And all this is supported with the underlying cloud infrastructure at Kony. When I publish my app preview, or if I publish this to a developer, it’s all supported within our cloud infrastructure.

To get down to brass tacks, I as a designer can publish my project to the Kony cloud and share it with a developer, what we call our functional previews of that application. That app preview that I’d mentioned is all supported with the underlying cloud platform.

Then, when you look at Studio, our Studio product is highly integrated with our MobileFabric solution, and we’re working in our next release to increase that integration even more. You can invoke our mobile cloud services from our development environment. We're going to be working to merge that entire Studio environment with our Visualizer design components, drastically improving the design and design or develop an integration experience.

Gardner: And to tie this into some of the other news and announcements here at Kony World, this is targeted at many of your partners and independent software vendors (ISVs), new ones that were brought in and the burgeoning cloud of supporters. Is this also what you expected, for ISVs to use to create those ready-to-deploy apps like Kony Sales, or are these for custom apps, or all of the above?

Custom app support

Gross: All of the above. Visualizer, if you look at the lowest level, is really built to support custom app design and development. That’s the traditional core of the Kony technology, the Kony platform stack. We're introducing a new product, Kony Modeler, this month, and that product is actually built on the foundation of Visualizer and our underlying developer framework.

When you design a Visualizer, you're essentially designing either custom applications or our model-driven business applications such as Kony Sales. The configuration of those applications inside of Modeler as a business analyst or business user does is also built on the Visualizer stack. So everything you do is highly visual, and this speaks to the user-centered development methodology that we see now.

User experience-driven applications are the future, and we recognize that at Kony. We put the user experience first, not the data model, not writing other kinds of models. We really focus on driving user expectations, increased performance for B2E applications, increased productivity, and it all relates back to user experience.

Gardner: Before we close out, I just wanted to hammer down a little bit on that ISV community and why they would look to Kony. It seems to me that they're focused on the logic and understanding their industries and businesses.

We put the user experience first, not the data model, not writing other kinds of models. We really focus on driving user expectations.

They don't want to have to rewrite code. They don’t want to be in the platform business. What is it that reduces the risk for an ISV who considers the Kony approach? Perhaps it’s in terms of the number of end-point devices, the ability to write once, run everywhere, the quality and speed issues you brought up. Give me a bit more insight as to why an ISV should think about Kony when going to mobile markets?

Gross: Well there are a number of things that I'll recap. The first one is that you’re greatly reducing the time it takes to get from design to the end product, which is key. Number two, you're able to reduce man-hours in the development process of the front-end experience.

I'd also like to reiterate that, because of our fundamental underlying JavaScript platform, you're able to write once for all these different channels. A fourth point that I'd like to bring up on top of these is our service-level agreement (SLA), which is unique in the industry.

At Kony, we have a unique SLA that says that within 30 days of a new operating system release, we will provide support within the Kony platform. Nobody else does that. We guarantee that support across our ISV channels and our direct customers, so that they don’t have to worry about revving up to the next version of the given channel. We really take care of that. We mask our customers from that, so that they can focus on innovation.

Gardner: Well great. I'm afraid we will have to leave it there. We have been learning about how advancements in mobile applications, design and deployment technologies are bringing new productivity benefits across the growing spectrum of edge devices and operating environments, and we’ve seen how quality, speed, and value are rapidly increasing, thanks to the Kony mobility platform and the new tools like Visualizer 2.0.

So a big thank you to our guest. We’ve been joined by Ed Gross, Kony Vice President of Product Management. Thank you, Ed.

Gross: Thank you, Dana.

Gardner: And a big thank you too to our audience for joining this special series coming to you directly from the recent Kony World 2015 Conference in Orlando.

I'm Dana Gardner, Principal Analyst at Interarbor Solutions, your host throughout this series of Kony-sponsored BriefingsDirect enterprise mobility discussions. Thanks again for listening, and do come back next time.

Listen to the podcast. Find it on iTunes. Download the transcript. Sponsor: Kony, Inc.

A BriefingsDirect interview on creating dynamic and engaging user interfaces for mobile apps with drag-and-drop ease. Copyright Interarbor Solutions, LLC, 2005-2015. All rights reserved.

You may also be interested in:

• Mobility moves from 'nice to have' to 'must have' for large US healthcare insurer
• Kony executive Burley Kawasaki on best tips for attaining speed in enterprise mobile apps delivery
• Kony gives enterprises the means to make mobile development a force multiplier for business productivity
• Panel tackles how to make mobile devices as secure as they are indispensable
• Five ways to make identity management work best across hybrid computing environments 
• As the digital economy ramps up, expect a new identity management vision to leapfrog passwords
• Mobile enablement presents challenges, opportunities as enterprises retool apps for the future now
• Standards and APIs: How to best manage identity and security in the mobile era
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Mobility Moves from 'Nice to Have' to 'Must Have' for Large US Healthcare Insurer

A BriefingsDirect interview on how mobility proves a game-changer in the newly changing landscape of healthcare insurance.

Listen to the podcast. Find it on iTunes. Download the transcript. Sponsor: Kony, Inc.

Dana Gardner: Hello, and welcome to a special BriefingsDirect interview, coming to you from the recent Kony World 2015 Conference in Orlando.

Gardner

I'm Dana Gardner, Principal Analyst at Interarbor Solutions, your host throughout this series of penetrating discussions on the latest in enterprise mobility. We're here to explore advancements in mobile applications design and deployment technologies across the full spectrum of edge devices and operating environments.

Our next innovation interview focuses on how a large US insurance carrier, based in the Midwest, has improved its applications’ lifecycle to make mobility a business strength.

To learn how, please join me now in welcoming our guest, Scott Jessee, Vice President of IT for an Illinois health insurance provider. Welcome to BriefingsDirect, Scott.

Scott Jessee: Thanks, Dana, I appreciate it.

Gardner: Help us understand, first and foremost, where your organization is in regard to mobility. Are you taking requests from individual parts of your company, the one-off app, are you yet progressing toward lifecycle, or a strategic approach to mobility? Where do you stand?

Jessee: It’s important to think about where we came from. When we started off in mobile, it was not an imperative. It was not something where we had to get in. It was a nice-to-have that was in the forefront, but there wasn’t enough return on investment (ROI) in people’s minds. That shifted quickly in our business model when -- from a sales’ perspective -- it became an absolute requirement that we needed to have mobile in order for us to complete our sales.

Jessee

So fast-forward to where we are now. We've been running with this for a little bit and we're primarily focusing on the consumer market, which is also exciting for us. We're in healthcare, and with the Affordable Care Act, and with lot of shifts and distribution channels, there has been a stronger need for us to have to focus on the consumer.

From a mobile perspective, most of our feedback and requests are driven in that fashion. We had to ask, "What could we do to engage through mobility? What could we do to give them more value as a product through mobility? And, how could we give it to them in a fast manner?" All those dimensions are hitting us pretty heavy right now in terms of what we are trying to think ahead for.

Gardner: Are you delivering mobility on an application-by-application basis? Or can you create a significant platform or reuse benefit in how you produce mobile applications?

Focus on multichannel

Jessee: For us, one of the biggest things from that point of view is getting a mobile application at the consumer level where we permanently focus on multichannel. That's huge for us, because the market is demanding you to have multiple devices, and there are more-and-more devices each and every year.

You have Samsung for the Android side, you have your iOS Apple on your Apple side, and then you have the tablets and smartphones and soon-to-be wearable devices. There is a plethora of different demands that people want to consume the information transaction that you get them in order to have the experience that they want.

From our perspective, we try to be as savvy as we can with that, and we leverage the Kony Platform to help us achieve that. We wouldn't be able to have as lean of a staff as we do to help support and drive that forward. And it’s primarily because the fact we can do some level of "develop once" and then deliver out through these different devices over a period of time. So it’s been big gains for us.

Gardner: What are the business benefits that going with mobile apps bring?

When they come to us with new pieces that they want, we can typically do it in six to eight weeks, compared to a three- or four-month cycle on the website.

Jessee: We get feedback on from our business folks that it's different than the web. We're able to deliver faster than we can in the web apps space. They're more satisfied on delivery time and cycle time. When they come to us with new pieces that they want, we can typically do it in six to eight weeks, compared to a three- or four-month cycle on the website. That’s just the nature of what we are doing. So they smile with us a little more in the mobile space, which is good.

You hit on metrics. We have good analytics we could provide in terms of page-views that they see. If they're trying to deliver a new content or something to that effect, we could show them that this worked, and this didn't work. We also have individual plans/states that own their marketing efforts. Based on their individual campaigns, we are able to provide them metrics of a particular state is seeing an uptake in downloads or usage of the mobile app.

So those are the two key things I think that they like about what we are able to deliver with them as relates to those two concepts.

Gardner: You mentioned that sales was an early and important part of the mobile app drive. Has it progressed beyond that? Are there other aspects of the business -- whether it's closing out on insurance policies, payments, payer/provider relations in organization and management, all the above -- where you've now extended your mobile drive from that originating beachhead of sales?

Jessee: You mentioned providers and other use cases like that. They haven’t surfaced too much for us. A lot of it goes back to the Affordable Care Act and the fact that we hadn't looked at consumers for such a long time. We date back in healthcare for the longest period, and it hasn't always been about the consumer, because that's not how we made our money or progressed forward to the revenue stream. Now, that’s becoming a huge piece for us.

Extend and differentiate

We're back-stepping a little bit, which is why we are investing so much time. The consumer use case is such a big and important example because want to try to not just hit parity, but we want to also extend and differentiate beyond that.

So we are playing a little bit of catch-up in that regard. The other piece that we see does tie back to the sales piece as well, which is, if we could show differentiation through the sales channel, we could say to brokers that this is what we are doing to help improve wellness and improve access to care. It ends up heading these other use case examples you talk about indirectly, not necessarily directly, but ultimately. That's the hopeful outcome that we get out of it.

Gardner: Now, we're here at Kony World 2015, and one of the things we're hearing about is the importance of the user experience. Now that you're dealing with the Affordable Care Act, you're in more of a marketplace. The way in which your application comes across to a prospective insurance client compares to the other insurance organizations that they might be perusing. So how does the user experience factor into your development and deployment strategy, and how is Kony helping you with that?

Jessee: The big thing this week here at Kony World that was exciting to us is seeing the further enhancements of their Visualizer 2.0 product. Visualizer 2.0 allows marketing and communication leaders to sit up front and design the look/feel of a mobile application using an Adobe Photoshop-type experience. Our marketing communication teams demand this, because user experience is king.

The new imperative is consumer experience. You need to have something that people can use easily.

The new imperative is consumer experience. You need to have something that people can use easily, efficiently, and meet the demands that they're looking for as it relates to the functions they need to accomplish, and then beyond that what's your other value opportunities.

Kony does a great job of setting us up for success in that regard. In addition to the productivity gains we get out of this, they have good tools that will help us provide this customer experience in ways that we could show marketing communications to ask, "What do you think. Let's tweak it. Let’s alter it."

We could leverage agency input in a more efficient streamlined manner for the user interfaces that we create. So all those things are really going to springboard us forward, so we are not spending as much time doing it. From the visual consuming perspective, it should be a better experience, and that’s what we are hoping to get out of it, and showcasing the future opportunities there, too.

Gardner: The thing that’s been intriguing for me here at Kony World is I see their application marketplace and the new application, Kony Sales. This might not be an exact fit for you and your vertical industry, but it seems to me that they're taking a step toward having a packaged application targeted at a specific industry that takes you maybe 80 percent of the way you need to be with a lot of the back-end integration in place, with a lot of the ability to customize, but still governed by the IT department.

So, as the IT person, you're going to get a control over who can do what, but you're also going to have your end users, your line-of-business customers, getting a say as to what their app can do and can't do. It strikes me that another important part of user experience is having more say in an app and being part of the development process.

A step forward

Jessee: That's a big jump. I talked to [Kony CEO] Tom Hogan yesterday and he explained it really well, and he relates well to business users, too. Think of what’s going on with Salesforce, and how those constituencies and stakeholders that leverage that are used to configuring an application base or micro-applications. This is really taking Kony a step forward in meeting that marketplace and even extend it beyond that with the release of the both the marketplace and the two ready-to-go applications.

That's the opportunity at hand for potential business folks, as they've already been doing some of this today in some of the other venues, and now they have an opportunity to do this with Kony.

As an IT person, where we could really take advantage of it, is to reduce our workload with some of the configuration components, so it’s little off our hands. We could focus more on the marketplace, which would allow us to create these micro apps, these core functional areas, that we could then showcase, drop in, share, etc. That really puts us in a good position in terms of facilitating innovation, which obviously is hot in healthcare and all industries, but helps you further move that ball forward.

Gardner: What about the issue of security? Because you're in healthcare and regulatory compliance is so important, how do you see the security with the mobile application developing, and how again does that integrated platform -- write once, run everywhere -- benefit you?

That's the opportunity at hand for potential business folks, as they've already been doing some of this today in some of the other venues, and now they have an opportunity to do this with Kony.

Jessee: That’s a really hard part, especially in mobile. If you think back 10 years ago on the web space, security was probably where mobile is now. In 2013, there were no publicized or known mobile risks that were made, but in 2014 I think there were 9 or 10. So that was a big jump from 0 to 9 or 10 of big named companies.

What’s ahead in 2015 is even scarier, but that relates to what Kony offers. Tom Hogan showed today what they're trying to drive toward, and he used the acronym S-A-U-C-E to describe the value they are driving with their solutions: Security, Agility, Usability, Certainty, and Efficiency. The first one being security in priority order, which puts me at ease.

One of the things that has helped is through some of the security components in Kony. They've been pretty up-to-date with some of the trends that we pull from our third-party auditors that are looking at our mobile applications. It showcases things like SSL pinning, including that in your code, and helping you facilitate the transactions the right way. So that’s a good thing for us.

I think an opportunity for Kony is to continue to showcase those specifics to not just the customer base but the non-customer base. Mobile is going to continue to get exponentially more challenging when it comes to security, because the threats out there are just starting to hit it and they are just getting fresh into it.

Internet of Things

Gardner: Looking forward now to what’s going to come down the highway. We hear about the Internet of Things. We're seeing more and more, in healthcare, data being derived from sensors and devices, and we are seeing closer partnership between payers and providers when it comes to data sharing in the healthcare sector. So where does healthcare and mobility go for you over the next three to five years?

There was another interesting tidbit here at the show, where they said IDC is projecting that by 2017, 25 percent of IT budgets will be devoted in some way to mobility. Does that strike you as a low ball, and how important is mobility going to be to your IT budget?

Jessee: From a budgetary perspective that’s probably a fair guess, because mobility is also being redefined over time. A few years ago, it was just a smartphone, but now it’s people moving around, doing activities, transacting against a multitude of different devices, and I think wearable is a great example of that.

Mobile is going to continue to get exponentially more challenging when it comes to security, because the threats out there are just starting to hit it and they are just getting fresh into it.

What do wearables mean to us? It’s an unknown for us, and it’s on our radar that we need to identify some potential use cases, but we haven’t seen enough of it yet. We've got the Fitbits that are out there that are pretty hot, but now you have got the watches that are coming out. Samsung had theirs last year; Apple is doing theirs this year. What is that going to look like? We are not a 100 percent sure yet.

From our perspective, it’s making sure we have a flag against it for us to see what we could potentially do. It’s a little abstract for us to actually activate against, but we're not leaving it to rest either.

Gardner: And the issue about the sensors and the Internet of Things. Do you consider that mobility or is that a separate area, big data perhaps? How do you see the mobile drive for user experience and life cycle benefits now, and how does that compare to that Internet of Things and sensors and data in healthcare?

Jessee: It’s both. When you say mobility and big data, it goes two ways. One, it’s the consuming of these different sensors across mobile devices and mobile transactions that take place.

The other thing that happens is on the big data front is that it’s an opportunity to collect data and understand your consumer base, to understand your providers, to make better decisions, to help add value along the chain. But it’s two-way information that you have to collect in order to really activate both sides of the house, but they play together. They both have to.

Gardner: I'm afraid we'll have to leave it there. We've been learning about how advancements in mobile applications, design, and deployment technologies are bringing new productivity benefits across the growing spectrum of edge devices in mobile applications’ life cycle. We have also seen how quality, speed and value are rapidly increasing, thanks to the Kony Mobility Platform.

So a big thank you to our guest, Scott Jessee, Vice President for IT at a large Illinois healthcare insurance provider. Thanks so much, Scott.

Jessee: Thank you, Dana. I appreciate it.

Gardner: And a big thank you to our audience for joining this special podcast series, coming to you from the recent Kony World 2015 Conference in Orlando.

I'm Dana Gardner, Principal Analyst at Interarbor Solutions, your host throughout this series of Kony-sponsored BriefingsDirect IT discussions. Thanks again for listening, and come back next time.

Listen to the podcast. Find it on iTunes. Download the transcript. Sponsor: Kony, Inc.

A BriefingsDirect interview on how mobility proves a game-changer in the newly changing landscape of healthcare insurance. Copyright Interarbor Solutions, LLC, 2005-2015. All rights reserved.

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Kony Executive Burley Kawasaki on Best Tips for Attaining Speed in Mobile Apps Delivery

A BriefingsDirect interview on the growing need for mobile apps and Kony's newly announced tools to help the line of business go mobile.

Listen to the podcast. Find it on iTunes. Download the transcript. Sponsor: Kony, Inc.

Dana Gardner: Hello, and welcome to a special BriefingsDirect interview, coming to you from the Kony World 2015 Conference on Feb. 4 in Orlando.

Gardner

I'm Dana Gardner, Principal Analyst at Interarbor Solutions, your host throughout this series of penetrating discussions on the latest in enterprise mobility. We're here to explore advancements in applications design and deployment technologies across the full spectrum of edge devices and operating environments.

For our next interview we welcome Burley Kawasaki, Senior Vice President of Products at Kony.

Burley Kawasaki: Hi, thanks, Dana. Glad to be here. It has been an exciting week. There are lots of great customer discussions and partner discussions going on.

Gardner: Before we explore the Kony World news, what's going on in the enterprise mobility marketplace? What are enterprises looking for in their mobility strategy?

Kawasaki: Obviously, mobility has proven that it’s not just a passing fad. It's really evolved over the last four or five-plus years. Initially, most companies were just trying to get one or two apps out in the public app store.

Kawasaki

Many started with some type of branded consumer apps, what are called business-to-consumer (B2C) applications, and they were willing to make the investments to make it have a fantastic user experience. They would try to make this a way for customers to experience and engage the brand. A lot of times you saw this being built and launched by the marketing organization inside an enterprise.

Now, what we're seeing is a shift. As people are looking for the next set of ways to exploit mobility, they're looking internal, inside their enterprise. They're looking at what I refer to as or business-to-employee (B2E) applications.

But instead of one or two apps, there are literally dozens or hundreds of mobilized processes and applications that most larger enterprises are looking to build as they start looking at all the internal processes. It could be mobilizing sales or employees, looking at support out in the field with field technicians, or providing self-service access to vacation requests.

There are a number of challenges this creates. One is lack of skills. If you're building one or two, you can probably muster the technical expertise or you can outsource and hire an agency or someone to build it. If you're looking to supply dozens -- some larger enterprises are looking at hundreds of internal-facing mobile apps -- that really highlights the imbalance between the demand from the business stakeholders and the supply of IT skills, resources, and technical talent.

Gardner: So, it's important in the marketplace for enterprises to recognize that this is a problem, this gaping hole between what is demanded in terms of mobile apps and development and what they can deliver. How are Kony and others in your ecosystem, your solution partnerships, coming together to allow them to leap that hurdle?

Build applications quickly

Kawasaki: Kony, since day one, has focused on how to drive faster and faster acceleration of the full development process. That's part of our core value proposition of rapidly delivering great mobile apps by providing tools and platforms to help build applications more quickly.

When we talk about building anything custom, there is a certain amount of time, typically three to six months that you spend, not just for the development, but to map out the requirements to do all the testing and final deployment. And with any custom software development, you can only compress it so far, and there's a certain amount of skills and expertise that you need.

To answer your question, we think that there needs to be other types of models for ultimately creating these internal mobile applications. The trend that you're starting to see, and that we believe is really going to take off, is a move away from custom, bespoke development of each and every app, to much more of an assembly and configuration model.

If you look at building a home, for example, there was a time where you had to custom build all of the parts to your home. You would go out, cut down the trees, and do everything from scratch, but that was a hugely inefficient process.

Now, essentially, homes are componentized. You can find standard sizes lumber parts. Large parts of your home may be prefabricated and it's just a matter of assembling and configuring them to meet your needs.

Many industries have realized the benefits of moving to assembly and configuration, as opposed to custom built.

We've seen the same assembly across a number of industries, like the auto industry. Many industries have realized the benefits of moving to assembly and configuration, as opposed to custom built.

We're seeing this in software as well. There was a day where everyone used to build their own enterprise resource planning (ERP) system or their own sales automation system. Now, people have moved to the configuration of packaged software. Mobile applications are now at the tipping point where they need to have a different way that will address the explosion in demand that I was describing.

There are a couple of things that we think are required to create this new model. One is that you need to have an ecosystem that provides pre-built components. Obviously, you can't assemble things if there is nothing to assemble from. So there needs to be an ecosystem of components.

Then, there needs to be some type of tooling that allows you to assemble the components without having to be a developer, but more of a visual drag and drop type of composition experience.

And then once you have done that, it can't just be a pretty picture. It needs to actually somehow run and make its way down to your phone or to your device. So there has to be some type of execution or dynamic run capability behind the description of what you have created.

Those are the three requirements. Of course, we have just announced this week some software that addresses each of those categories.

Major announcements

Gardner: Well, let's delve into them a little bit. There were three major announcements around your Marketplace, your Modeler, and also an example of how these come together in your first prepackaged application called the Kony Sales App.

Kawasaki: I'll talk about each of these. I'll start with the Marketplace. As I said, to make this practical and useful for our customers, we need to be able to create a way to find and discover pre-built components. Some of these components Kony may build ourselves, but we're also working with a number of very talented leading edge partners of ours -- independent software vendors (ISVs) and systems integrators (SI’s), who are also contributing prebuilt components.

This week, Feb. 4, we launched Marketplace. If you go out to community.kony.com/marketplace, you can browse. We're adding partners on an ongoing basis, but you'll see some of the early solutions that are available in the Marketplace. That’s the first part of the announcement.

The second piece is around how to assemble these into an actual application, a new product called Kony Modeler. Unlike some of our prior products, our developer tools, these do not require development backgrounds.

The typical profile of a user of Kony Modeler would be either a business analyst or someone closer to the business who knows how to drag and drop, to define what the end-user experience should be for your mobile app, knows how to describe the process or the workflow that has to occur, knows how to take those forms that they've painted, and be able to map it to some backend business data, coming from a system like SAP or Salesforce.

Unlike some of our prior products, our developer tools, these do not require development backgrounds.

As long as you can do that, you don’t have to be a developer and drop into code. You can describe this visually. You can drag and drop. Then, when you're done, the important thing is that it’s not just a picture that you print out and you throw over the wall to your developer. This description of your application then gets pushed out instantaneously to our cloud run time.

We've extended our backend-as-a-service, what we call Kony MobileFabric, so that it takes this model, this description of the mobile app, and will download it to your device and run it. Then, the next time as an end-user, if you are using one of these apps, you just automatically get whatever changes or updates have been made. You don’t have to go out to an app store and find a new app. It just automatically is part of your app.

As an analogy, in the same way if I use any software-as-a-service (SaaS) software, I won't have to install a new app on my laptop. I just go out to my web browser, and next time I log in, it's always up-to-date.

Gardner: It sounds as if this has some of the greater elements of platform-as-a-service (PaaS), but the tooling is designed for that business-analyst level. It also gives you some of those benefits of rapid iterations. You can change and adjust. You can customize to different types of user within the group that you're targeting. And all of this, I assume, is at also low cost, given that it's a SaaS based approach. Tell us a little bit about why this is like PaaS, but PaaS-plus.

Non-developer experience

Kawasaki: PaaS typically has been targeted primarily toward developers. And it’s maybe a higher level productivity for developers, but you still have to write code against software development kits (SDKs) or other application programming interfaces (APIs). Kony Modeler provides a non-developer experience.

The other big thing, and you pointed it out, is that it really does lower all of the infrastructure, hardware, and software costs that are required, because it’s purely cloud-based. It makes it not only lower cost from a total cost of ownership (TCO) standpoint, but it also accelerates the whole development cycle.

I think about this as a shift away from a classic waterfall-type model, to much more of an agile model. In the old model, you spend three to six months trying to go through and nail the requirements and hand it off to your dev team. Then, they go off, and you find out, only when it's in final QA, that it doesn't look right on the device, or it comes back and the business has changed their mind. That never happens, right?

It makes it not only lower cost from a total cost of ownership (TCO) standpoint, but it also accelerates the whole development cycle.

Modeler allows you to very quickly iterate a working application to release in a matter of days and be able to do testing with your end-users. Based on their feedback, I can make updates on an agile basis and continuously iterate on functionality or enhancements to the application.

Gardner: Burley, it also sounds like you're able to bring A/B testing type activities to a different class of user, where you don't always know what your requirements are precisely, but you can throw things on the wall, try them out, see what works, and iterate on that. I don’t recall too much of that capability being available to a business analyst type of user.

Kawasaki: You're correct. Usually, there is this very extended process, where a business analyst has to document everything in some thick specification, and even if you have it wrong or you are uncertain, whatever you communicate out to the dev team is what they go off and build.

So it’s not that this does away with requirements, but it does allow more flexibility to change or to test. And I'd agree. I think the responsiveness will allow much more experimentation and innovation. It's better to fail fast. If you have tried something out and it's not delivering the results, you haven't invested a huge amount of time and cost to learn that.

Gardner: And another appealing aspect of this for IT and operations is that this isn't shadow IT. This is under the auspices of IT. They can bring in governance. They can audit as necessary and make sure the right backend sources are being accessed in the right way, with the right privilege and access controls. They can monitor security. We talked about how it's better than PaaS, but it's also better than shadow IT for a lot of reasons.

Lack of skills

Kawasaki: It is. We were talking earlier about the skills shortage, and if you look at the stats or the data, most industry analysts predict that up to 60 percent or 70 percent or more of mobile development is outsourced today, to either an interactive agency, a systems integrator, or someone else, because of lack of skills.

So it has been outsourced to some third party, and who knows what technologies they are using to build the app. It's outside the typical controls or governance of IT. So it's not only shadow; it's dark matter. You don't even know it exists; it’s completely hidden.

Yet, at some point, inevitably, those apps that you may have outsourced for your first version, it’s not just a first version release. You want to update it sometimes monthly. So it has to come back into IT at some point, for no other reason than it's connecting and talking to enterprise data in the back end. It's connecting to other IT controlled systems, and so there is a huge amount of risk and costs associated if these things are completely hidden off the grid.

Gardner: Let's take this from the abstract to the concrete. We actually have an application now in play called the Kony Sales App. Who is that targeted to, how does it work, and what do you expect to be some of the proof point metrics of this in usage compared to how organizations conduct themselves with customer relationship management (CRM), especially if there is multiple CRMs in play in an organization?

Kawasaki: That's a great point. First of all, this is the first of a series of what we call ready-to-run applications. And the reason we call it ready-to-run is that it's a packaged app. This isn't a custom or bespoke app, but it's pre-connected and pre-integrated to the common back end, in case of CRM what most companies are using, something like Salesforce or SAP on the back end.

So we've taken a task-oriented approach and created a modular micro app approach that really is meant to be very easy and engaging for the end-user.

So it comes ready to run, but like packaged software or SaaS software, it allows you the ability to configure and customize it, because everyone’s sales processes or their user base is going to be different. That's where the Modeler tool allows you to configure it.

So when you purchase Kony Sales, you get not only the application, but the use of Kony Modeler to be able to customize and configure it. And then, as you make changes, you push it live, and again, it deploys using the SaaS model you were describing.

To talk a little bit more about Kony Sales, we think it's a new style of mobile apps, what I will refer to as a micro app. Historically, people thought of CRM software, and I am overgeneralizing, but as big, somewhat monolithic, applications.

One of the historical challenges with CRM usage is that you had to bring your laptop with you, and sales reps are notorious at not completing data in a timely fashion. It takes a lot of mandates, top-down from the sales leadership, to get data into the system so you can get accurate reporting. It's one of the age-old problems.

We believe that if instead of trying to get the whole CRM application crammed down onto a four-inch screen, with all the complexity that it requires, you target very specific action-oriented micro apps that a sales rep can do very quickly on the go, that doesn't take a lot of training, and doesn't take a lot of thought. They can very quickly look up and see their accounts, or they can very quickly log a call they have made.

So we've taken a task-oriented approach and created a modular micro app approach that really is meant to be very easy and engaging for the end-user, which in this case is a sales rep.

User experience

Gardner: And again, for the understanding of how this all works across multiple endpoints, regardless of what your sales force is using for their mobile device, this is going to come down. They are going to get that user experience and that interface that the craftsmen behind the app demanded and designed.

Kawasaki: That's right. Kony Sales is multi-channel. It works across phones, tablets, iOS, Android, and importantly, it does not replace your existing CRM data. It extends the CRM systems you already have, but makes them much, much easier to very quickly get access to.

Also using Mobile First types of approaches, and by that I mean if you are a sales rep, very likely you are on the road or in an airplane. How many people have tried to use whatever CRM client, even some of the web mobile experiences, to get data into Salesforce or SAP? It's all web-based, HTML5-based, and it doesn’t work if you're not online.

One of the things we designed in from day one was that you have to be able to operate in an "occasionally connected" mode. So if you are offline, either because you're out in the field talking to your customer, or you're in an airplane you can still have the same easy access. Then, when you're connected again, it will synchronize and handle updating SAP or Salesforce in the background.

Gardner: We're almost out of time, but I wanted to look a little bit to the future roadmap. Now that we have the model of the Modeler, the Marketplace and these ready-to-run apps, what comes next -- more apps, bigger marketplace, or is there another technology shoe to drop?

Kawasaki: It's more apps certainly, and not just from Kony, but from our partners. When we did some of our initial planning and research, the most commonly mobilized processes were ones that were customer facing or customer impacting, just because of the benefits and the ROI.

So we started with sales. We're going to release our next one, which will be around field service. It really helps engage at the point that you're supporting and serving your customer.

It really helps engage at the point that you're supporting and serving your customer.

There are a set of these that we are working on, but I think also importantly, we're working on really making our partner ecosystem trained, ready to use Modeler, and to build very unique and differentiated applications to publish to the marketplace.

We have a couple of examples of these ready-to-run apps that are compelling from our partners that you will hear more about, and that list will continue to grow over the coming weeks and months.

Gardner: And of course there's a lot more information online at kony.com about these products and services that you've announced. And you are going to be taking this out on the road to Frankfurt, Europe, Dubai, and the Middle East quite soon.

Kawasaki: That's right. It's going to be fun getting to engage our global customer base and talk about some of the innovations and get their input on what types of apps they're trying to build.

Gardner: Well, very good. I'm afraid we'll have to leave it there. We've been learning more about how advancements in mobile applications’ design and deployment technologies are bringing new productivity benefits across the growing spectrum of edge devices and use cases. And we have seen how quality, speed, and value are rapidly increasing, thanks to the Kony mobility platform approach.

So a big thank you to our guest, Burley Kawasaki, Senior Vice President of Products at Kony. Thank you, sir.

Kawasaki: All right, thank you, Dana.

Gardner: And a big thank you also to our audience for joining this special podcast series coming to you directly from the Kony World 2015 Conference in Orlando.

I'm Dana Gardner, Principal Analyst at Interarbor Solutions, your host throughout this series of Kony-sponsored BriefingsDirect IT mobility discussions. Thanks again for listening, and come back next time.

Listen to the podcast. Find it on iTunes. Download the transcript. Sponsor: Kony, Inc. 

A BriefingsDirect interview on the growing need for mobile apps and Kony's newly announced tools to help the line of business go mobile. Copyright Interarbor Solutions, LLC, 2005-2015. All rights reserved.

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