Analysing and enhancing business processes and IT-systems for mobile workforce automation: a framework approach

Mobile B2E-applications (business-to-employee) can add significant value to a company's business, when large workforce divisions are involved in the execution of certain business processes. From a technical point of view, the major issues are solved (e.g. solutions for connectivity, broadband mobile networks, synchronization mechanisms, secure protocols etc.). But from a business point of view there is a lack of methodology regarding the alignment of technical solutions to the business needs. As companies face a continuously faster change in business models, legal constraints and customer needs, highly flexible systems are needed to react to changing business processes. Furthemore, the introduction of new mobile systems is often a technology-driven process, pushing the alignment of software and systems to the highly specific, fast changing business needs into the background. This paper introduces a framework summarizing the findings from earlier research and case studies related to this topic. The framework consists of a general reference process for mobile work and of a model explaining influencing factors, optimization goals and their relationships for mobile processes. The framework can be applied for process modeling, simulation and optimization as well as for requirements analysis and return on investment calculations.