iPad: A Pretty Show, But Does It Sell?iPad: A Pretty Show, But Does It Sell?

Some may discount tablets as multimedia toys, but they'll be snapped up by businesses to the tune of more than 10 million devices this year, predicts Deloitte. Retail, manufacturing, and healthcare are the most likely early adopters, the consulting firm says, citing ease of use, long battery life, lack of moving parts, and minimal need for training. Instant-on access, in particular, differentiates iPads and other tablets from laptops and netbooks as sales aids and multimedia presentation tools.

Hologic, a medical equipment maker, is equipping salespeople with iPads to demonstrate sophisticated devices and diagnostic machines. "It's not just about showing customers pictures and product details--we can pull up videos on how to use the equipment," says Hologic CIO and senior VP David Rudzinsky.

European retailer Group Casino is developing product- specific "guided selling" tablet apps, to help salespeople walk prospects through products such as mobile phone contracts that have many service and contract options and trade-offs.

"Clienteling" apps for tablets were the talk of the recent National Retail Federation show. The idea is that, on a tablet, a salesperson starts with some CRM-fueled insight (say, a customer's recent purchases), uses that to spot a cross-sell recommendation, uses the tablet for related multimedia presentations stored locally, then closes the deal with mobile access to POS apps.

Tablets bring mobility and multimedia presentation capabilities in an instant-on device that's faster and easier to use in mobile scenarios where a mouse or track pad and keyboard just don't cut it. It's up to enterprise IT to determine whether to add links to back-end applications.

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Mobilizing Enterprise Apps: The Next Big Leap

information: Feb. 14, 2011 Issue

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