SAP Ups Its Game In Mobile Software SalesSAP Ups Its Game In Mobile Software Sales

SAP is preparing for the expected growth in mobile software adoption and changes to how businesses go about deploying it.

The company Tuesday introduced several new mobile applications designed for salespeople, retail clerks, and service technicians, and released an upgrade to its NetWeaver Mobile middleware for easier custom application development.

Just 850 out of SAP's total customer base of 35,000 use its xApp mobile software. But mobile app adoption by customers has been growing 50% year over year since SAP began offering them in 2001, and changes are taking place that will accelerate this growth, said Sami Muneer, senior director of solution marketing. "SAP is very serious about mobility," Muneer said. SAP's mobile software is designed to work on all the common mobile devices and operating systems, he said.

One significant change, Muneer said, is that more CIOs are trying to take central control of mobile application adoption so that they can establish company-wide plans for rollouts, purchasing, and custom development. Within many companies, mobile apps are purchased from specialized, niche vendors by individual departments, such as sales or field services.

"CIOs are taking a step back and saying, OK, now that mobile apps have become so critical, we can't have a siloed approach," Muneer said. "Central governance, security, and deployment of applications will not only save costs, but also provide a foundation to easily compose new stuff on top of."

That's where SAP thinks it's going to have an edge. It's shopping SAP NetWeaver Mobile, upgraded to a service-oriented architecture, to customers as the development and integration platform on which to give mobile users access to SAP business applications residing on company servers, and also access to other types of non-SAP business apps.

In the xApp product family, SAP's strategy is to build applications for general types of job roles, and then offer packages for vertical industries. Among field-service technicians, for example, someone who fixes heating and cooling systems might work in confined spaces with poor wireless access, so SAP has an app for them that works well offline. A utility engineer may have to climb utility poles and wear gloves, so SAP has an app that allows navigation by pushing large, onscreen buttons.

Among Tuesday's announcements, SAP said it has improved its SAP xApp Mobile Sales software, for accessing customer records and product information, to allow sales staff to conduct trade promotion evaluations and access customer feedback. It's also adding new industry-specific capabilities, such as a module for the consumer packaged goods industry for auditing sales and managing customer profiles.

A newly introduced application, SAP Mobile In-Store Inventory Management, will allow retail clerks to view inventory data. SAP has updated its Mobile Asset Management application for maintenance technicians to include a geographic information system and radio frequency identification technology. Another field-service app planned for next year will include access to work orders and customer service histories.

Still, there are small, specialized vendors already offering mobile apps with these kinds of capabilities. Many have years-long, established relationships with their customers. SAP, and the CIOs it claims are seeking centralized control of mobile applications, will have some work to do to change the traditional mind-set and approach to mobile software adoption.