9 Technology Strategies For Business Which Work

Contents

• Wireless access for field technicians
• Insurance claim processing with web application and 3G wireless network
• Free Wi-Fi in retail stores
• Operational CRM - Anticipating ways to add to a customers’ experience
• Preventing drug counterfeiting using RFID tags
• Selling internal IT products & services to fund IT projects, R&D & infrastructure upgrade
• OCR to speed transportation
• Automated personalized offer generation for cross-selling
• Using GPS enabled cell phone to track drivers and optimize trips
• My favorites

Wireless

Wireless access for field technicians
Construction company Emcor Group put voice (cell phone), e-mail and specialized applications on a handheld device that fits in a shirt pocket. Field technicians are now more productive, using a wireless dispatching system tied to Emcor’s customer support center.

As a result customers are now served better and faster and with consistently higher quality. Technicians arrive promptly and are better prepared to address customer concerns. It has improved time to invoice, invoice accuracy and overall customer satisfaction by more closely integrating the field to the office.

Insurance claim processing with web application and 3G wireless network
Over the past year, Ohio Casualty Group has streamlined its insurance claims process with 3G wireless network, which provides higher-speed connections over a third-generation cellular network, and custom web application.

Previously Ohio Casualty’s claim adjusters would either receive a phone call or a fax notifying them of an assignment. Now the claim call center sends claim assignments via a web application which can be accessed on adjuster’s laptop; while notifying the adjuster about the assignment by a SMS message to his cellphone. The adjuster can look at the claim while traveling to the body shop or claim site, take a digital picture of the damage and upload the digital picture to an electronic claim folder.

Free Wi-Fi in retail stores
Staples, office products retailer, made a significant push into the Chicago market last year. It differentiated from its competition b y providing free Wi-Fi access in its Chicago stores.

Providing free Wi-Fi allows customers to drop off copy and print jobs by bringing their own laptops or other wireless devices to the store. The service also makes it easier for staff to sell wireless devices, letting them demonstrate the technologies to customers in a working environment.

This is a killer idea which any computer and electronics retailer can definitely leverage. I would strongly recommend providing free wi-fi access to any fast food outlets including but not limited to coffee shops. This will ensure higher sales and greater loyalty of customers. And they can also sell some wireless devices and spares too.

Customer Relationship Management

Operational CRM - Anticipating ways to add to a customers’ experience
Harrah’s Entertainment, a casino company, for the past 12 months, has been leveraging real-time and historical customer data and operating information to anticipate ways to add to a customers’ experience, such as surprising them with special offers, promotions and messages based on that individual’s spending with the company.

Harrah’s is scaling up this operational CRM concept by creating automated ways to interact with customers through a variety of touch points. So, when a guest is playing a slot machine, he or she can print coupons and offers that provide play, dining, and entertainment vouchers, and personalized services based on the customer’s preferences. The key idea is to use CRM for personalized, in-the-moment interactions.

Preventing drug counterfeiting using RFID tags
Pfizer is shipping Viagra with Electronic Product Code-encoded RFID tags to U.S. customers to prevent drug counterfeiting. Pfizer also plans to provide an authentication capability that will let wholesale and retail customers verify the authenticity of the EPCs on RFID tags on Pfizer’s bottles.

IT Innovations

Selling internal IT products & services to fund IT projects, R&D & infrastructure upgrade
JM Family Enterprises’ IT organization has evolved from being merely a transactional service provider to a business partner. They adapt and market internal IT products and services to other companies. The profit is reinvested into the IT organization to lower customers’ charges and fund internal IT projects. Effectively IT has been converted into a self-sufficient business unit.

OCR to speed transportation
APL, a transaportion services company, uses optical character-recognition technology on truck gates in Los Angeles and Seattle to reduce the waiting time for trucks by 40%. More than 90% of entry-gate transactions are automated, as are 79% of Seattle’s exit-gate transactions.

Automated personalized offer generation for cross-selling
Washington Mutual’s cross-selling effort is very interactive. It flashes a “Customer Offer” button on a teller’s screen when he starts helping a customer. Offers are customized to the customer’s actual account or type of transaction, such as a small-business owner checking account deposit, and they include scripted language (scary) to walk the service representative through the offer and answer questions.

The system automatically filters from potentially thousand of offers to the ones suited for the customer in real-time. Based on the responses the system learns and adapts. Frankly I find it scary.

Using GPS enabled cell phone to track drivers and optimize trips
Penske Truck Leasing is using GPS enabled cell phones (Treo) to track driver progress and validate that the correct freight is going where it needs to be.

Penske is developing a dynamic trip planner that lets a dispatcher reroute drivers while en route, based on their actual locations; a bar-code scanner integrated into the phone etc.
via Forbes

My favorites
My favorite is the concept of providing free wi-fi to attract and retain customers and to sell wi-fi devices and accessories.

The idea of implanting RFID chips in Viagra to prevent drug counterfeiting is the wackiest of the lot. It also has privacy implications. Your snoopy neighbor simply needs a RFID scanner to track your viagra usage, there are scanners which can track multiple items upto 450 feet.