Logistics and Supply Chain management are big industries having extended market across the globe. To improve performance, these industries have implemented mobile devices in various departments. With this integration of mobile devices, the delivery process has become more effective and organized. However, they face the challenges of device settings tampering, excessive data usage, driver distraction and use of devices for personal work which hampers the productivity and increases cost.
How has mobile devices benefited the industry?
Earlier there were limited providers, suppliers, and customers with limited means to scale up the business. The industry used to follow the traditional approach where the supply, delivery, tracking, etc. was managed on the hard copy. With the expansion of the industry, the competition has also increased. Real-time tracking, delivery time, travel time, and cost were difficult to manage until the use of the electronic device. To provide these services, all the small and large scale industries have started deploying mobile devices at their workplace and on the on-field as well. Having used these mobility solutions, across the industry, the delivery process has become more effective and organized.
With the use of this real time data business can manage their resources in much more optimized way and at the same time end customers get the real time updates which improves user experience and convenience. It’s a Win-Win situation for both business owners and their clients.
Challenges faced by the industry
With the increased use of mobile technology in this industry, the logistics solution providers are facing many challenges.
- Device Tampering:
The first challenge they face is the unnecessary maintenance cost of these devices. In spite of having these mobile devices, employees are not able to make the most out of it, due to device settings tampering. When device settings are tempered, the device does not work as intended and needs to be reconfigured, which wastes both money and time for the business.
- Increased data Costs:
The second challenge is the misuse of the mobile devices for unintended personal use. For the business applications to work, data connection is provided to each device. In an ideal world this devices will be used for only intended work but in real world devices are misused by installing and using non desired applications which might cost a lot of data. Every 1GB of extra mobile data costs around 15$ per month.
- Downtime and Updates
The third challenge is faced while admin needs to update the application used by the on-field agent, they have to recall all the devices and install the new application which increases the downtime for the workforce and consumes a lot of time of IT staff. As the dynamics of the business changes. As per survey IT downtime costs businesses, collectively, more than 127 million person-hours per year-or an average of 545 person-hours per company-in employee productivity, according to an online survey of IT and business executives sponsored by CA Technologies and conducted by research firm Coleman Parkes in November 2010.
How will GoKiosk help to overcome those challenges?
Gokiosk Kiosk Lockdown for Android, locks down the device into the Kiosk mode; thus end user/employee is not allowed to tamper with device settings or to use it for any unauthorized application, also it allows to have a centralized view of all field devices with an option to remotely monitor, control and track them. With Gokiosk the admin can remotely push new application or updates without accessing the devices physically, no need to recall device for every small update or tweak. Everything is done through the cloud. Thus, increasing the productivity and decreasing the usage cost and downtime.
Final Thoughts:
GoKiosk continues its effort to assist companies in the logistics and supply chain industry. It helps them in overcoming their device management challenges, reorganize their operations and save huge maintenance and support cost through the most affordable mobility solutions. If you have any suggested feature which might help us serve this industry better, please get in touch at [email protected].