Description
Mobile ERP is not per se something new or even special. It is an issue growing to become more and more important and enabling mobility due to the technological revolution and more so due to the mobile users. Mobility is about how businesses can provide a better infrastructure through mobile applications and services.
Mobile Enterprise Resource Planning: New Technology Horizons
Communications of the IBIMA
Volume 1, 2008
91
Mobile Enterprise Resource Planning: New Technology Horizons
Octavian Dospinescu, Doina Fotache, Bogdanel Adrian Munteanu,
Business Information System Department, FEAA, Al. I Cuza University of Iasi, Romania
[email protected], [email protected], [email protected]
Luminita Hurbean
Business Information System Department, FSE, West University of Timisoara, Romania
[email protected]
Abstract
Mobile ERP is not per se something new or even special. It is an issue growing to become more and more important and
enabling mobility due to the technological revolution and more so due to the mobile users. Mobility is about how businesses
can provide a better infrastructure through mobile applications and services. While ERP was an important step taken by
many firms, provision of services through mobile technologies is now inevitable. Together with other trends that are
changing the enterprise applications landscape, ERP systems have to support the mobile behavior of their users. The paper
explores the mobile applications landscape and proposes an architecture model for the mobile services starting from the
necessary functionalities for a portal of mobile services. Besides the general architecture of the portal, a set of minimal
functionalities for implementation is proposed in order to ensure the promotion and use of services.
Keywords: ERP, Mobile Services.
1. EMERGING DIRECTIONS IN
ERP EXPANSION
Consolidation is happening at all levels of the
market, among those that serve the multinational and
top companies around the world (e.g. Oracle and
PeopleSoft, Retek, ProfitLogic and Siebel, then
Oracle and Siebel; SAP and Business Objects), the
mid-sized market (Lawson and Intentia; SSA;
GEAC; Sage; Microsoft), and even those targeting
the smallest customers.
Analysts expect consolidation to be an ongoing trend
within the ERP landscape. Whether it’s to gain
customers and cross-sell, complete a technology
portfolio, or simply to eliminate a competitor,
consolidation will continue. However, acquisitions
in enterprise or business applications in the future
are likely to be more focused, such as adding to a
CRM portfolio or rounding out a manufacturing
effort with new capabilities (like PLM).
Another reason for consolidation is business
complexity, due to outsourcing, partnering and
increasingly complex channel strategies. As
businesses become more complex, software vendors
must offer solutions. Applications will reach further
into supply chains, out toward customers, and within
organizations to provide better information about its
ongoing performance (http://www.berkerynotes.
com/publication/publication/key_trends_in_ERP.asp
x, 2007 ).
Finally, it appears that geographic expansion –
diversifying into new markets – has been a driver in
the SMB space for ERP. Most application providers
address verticalization in their offers. ERP vendors
needed to tailor their software to the requirements of
specific industry verticals. Verticalization means not
just adding new functionality to a given industry
solution, but adding vertical functionality to the
horizontal functions within the ERP package. This
actually means that workflows, supply chains, data
warehouses, and analytical tools should all be
vertical-specific. SAP is a leader here as they
thoroughly understand and build to fairly deep levels
in vertical markets. Oracle, however, has a more
undeveloped technology approach to most vertical
markets, and Microsoft tends to rely on partners for
vertical specificity and customization.
Outsourcing of ERP operations is the next
emerging trend as a company can typically save
operational costs close to 50%. With the
improvement in connectivity, the option of "ERP as
a service" using the SaaS (Software as a Service)
model is now proving to be viable. The current
generation ERPs, which are based on web
architecture, and uses technologies like Service
Oriented Architecture can easily facilitate this
distributed mode.
Octavian Dospinescu, Doina Fotache, Bogdanel Adrian Munteanu, and Luminita Hurbean
Communications of the IBIMA
Volume 1, 2008
92
The Software as a Service global market reached
$6.3 billion in 2006 and is reckoned by $19.3 billion
by 2011 (http://www.apptix.com/media/newsletters/
saas/, 2006). According to Gartner, by 2011, SaaS
will represent 25% of the global business software
revenue (http://www.apptix.com/media/newsletters/
saas/, 2006).
As globally distributed communication networks
become more and more reliable, the experience and
satisfaction levels of end users in hosted applications
will increase.
Diversification can be best illustrated in the SAP’s
move to become a platform provider through its
ongoing development of the NetWeaver platform
(now a 'Business Process Platform') and associated
acquisitions (Top Tier, In-Q-My, A2i). Competitors
are working in areas like web services development
and management, enterprise information
management and integration, analytics and business
performance management, and business process
management among others.
In concert with the above trends, diversification
among other platform and IT operations oriented
companies will continue as they move up the stack
to meet growing demands for distributed and mobile
management, security, asset management, and other
areas impacted by the advent of component software
and web services development (http://www.berkery
noyes.com/publication/publication/key_trends_in_E
RP.aspx, 2007 ).
Other technological relevant issues in the ERP
landscape are:
• open source expansion,
• web enabled ERP (based on XML), which
makes the enterprise operations go online with Web
2.0 architecture promising a newer, more socially
interactive Internet,
• wireless ERP, which helps organizations to make
use of the communications channels effectively and
efficiently by sharing enterprise information through
mobile devices.
2. THE MOBILE ERP
There are some arguments in support of the mobile
ERP – the primary is related to the growing mobile
workforce, while others consider the interaction with
the customers and existing business applications
(service improvement), or the ROI of mobile
applications implementation (Lee, 2004).
In the US more than 50 million workers are
considered mobile, being away from their primary
workspace at least 20% of the time (Palumbo 2008).
In Europe the number is lesser, but we consider that
the mobile workforce is growing. Enterprises must
deploy solutions that provide the mobile employees
with access to back-end resources beyond e-mail,
such as databases and applications in the ERP
system.
"Mobility doesn't sJ 221.703 pport service businesses, it
changes them", "Put your business in motion", or
"Mobilize your ERP system todam1LCre
Mobile Enterprise Resource Planning: New Technology Horizons
Communications of the IBIMA
Volume 1, 2008
93
to completely understand remote access solutions for
laptop computers. Now, with the rise of smart
phones and other handheld devices, organizations
are largely unaware of the similar technologies
available to these edge endpoints and their ability to
significantly improve mobile workforce efficiency
and productivity.
In the following paragraphs, we will analyze the
functionalities that an enterprise mobile service
provider must offer and we will propose a
generalized architecture within which the
transactions can take place.
3. NECESSARY
FUNCTIONALITIES FOR A
MOBILE SERVICES PORTAL
Taking into account that the mobile services for
companies emulate the “physical” services of the
provider to the client, we can consider that the
relation that is established between the client and the
provider is similar with the one of face-to-face type.
As a result, in the simplest variant, a client will use
the services of a client, upon payment eventually.
Nevertheless, there are several aspects and work
hypotheses taken into account by both parties
involved in such a process:
• the client does not always know the provider
before appealing to his services;
• the client needs only a certain service or range of
services;
• a mobile service provider cannot satisfy all the
potential clients’ requests (for reasons of services,
cost, response time etc);
• between the client and the provider there can be
cultural differences regarding the language,
awareness of contract terms, expectations regarding
the partner;
• the provider must obtain from the client the
payment for the services provided.
More than that, it is very possible that, temporarily,
for different reasons, a service offered by a certain
provider is not functional for technical reasons (the
unavailability of resources, temporary stop for
technical interventions) or even the provider in itself
is not available (too many requests from clients, the
interruption of connections for technical reasons).
Taking into account the elements mentioned
previously, we consider that within an architecture
based on mobile services for companies the
following functionalities must be available:
• the client’s possibility to look for the provider
which can offer mobile services he needs, eventually
in certain conditions of quality and price;
• the client obtaining a “list of reserves” with the
providers and services that can be appealed to in the
case that the provider or initial service become
unavailable temporarily;
• the possibility of the provider to accept/reject the
requests of a client regarding a certain service;
• the client sending the firm request to the
provider, by offering the necessary data and
elements for carrying out the service;
• the possibility of money transfer in the
conditions established through the contract between
the two partners: before carrying out the service,
simultaneously with carrying out the service or after
providing the service;
• in the case that a client chooses a mobile service
provider, he should be sure of the fact that the
eventual cultural differences between them will
affect the contractual relation to the smallest extent
possible.
In the literature it is considered that the Internet may
allow companies to turn on its head the old pattern
of culture creation. The role of the center becomes
that of setting standards and of establishing a
framework for the culture (Cairncross, 2002) .
4. MOBILE SERVICES
ARCHITECTURE PROPOSAL
In order to take the opportunity to exploit all the
advantages of the mobility, organizations should
demand services of mobile architecture to ensure the
link between the wireless initiatives and their busi-
ness objectives. Different solutions are available.
Starting from the necessary functionalities for the
mobile services for companies, we propose an
architecture based on the general concept of services
portal. In fact, this portal accomplishes the role of
broker, both for the client and for the provider.
It is considered that the most common software
functions that portal software solutions need to
support include: data points and integration,
taxonomy, search capabilities, help features, content
management, process and action, collaboration and
communication, personalization, presentation,
administration and security (Collins, 2001) .
. . .
Mobile Service
Provider
Offers management
Requests management
Offer
Request
Answer Request
Mobile Services Portal
Mobile Service
Provider
Mobile Service
Provider
Mobile Internet
Mobile Service
Client
Mobile Service
Client
Mobile Service
Client
. . .
Mobile Internet
Octavian Dospinescu, Doina Fotache, Bogdanel Adrian Munteanu, and Luminita Hurbean
Communications of the IBIMA
Volume 1, 2008
94
Figure 1 –The architecture based on portal for enterprise
mobile services
We consider that the architecture proposed (Figure
1) can be divided in two distinct components,
according to the entity that the mobile services
portal interacts with: the interface with the clients
and the interface with the providers. Based on the
identified functionalities, the portal must support
several types of orders presented in Tables 1 and 2.
Table 1. Orders in the "Requests management" category
Order
type
Explanation
Find a
service
The portal will search in the list of mobile services
available the one that corresponds with the criteria
specified by the client: quality, price, execution
time etc. It is also returned a “list of reserves” with
the services that can be appealed in the case that the
first becomes unavailable for several reasons.
Request
connection
The portal will connect the client with the provider
chosen after an order “find a service”. The portal
can offer the client identification data or can
demand the service in his own name, continuing to
provide the client transparently.
Execute
service
The portal will request the execution of the service
by the provider, under the conditions established
after the “request connection” order.
Execute
next
service
This order should be executed under the conditions
in which the initial service or provider temporarily
becomes unavailable.
Table 2. The orders in the "offers management" category
Order type Explanation
Register the
service in the list
The portal will register in the list of
available services the new service offered
by the provider who executes the order.
This order will have the parameters that
will describe the service name, its type, the
service, the costs, the execution time and
other technical data, which would be of
interest for the client.
Accept connection As in the case of the order „Request
connection”, the provider will accept the
transaction either directly with the client or
with the portal as intermediary of mobile
services for the company. In the first case,
the payment will be received from the
client, and secondly from the portal as
intermediation agent.
Execute service The portal will request the service
execution by the provider, under the
conditions established by the successful
execution of the order “request
connection”.
According to the degree of development of the
portal, this should execute the orders of the type
“find a service” trying to attenuate as much as
possible the eventual cultural differences between
the client and the provider. This would mean that in
a list of available services that are identical, the
portal would firstly suggest the client the one that
most resembles the client’s culture.
Besides the orders presented in the previous lists, the
portal can optionally implement orders of the type
“bill” or “payment”, according to the modality
chosen for the transfer of money in the account of
the service carried out. These options can be
extended on a model of the type “subscription” in
which a client makes a subscription to a portal of
mobile services and can benefit in a period of time
from several orders of the type “execute a service”.
We consider that for the increase of the flexibility of
such a portal, the implementation of an order of the
type “negotiated” which allows a client to negotiate
different terms of the contractual relation (price,
execution time, execution parameters etc.) with
different providers would be indicated. In this case,
supposing that the provider accepts the negotiation
terms, a new service, which initially did not appear
in the list of available services, would be available.
5. AN IMPLEMENTATION MODEL
FOR EXPANDING NAVISION’S
CAPABILITIES
We propose a special architecture in order to expand
the capabilities of Microsoft NAVISION, which is
one of the most important ERP products
(http://www.erpsoftware360.com/erp-software.htm,
accesed on November 2007; Navision ERP Solution
has more than 83,000 customers) . Usually, this ERP
system operates on desktops and servers, but we
intend to improve its capabilities in order to be a
mobile alternative for managers.
The servers that are designed in Figure 2 have
different roles, from authentication to data
transmission from database to the final mobile users.
The vision to expand the capabilities of Microsoft
NAVISION ERP system also includes the web
services, implemented on .NET platform.
Mobile Enterprise Resource Planning: New Technology Horizons
Communications of the IBIMA
Volume 1, 2008
95
Figure 2. The main architecture for transforming a
“desktop” ERP into a mobile ERP
These services offer to the mobile users (PDA,
SmartPhone) the functionalities that are required in
order to obtain reports about the state of the
company. For example, the web service function
getCustomers() provides the dataset containing the
list of the customers. This function can be
customized by the user with parameters (the best
customer, the most important customer, the less
important customer etc.).
Imports System.Web
Imports System.Web.Services
Imports System.Web.Services.Protocols
Imports System.Data.SqlClient
Imports System.Data.OleDb
<WebService(Namespace:="http://tempuri.org/")> _
<WebServiceBinding(ConformsTo:=WsiProfiles.BasicPro
file1_1)> _
<Global.Microsoft.VisualBasic.CompilerServices.Designe
rGenerated()> _
Public Class Service
Inherits System.Web.Services.WebService
’—the definition of getCustomers() function
<WebMethod()> _
Public Function getCustomers() As Data.DataSet
Dim setDate As New Data.DataSet()
Dim conexiune As New SqlConnection()
Dim comanda As New SqlCommand()
Dim adaptor As New SqlDataAdapter()
conexiune.ConnectionString = "Data
Source=DOCTAV;Initial Catalog='Navision Demo
Database (4-0)';Integrated Security=True"
comanda.CommandText = "SELECT [Name] AS
NUME from [dbo].[CRONUS Romania SRL$Customer]
AS CLIENTI ORDER BY [Name] DESC"
comanda.Connection = conexiune
adaptor.SelectCommand = comanda
adaptor.Fill(setDate, "CLIENTI")
Return setDate
End Function
End Class
The web service can be invoked through a web
browser or through another kind of client.
To develop the mobile application, we also used the
.NET platform and we first test on pda emulators the
connection with the web services. The main
advantages of using the combination between web
services and mobile PDA applications are:
• the final clients (PDA users) do not need extra
power for querying or processing data, because the
web services on the server side do that;
• if one client loses the wireless connection with
the server, the others are able to use the services
with their own connections;
• if it is necessary to adapt the data provided by
Navision database, all we have to do is to modify
only the web service, not the entire application;
• by implementing the security levels on the web
services, every final client can invoke only the
information it has access to.
Public Class frmClientiLista
Private Sub btnListaCustomers_Click(ByVal sender As
System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles
btnListaClienti.Click
Dim serviciu As New WebReference.Service()
Dim dsClienti As Data.DataSet
dsCustomers = serviciu.getCustomers()
’—and from here the application uses the data set
’—in the graphical user interface
End Sub
End Class
Figure 3. The final result
The client application installed on PDA devices uses
the previous web services and produces results to the
managers (Figure 3).
From now, it is very simple for employees to have
access to their company’s data wherever they are. It
is also very important to mention that the data are
available as they are inserted, deleted or updated by
the “normal” users (the users that populate the
database through the NAVISION desktop
applications).
8. CONCLUSIONS AND FURTHER
RESEARCH
The paper's key results concerning the ERP trends
and their impact for the organization include: (1)
extending the core ERP functionality represents an
inevitability for business survival, (2) the enterprise
applications market evolves constantly and suffers a
consolidation process, (3) we are in the middle of a
Octavian Dospinescu, Doina Fotache, Bogdanel Adrian Munteanu, and Luminita Hurbean
Communications of the IBIMA
Volume 1, 2008
96
substantial disruptive revolution in ERP and the
entire business applications, and (4) mobility
integration turn out to be the major organizations’
distress.
Application mobility surpasses the technology
borders, becoming a paradigm that provides the
enterprise with a clear strategic business advantage:
the ability to do business in real time, in an event
driven environment, and with reduced latency.
In the near future the mobile devices will experience
a significant outbreak. A constant 30% annual
growing rate is forecasted to take place in the near
future, with well defined strategies focused on the
specialization, geographical expansion and diversity
of solutions.
Mobile device improvements, combined with
increasing local and wide area wireless bandwidth,
have opened a new door to additional productivity
enhancements, cost reductions, and users satisfaction
increases. Microsoft, one of the most important
players on the mobile ERP market, powered mobile
devices, such as Pocket PCs and Handheld PCs,
offering them at a quarter of the cost of custom
ruggedized mobile devices from just a few years
ago. Utilizing the same development tools and
technologies as the PC, these mobile devices make it
easier and quicker to get ERP solutions into the
hands of the mobile workforce.
The research in the present article does not propose
to present the effective implementation of the portal
functionality, but we consider that it could be
achieved on a web-services type structure on a Java
or .NET platform.
There are many promising investment opportunities
in the mobile internet arena. The obvious lack of
mobile service providers will be quickly eliminated
because of the more and more obvious development
of mobile technologies. As in the case of classic
services, it is very important to create the premises
for the actors involved in the transaction to be able
to contact each other. In a world in which diversity
of business and the cultural differences are an
indisputable reality, the implementation of portals
for the mobile company services will in fact
represent the following step regarding the
commercial relations based on the infrastructure of
the virtual environment.
We believe it's time to say goodbye to the golden
age of ERP systems. The old systems will be taken
by more outwardly focused applications that not
only give managers a see-through view of all
enterprise functions, but also let them tie that
information in a meaningful way to events
happening in the outside world. Mobile services are
opening the real-tine access to corporate operations
to personnel on the move. The way companies
acquire ERP services in the future will also change
radically. We will closely research the upcoming
ERP epoch and its manifestation in the Romanian
enterprises.
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Management Association. All rights reserved. No part or
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doc_108185397.pdf
Mobile ERP is not per se something new or even special. It is an issue growing to become more and more important and enabling mobility due to the technological revolution and more so due to the mobile users. Mobility is about how businesses can provide a better infrastructure through mobile applications and services.
Mobile Enterprise Resource Planning: New Technology Horizons
Communications of the IBIMA
Volume 1, 2008
91
Mobile Enterprise Resource Planning: New Technology Horizons
Octavian Dospinescu, Doina Fotache, Bogdanel Adrian Munteanu,
Business Information System Department, FEAA, Al. I Cuza University of Iasi, Romania
[email protected], [email protected], [email protected]
Luminita Hurbean
Business Information System Department, FSE, West University of Timisoara, Romania
[email protected]
Abstract
Mobile ERP is not per se something new or even special. It is an issue growing to become more and more important and
enabling mobility due to the technological revolution and more so due to the mobile users. Mobility is about how businesses
can provide a better infrastructure through mobile applications and services. While ERP was an important step taken by
many firms, provision of services through mobile technologies is now inevitable. Together with other trends that are
changing the enterprise applications landscape, ERP systems have to support the mobile behavior of their users. The paper
explores the mobile applications landscape and proposes an architecture model for the mobile services starting from the
necessary functionalities for a portal of mobile services. Besides the general architecture of the portal, a set of minimal
functionalities for implementation is proposed in order to ensure the promotion and use of services.
Keywords: ERP, Mobile Services.
1. EMERGING DIRECTIONS IN
ERP EXPANSION
Consolidation is happening at all levels of the
market, among those that serve the multinational and
top companies around the world (e.g. Oracle and
PeopleSoft, Retek, ProfitLogic and Siebel, then
Oracle and Siebel; SAP and Business Objects), the
mid-sized market (Lawson and Intentia; SSA;
GEAC; Sage; Microsoft), and even those targeting
the smallest customers.
Analysts expect consolidation to be an ongoing trend
within the ERP landscape. Whether it’s to gain
customers and cross-sell, complete a technology
portfolio, or simply to eliminate a competitor,
consolidation will continue. However, acquisitions
in enterprise or business applications in the future
are likely to be more focused, such as adding to a
CRM portfolio or rounding out a manufacturing
effort with new capabilities (like PLM).
Another reason for consolidation is business
complexity, due to outsourcing, partnering and
increasingly complex channel strategies. As
businesses become more complex, software vendors
must offer solutions. Applications will reach further
into supply chains, out toward customers, and within
organizations to provide better information about its
ongoing performance (http://www.berkerynotes.
com/publication/publication/key_trends_in_ERP.asp
x, 2007 ).
Finally, it appears that geographic expansion –
diversifying into new markets – has been a driver in
the SMB space for ERP. Most application providers
address verticalization in their offers. ERP vendors
needed to tailor their software to the requirements of
specific industry verticals. Verticalization means not
just adding new functionality to a given industry
solution, but adding vertical functionality to the
horizontal functions within the ERP package. This
actually means that workflows, supply chains, data
warehouses, and analytical tools should all be
vertical-specific. SAP is a leader here as they
thoroughly understand and build to fairly deep levels
in vertical markets. Oracle, however, has a more
undeveloped technology approach to most vertical
markets, and Microsoft tends to rely on partners for
vertical specificity and customization.
Outsourcing of ERP operations is the next
emerging trend as a company can typically save
operational costs close to 50%. With the
improvement in connectivity, the option of "ERP as
a service" using the SaaS (Software as a Service)
model is now proving to be viable. The current
generation ERPs, which are based on web
architecture, and uses technologies like Service
Oriented Architecture can easily facilitate this
distributed mode.
Octavian Dospinescu, Doina Fotache, Bogdanel Adrian Munteanu, and Luminita Hurbean
Communications of the IBIMA
Volume 1, 2008
92
The Software as a Service global market reached
$6.3 billion in 2006 and is reckoned by $19.3 billion
by 2011 (http://www.apptix.com/media/newsletters/
saas/, 2006). According to Gartner, by 2011, SaaS
will represent 25% of the global business software
revenue (http://www.apptix.com/media/newsletters/
saas/, 2006).
As globally distributed communication networks
become more and more reliable, the experience and
satisfaction levels of end users in hosted applications
will increase.
Diversification can be best illustrated in the SAP’s
move to become a platform provider through its
ongoing development of the NetWeaver platform
(now a 'Business Process Platform') and associated
acquisitions (Top Tier, In-Q-My, A2i). Competitors
are working in areas like web services development
and management, enterprise information
management and integration, analytics and business
performance management, and business process
management among others.
In concert with the above trends, diversification
among other platform and IT operations oriented
companies will continue as they move up the stack
to meet growing demands for distributed and mobile
management, security, asset management, and other
areas impacted by the advent of component software
and web services development (http://www.berkery
noyes.com/publication/publication/key_trends_in_E
RP.aspx, 2007 ).
Other technological relevant issues in the ERP
landscape are:
• open source expansion,
• web enabled ERP (based on XML), which
makes the enterprise operations go online with Web
2.0 architecture promising a newer, more socially
interactive Internet,
• wireless ERP, which helps organizations to make
use of the communications channels effectively and
efficiently by sharing enterprise information through
mobile devices.
2. THE MOBILE ERP
There are some arguments in support of the mobile
ERP – the primary is related to the growing mobile
workforce, while others consider the interaction with
the customers and existing business applications
(service improvement), or the ROI of mobile
applications implementation (Lee, 2004).
In the US more than 50 million workers are
considered mobile, being away from their primary
workspace at least 20% of the time (Palumbo 2008).
In Europe the number is lesser, but we consider that
the mobile workforce is growing. Enterprises must
deploy solutions that provide the mobile employees
with access to back-end resources beyond e-mail,
such as databases and applications in the ERP
system.
"Mobility doesn't sJ 221.703 pport service businesses, it
changes them", "Put your business in motion", or
"Mobilize your ERP system todam1LCre
Mobile Enterprise Resource Planning: New Technology Horizons
Communications of the IBIMA
Volume 1, 2008
93
to completely understand remote access solutions for
laptop computers. Now, with the rise of smart
phones and other handheld devices, organizations
are largely unaware of the similar technologies
available to these edge endpoints and their ability to
significantly improve mobile workforce efficiency
and productivity.
In the following paragraphs, we will analyze the
functionalities that an enterprise mobile service
provider must offer and we will propose a
generalized architecture within which the
transactions can take place.
3. NECESSARY
FUNCTIONALITIES FOR A
MOBILE SERVICES PORTAL
Taking into account that the mobile services for
companies emulate the “physical” services of the
provider to the client, we can consider that the
relation that is established between the client and the
provider is similar with the one of face-to-face type.
As a result, in the simplest variant, a client will use
the services of a client, upon payment eventually.
Nevertheless, there are several aspects and work
hypotheses taken into account by both parties
involved in such a process:
• the client does not always know the provider
before appealing to his services;
• the client needs only a certain service or range of
services;
• a mobile service provider cannot satisfy all the
potential clients’ requests (for reasons of services,
cost, response time etc);
• between the client and the provider there can be
cultural differences regarding the language,
awareness of contract terms, expectations regarding
the partner;
• the provider must obtain from the client the
payment for the services provided.
More than that, it is very possible that, temporarily,
for different reasons, a service offered by a certain
provider is not functional for technical reasons (the
unavailability of resources, temporary stop for
technical interventions) or even the provider in itself
is not available (too many requests from clients, the
interruption of connections for technical reasons).
Taking into account the elements mentioned
previously, we consider that within an architecture
based on mobile services for companies the
following functionalities must be available:
• the client’s possibility to look for the provider
which can offer mobile services he needs, eventually
in certain conditions of quality and price;
• the client obtaining a “list of reserves” with the
providers and services that can be appealed to in the
case that the provider or initial service become
unavailable temporarily;
• the possibility of the provider to accept/reject the
requests of a client regarding a certain service;
• the client sending the firm request to the
provider, by offering the necessary data and
elements for carrying out the service;
• the possibility of money transfer in the
conditions established through the contract between
the two partners: before carrying out the service,
simultaneously with carrying out the service or after
providing the service;
• in the case that a client chooses a mobile service
provider, he should be sure of the fact that the
eventual cultural differences between them will
affect the contractual relation to the smallest extent
possible.
In the literature it is considered that the Internet may
allow companies to turn on its head the old pattern
of culture creation. The role of the center becomes
that of setting standards and of establishing a
framework for the culture (Cairncross, 2002) .
4. MOBILE SERVICES
ARCHITECTURE PROPOSAL
In order to take the opportunity to exploit all the
advantages of the mobility, organizations should
demand services of mobile architecture to ensure the
link between the wireless initiatives and their busi-
ness objectives. Different solutions are available.
Starting from the necessary functionalities for the
mobile services for companies, we propose an
architecture based on the general concept of services
portal. In fact, this portal accomplishes the role of
broker, both for the client and for the provider.
It is considered that the most common software
functions that portal software solutions need to
support include: data points and integration,
taxonomy, search capabilities, help features, content
management, process and action, collaboration and
communication, personalization, presentation,
administration and security (Collins, 2001) .
. . .
Mobile Service
Provider
Offers management
Requests management
Offer
Request
Answer Request
Mobile Services Portal
Mobile Service
Provider
Mobile Service
Provider
Mobile Internet
Mobile Service
Client
Mobile Service
Client
Mobile Service
Client
. . .
Mobile Internet
Octavian Dospinescu, Doina Fotache, Bogdanel Adrian Munteanu, and Luminita Hurbean
Communications of the IBIMA
Volume 1, 2008
94
Figure 1 –The architecture based on portal for enterprise
mobile services
We consider that the architecture proposed (Figure
1) can be divided in two distinct components,
according to the entity that the mobile services
portal interacts with: the interface with the clients
and the interface with the providers. Based on the
identified functionalities, the portal must support
several types of orders presented in Tables 1 and 2.
Table 1. Orders in the "Requests management" category
Order
type
Explanation
Find a
service
The portal will search in the list of mobile services
available the one that corresponds with the criteria
specified by the client: quality, price, execution
time etc. It is also returned a “list of reserves” with
the services that can be appealed in the case that the
first becomes unavailable for several reasons.
Request
connection
The portal will connect the client with the provider
chosen after an order “find a service”. The portal
can offer the client identification data or can
demand the service in his own name, continuing to
provide the client transparently.
Execute
service
The portal will request the execution of the service
by the provider, under the conditions established
after the “request connection” order.
Execute
next
service
This order should be executed under the conditions
in which the initial service or provider temporarily
becomes unavailable.
Table 2. The orders in the "offers management" category
Order type Explanation
Register the
service in the list
The portal will register in the list of
available services the new service offered
by the provider who executes the order.
This order will have the parameters that
will describe the service name, its type, the
service, the costs, the execution time and
other technical data, which would be of
interest for the client.
Accept connection As in the case of the order „Request
connection”, the provider will accept the
transaction either directly with the client or
with the portal as intermediary of mobile
services for the company. In the first case,
the payment will be received from the
client, and secondly from the portal as
intermediation agent.
Execute service The portal will request the service
execution by the provider, under the
conditions established by the successful
execution of the order “request
connection”.
According to the degree of development of the
portal, this should execute the orders of the type
“find a service” trying to attenuate as much as
possible the eventual cultural differences between
the client and the provider. This would mean that in
a list of available services that are identical, the
portal would firstly suggest the client the one that
most resembles the client’s culture.
Besides the orders presented in the previous lists, the
portal can optionally implement orders of the type
“bill” or “payment”, according to the modality
chosen for the transfer of money in the account of
the service carried out. These options can be
extended on a model of the type “subscription” in
which a client makes a subscription to a portal of
mobile services and can benefit in a period of time
from several orders of the type “execute a service”.
We consider that for the increase of the flexibility of
such a portal, the implementation of an order of the
type “negotiated” which allows a client to negotiate
different terms of the contractual relation (price,
execution time, execution parameters etc.) with
different providers would be indicated. In this case,
supposing that the provider accepts the negotiation
terms, a new service, which initially did not appear
in the list of available services, would be available.
5. AN IMPLEMENTATION MODEL
FOR EXPANDING NAVISION’S
CAPABILITIES
We propose a special architecture in order to expand
the capabilities of Microsoft NAVISION, which is
one of the most important ERP products
(http://www.erpsoftware360.com/erp-software.htm,
accesed on November 2007; Navision ERP Solution
has more than 83,000 customers) . Usually, this ERP
system operates on desktops and servers, but we
intend to improve its capabilities in order to be a
mobile alternative for managers.
The servers that are designed in Figure 2 have
different roles, from authentication to data
transmission from database to the final mobile users.
The vision to expand the capabilities of Microsoft
NAVISION ERP system also includes the web
services, implemented on .NET platform.
Mobile Enterprise Resource Planning: New Technology Horizons
Communications of the IBIMA
Volume 1, 2008
95
Figure 2. The main architecture for transforming a
“desktop” ERP into a mobile ERP
These services offer to the mobile users (PDA,
SmartPhone) the functionalities that are required in
order to obtain reports about the state of the
company. For example, the web service function
getCustomers() provides the dataset containing the
list of the customers. This function can be
customized by the user with parameters (the best
customer, the most important customer, the less
important customer etc.).
Imports System.Web
Imports System.Web.Services
Imports System.Web.Services.Protocols
Imports System.Data.SqlClient
Imports System.Data.OleDb
<WebService(Namespace:="http://tempuri.org/")> _
<WebServiceBinding(ConformsTo:=WsiProfiles.BasicPro
file1_1)> _
<Global.Microsoft.VisualBasic.CompilerServices.Designe
rGenerated()> _
Public Class Service
Inherits System.Web.Services.WebService
’—the definition of getCustomers() function
<WebMethod()> _
Public Function getCustomers() As Data.DataSet
Dim setDate As New Data.DataSet()
Dim conexiune As New SqlConnection()
Dim comanda As New SqlCommand()
Dim adaptor As New SqlDataAdapter()
conexiune.ConnectionString = "Data
Source=DOCTAV;Initial Catalog='Navision Demo
Database (4-0)';Integrated Security=True"
comanda.CommandText = "SELECT [Name] AS
NUME from [dbo].[CRONUS Romania SRL$Customer]
AS CLIENTI ORDER BY [Name] DESC"
comanda.Connection = conexiune
adaptor.SelectCommand = comanda
adaptor.Fill(setDate, "CLIENTI")
Return setDate
End Function
End Class
The web service can be invoked through a web
browser or through another kind of client.
To develop the mobile application, we also used the
.NET platform and we first test on pda emulators the
connection with the web services. The main
advantages of using the combination between web
services and mobile PDA applications are:
• the final clients (PDA users) do not need extra
power for querying or processing data, because the
web services on the server side do that;
• if one client loses the wireless connection with
the server, the others are able to use the services
with their own connections;
• if it is necessary to adapt the data provided by
Navision database, all we have to do is to modify
only the web service, not the entire application;
• by implementing the security levels on the web
services, every final client can invoke only the
information it has access to.
Public Class frmClientiLista
Private Sub btnListaCustomers_Click(ByVal sender As
System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles
btnListaClienti.Click
Dim serviciu As New WebReference.Service()
Dim dsClienti As Data.DataSet
dsCustomers = serviciu.getCustomers()
’—and from here the application uses the data set
’—in the graphical user interface
End Sub
End Class
Figure 3. The final result
The client application installed on PDA devices uses
the previous web services and produces results to the
managers (Figure 3).
From now, it is very simple for employees to have
access to their company’s data wherever they are. It
is also very important to mention that the data are
available as they are inserted, deleted or updated by
the “normal” users (the users that populate the
database through the NAVISION desktop
applications).
8. CONCLUSIONS AND FURTHER
RESEARCH
The paper's key results concerning the ERP trends
and their impact for the organization include: (1)
extending the core ERP functionality represents an
inevitability for business survival, (2) the enterprise
applications market evolves constantly and suffers a
consolidation process, (3) we are in the middle of a
Octavian Dospinescu, Doina Fotache, Bogdanel Adrian Munteanu, and Luminita Hurbean
Communications of the IBIMA
Volume 1, 2008
96
substantial disruptive revolution in ERP and the
entire business applications, and (4) mobility
integration turn out to be the major organizations’
distress.
Application mobility surpasses the technology
borders, becoming a paradigm that provides the
enterprise with a clear strategic business advantage:
the ability to do business in real time, in an event
driven environment, and with reduced latency.
In the near future the mobile devices will experience
a significant outbreak. A constant 30% annual
growing rate is forecasted to take place in the near
future, with well defined strategies focused on the
specialization, geographical expansion and diversity
of solutions.
Mobile device improvements, combined with
increasing local and wide area wireless bandwidth,
have opened a new door to additional productivity
enhancements, cost reductions, and users satisfaction
increases. Microsoft, one of the most important
players on the mobile ERP market, powered mobile
devices, such as Pocket PCs and Handheld PCs,
offering them at a quarter of the cost of custom
ruggedized mobile devices from just a few years
ago. Utilizing the same development tools and
technologies as the PC, these mobile devices make it
easier and quicker to get ERP solutions into the
hands of the mobile workforce.
The research in the present article does not propose
to present the effective implementation of the portal
functionality, but we consider that it could be
achieved on a web-services type structure on a Java
or .NET platform.
There are many promising investment opportunities
in the mobile internet arena. The obvious lack of
mobile service providers will be quickly eliminated
because of the more and more obvious development
of mobile technologies. As in the case of classic
services, it is very important to create the premises
for the actors involved in the transaction to be able
to contact each other. In a world in which diversity
of business and the cultural differences are an
indisputable reality, the implementation of portals
for the mobile company services will in fact
represent the following step regarding the
commercial relations based on the infrastructure of
the virtual environment.
We believe it's time to say goodbye to the golden
age of ERP systems. The old systems will be taken
by more outwardly focused applications that not
only give managers a see-through view of all
enterprise functions, but also let them tie that
information in a meaningful way to events
happening in the outside world. Mobile services are
opening the real-tine access to corporate operations
to personnel on the move. The way companies
acquire ERP services in the future will also change
radically. We will closely research the upcoming
ERP epoch and its manifestation in the Romanian
enterprises.
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