TAITA TAVETA UNIVERSITY

BIT 2119: MANAGEMENT INFORMATION SYSTEMS

GROUP ASSIGNMENT

Instructions: this is a group assignment. Find a partner whom you can work with
and solve the problems stated in question below.
Question – 20 Marks

Read the following Case Study “The Mobile Pocket Office” to help you answer the
following questions

a. What kinds of applications are described here? What business functions do they
support? How do they improve operational efficiency and decision making? (6 Marks)
b. Identify the problems that businesses in this case study solved by using mobile digital
devices. (4 Marks)
c. What kinds of businesses are most likely to benefit from equipping their employees with
mobile digital devices such as iPhones and iPads? (4 Marks)
d. One company deploying iPhones has said, “The iPhone is not a game changer, it's an
industry changer. It changes the way that you can interact with your customers” and
“with your suppliers.” Discuss the implications of this statement. (6 Marks)

The Mobile Pocket Office

Can you run your company out of your order processing, inventory management, and
pocket? Perhaps not entirely, but there are production monitoring make these devices
many business functions today that can be even more versatile business tools. Mobile
performed using an iPhone, iPad, or Android pocket offices that fit into a purse or coat
mobile handheld device. The smartphone has pocket are helping to run companies large
been called the “Swiss Army knife of the and small.
digital age.” A flick of the finger turns it into a
Sonic Automotive is one of the largest
web browser, a telephone, a camera, a music
automotive retailers in the United States with
or video player, an e-mail and messaging
more than 100 dealerships in 14 states. Every
machine, and, increasingly, a gateway into
year Sonic sells 250,000 new and used cars
corporate systems. New software applications
from approximately 25 different automotive
for document sharing, collaboration, sales,
brands, and it also sells auto parts and
maintenance, warranty, collision, and vehicle A mobile app called the Sonic Inventory
financing services. Sonic Automotive Management System (SIMS) has speeded up
managers and employees do much of their and simplified trade-in appraisals and pricing.
work on the iPhone and iPad. Sonic staff use their iPhones or iPads to take
photos of a car, input the vehicle identification
Sonic developed several custom iPhone and
number (VIN) and mileage, and note any
iPad applications to speed up sales and
issues. The data are transmitted to corporate
service. Virtual Lot, a dealer inventory app,
headquarters, which can quickly appraise the
lets sales associates quickly search for
car. A Service Pad app simplifies the steps in
vehicles held in inventory by all Sonic
repair and warranty work. In the past,
dealerships. They have immediate access to
customers with cars requiring repairs had to
vehicle information, pricing, trade-in values,
go inside the dealership and sit at a desk with
interest rates, special promotions, financing,
a Sonic staff member who wrote up the repair
and what competitors are charging for
order by hand. Now the Sonic staff members
identical vehicles. The associates can quickly
go outside to the customer's vehicle and enter
find the best selection for each customer and
the repair order on an iPad on the spot.
often offer far more choices than the
competition. Dealers are not limited to selling SKF is a global engineering company
only their own inventory. headquartered in Gothenburg, Sweden, with
140 manufacturing sites in 32 countries and
48,500 employees worldwide. SKF produces
bearings, seals, lubrication systems, and
services used in more than 40 industries,
including mining, transportation, and
manufacturing. SKF has developed more than
30 custom iPhone and iPad applications for
streamlining workflows and accessing critical
corporate data from anywhere in the world.

For example, a virtual reality app uses the

iPhone or iPad camera to identify a factory
machine and produce a 3-D overlay of the
SKF parts it contains. A sensor-driven app
called Shaft Align is used by SKF service
teams and customers in the field. Shaft Align
connects via wireless Bluetooth sensors to a teams can use Shelf to create custom
piece of machinery such as a motor-driven “shelves” to organize, annotate, and share
fan to ensure that the drive shaft is running in materials with customers’ right from their
proper alignment. If not, the app generates iPhones or iPads. The iPhone, iPad, and
step-by-step instructions and a 3-D rendering Shelf app save company sales engineers as
to show how to manually align the motor. much as 25 minutes per day on processes
Then it checks the work and produces a and paperwork, freeing them up to spend
report. more time in the field supporting customers.
This increase in productivity is equivalent to
A mobile app called MOST enables factory
putting 200 more sales engineers in the field.
operators to monitor some SKF factory
production lines. MOST links to the back-end SKF auditors perform about 60 audits per
systems running the machinery and provides year, and each audit used to take more than a
operators with key pieces of data. Operators month to complete. With the SKF Data Collect
using this mobile app are able to use secure app, auditors are able to use their iPads to
instant messaging to communicate with collect data and present customers with
managers and each other, update detailed reports instantly.
maintenance logs, and track products in real
SKF Seals offers specifications and
time as they move through the factory line.
information about SKF's machined and
SKF's Shelf mobile app allows sales injection-molded seals and plastic parts, while
engineers and customers to access on the Seal Select app helps users select seals
demand more than 5,000 pieces of product and accessories using several different input
literature, catalogs, product specifications, parameters to find the right solution for their
and interactive marketing materials. Sales needs.

Sources: “Sonic Automotive: Driving Growth with iPhone and iPad” and “Driving Innovation in the Factory and in the Field with iOS,”
iPhone in Business, www.apple.com, accessed March 31, 2016; www.skf.com, accessed March 31, 2016;
www.sonicautomotive.com, accessed March 31, 2016; and “Why the Mobile Pocket Office Is Good For Business,”
ITBusinesEdge.com, accessed March 6, 2015.