Mobile application for paperless office saves over 1m euro

Here’s an interesting quickie. A mobile app developer called TAAP has released a case study for Ember Lathom, a van hire company. By using mobile devices to keep records instead of paper documents, the company has saved over 1 million euro inside a one year period

The solution involved providing Ember Lathom staff with Windows mobile devices, and creating an office back end system. The entire system was in place in 3 weeks, including branch offices. Quite apart from the money saved on paper, Ember Lathom says that digitalising has improved management reporting. That has allowed them to spot ways to save money and improve customer service

From the case study:

“Prior to the installation of the TAAP electronic system, Ember Lathom personnel would handle all the processes necessary to manage their operations using paper, including:

* initial rental arrangements with the customer;
* vehicle checklists at the time of hire;
* driver scheduling;
* deliveries and collections;
* damage control;
* fuel re-charging

Like many systems, the paper was only the physical manifestation of a fairly sophisticated set of processes, including exceptions and checkpoints, to ensure everything worked smoothly. However, even with the best intentions, the paper process struggled to meet the changing needs of the business.”

What we think?

Mobile devices for companies with field operatives is an area pretty much guaranteed to grow. I like the TAAP implementation here - but I’m more excited about companies who are doing the same thing but using cloud-based systems to do it. People like DeviceAnywhere and the OMTP are making moves in this area. Citrix and OK Labs recently released a solution allowing mobile management running in the home office to port out to ANY mobile device, including feature phones. This system could be even cheaper if Ember hadn’t needed to buy a bunch of Windows PDAs.