MMH Reports "Automation: Voice or WMS"

Why Are Some End Users Turning to Voice Rather Than Upgrade Their Legacy WMS for New Functionality?

That's the question posed by Bob Trebilcock, Executive Editor of Modern Materials Handling, in his May 17, 2013 article "Automation: Voice or WMS." His article indicates that "rightly or wrongly, companies view a WMS implementation as risky, costly and painful. It’s one of the reasons most companies keep their WMS in place for a decade or longer, even when that system is no longer meeting all of a company’s needs."

Trebilcock referenced survey questions posed to companies by Ian Hobkirk, managing director of Commonwealth Supply Chain Advisors. Hobkirk "noticed a trend among clients that are implementing workarounds to extend the life of a legacy WMS."  Hobkirk says. “Each has a legacy WMS that isn’t very flexible. They would rather install a workaround than upgrade their WMS.”

In addition to creating workaround code for the existing WMS, Hobkirk adds, “many companies are deploying voice to achieve functionality that is going to be too hard to get through the WMS alone..."

Unfortunitely, for many warehouse professionals, adding voice is a two-edged sword due to the costs and complexity of integrating a server-based proprietary picking system to their existing WMS. Supply Chain Insights  2013 Power of Voice Research Report, reports the Top Three Reasons why distribution professionals avoid voice technology  are 1) “too expensive” ; 2) [as a result] ‘too many competing priorities”, and; 3) “hard to integrate with other systems.

Innovation in voice technology has eliminate this 'Rock and a Hard Place" senario for the WMS market. Mobile innovation means voice placed solely on the mobile device avoids completely the high risk and fear associated with traditional server-based integration.

Retailers ‘Out-of Stock’ Losses $70 Billion, A Practical Alternative



By Gary Bockhold, President, Waterview Corporation

 

Does this sound familiar?  Your customers walk into your national retail chain stores to make a “need-it now” purchase and as they walk the aisles to the desired department they pick a couple of impulse items that are merchandised on your store’s end caps, power wings or floor displays. But, when your customers arrive at the location of their “need-it-now” product(s) they discover it’s OUT OF STOCK!

 

Disappointment and frustration kicks-in. The customer drops the impulse items and walk out of the store empty-handed and race to your retail competitor’s location. There they find their “need-it-now” product and likely additional impulse purchases.  Is there anything worse than losing the revenue from your frustrated customers?  You bet there is. You also lose the customer loyalty to your store brand to your competitor.

 

Unfortunately this ‘out-of-stock” (OOS) scenario remains an all-too-common costly occurrence for the retail industry. The national average OOS at retail chain stores is estimated at 7% which results in lost sales and more importantly dissatisfied customers.

 

The Top Ten National Retail Chains have annual sales in excess of $1 Trillion which translates to $70 Billion in lost sales due to out of stocks. The overhead and time consuming burden on in-store personnel to quickly, frequently and accurately perform inventory and cycle counts has yet to reduce OOS outages. At the store level retailers run a complete inventory about twice a year, just prior to peak season, and prior to the spring season. Otherwise interim weekly inventories counts seldom account for all SKUs, resulting a year round accuracy rate of 70% or less, with accuracy degrading by 2% to 3% each month. What a task...  hundreds of thousands of SKUs, across hundreds of store locations. 

 

How can retailers curtail these ongoing and excessive OOS losses? Mobile innovation has delivered a new-to-retail and cost efficient solution to speed the execution of more periodic and more accurate inventory counts, while avoiding increases in new personnel and related overhead costs.

 

One such innovation is the AccuSpeech Mobile Voice Solution for Existing In-Store MobileApplications, when installed on your existing mobile in-store devices can reduce OOS outages and related losses by allowing your personnel to run inventory counts with faster and more accurate voice commands and confirmations. By leveraging voice technology OOS outages can be reduced by at least 20% or more. What does 20% translate in savings for your retail operation?  For an industry still reeling from a 7% OOS,  improving retail stores OOSs by as much as 1% can result in annual incremental sales of $10 Billion based on the above scenario…simply by ensuring more stock availability.

 

For more information, call AccuSpeechMobile at 949-435-1001 Ext. 222, Waterview Corporation at 912-236-3295 or click here to join me and AccuSpeechMobile staff in a personal Web Briefing at your convenience. I would be glad to discuss and examine with you practical solutions for improving in-stock positions and most importantly approaches to keeping your customers coming back.

 

R.G. Bockhold
Waterview Corporation



About Waterview Corporation

Mr. Gary Bockhold is a seasoned professional with over 40 years of distinguished leadership in Sales, Marketing, Management and Executive Experience in the Consumer Packaged Goods Industry with both National and Store Brands. As president and CEO of Waterview Corporation he has developed over $200 Million in new business at manufacturing selling prices since 1996 while working with and supplying products to every national and regional retail chain.

 

 

Cabela's Ramps Up Technology Rollouts

The Retail Information News (RIS) article ‘Cabela’s Ramps Up Technology Rollouts’ reports that the omnichannel retailer continues to make technology “investments and advancements in its store, its customers and its technology to stay ahead of the curve. It has done so with its use of inventory, improved forecasting, analytics, and the many ways the retailer engages with its customers both inside and outside of the store.”

Cabela’s implementation and optimization of its “omni “or multi-channel distribution processes includes the use of AccuSpeechMobile’s voice solution to increase the speed and accuracy of its 1000 plus order fulfillment workers. 

 

The web-video “On the Path to Saving $1Million Per Year” Cabela’s Sr. Business Process Improvement Manager, Kevin Thompson, underscores how Cabela’s has been leveraging AccuSpeechMobile to deliver not only substantial cost reductions, but also improved inventory management, reductions in workforce training cycles and related costs, and improved customer satisfaction.

 

At Cabela’s three national distribution centers, the company’s warehouse workers speed the completion of orders across three distribution channels, retail stores, e-commerce and catalogues using instant voice commands and responses. The Cabela's WMS from Mahattan Associates was voice-enabled by 2 members of Thompson's Business Process Improvement Team using the  wizard-based AccuSpeechMobile Customization Console, which enables Cabela's mobile devices to deliver all the necessary voice capabilities while avoiding any complex server integration with the WMS application

The Top 3 Reasons Distribution Professionals Avoid Deloying Voice For Their WMS

But Innovation Can Change Everything.

Supply Chain Insights 2013 Survey “ The Value Proposition of Voice-Directed Warehousing” revealed the top three reasons for not adopting voice productivity for the warehouse.  With continued focus on pioneering voice technologies that depend on complex, costly server-based integration with a customer’s WMS, the results were not surprising. The survey indicated from both voice users and non-voice users, that WMS Voice solutions  were:  1) “too expensive” ;  2) [as a result] ‘too many competing priorities”, and; 3) “hard to integrate with other systems”.

The 2012 Aberdeen Group Survey, “Voice Users Speak Out”  just a year earlier indicated that the majority  of companies that have made substantial investments in older server-dependent voice technologies, find it difficult to justify the high costs to maintain their investments  in voice due to the high cost of change management. Here’s what they said.

• 42% due to cost considerations, we “batch” a number of changes together so that we   can justify the time and money to get the changes done
• 37% We don’t consider changes because the cost to have the vendor modify the application is just too high
• 26% We’ve paid too much for changes that seemed trivial to us 

The Aberdeen Group Survey said “The remarkable thing here is that cost is the top concern. Majority of all current voice users have a major issue when changes to voice apps are needed. They either delay change until they can justify paying to open/update the code, or they avoid change altogether”.

The good news is how leading enterprises have proven the impact of AccuSpeechMobile’s all-mobile voice innovation and how it seamlessly voice-enables your actual WMS applications and workflows... eliminating any server-based integration.  Voice innovation means distribution professionals can get all the control they want over voice deployment, speed in implementation and the ability to implement voice changes quickly and cost efficiently.

Innovation has made a difference. Here’s an AccuSpeechMobile customer that’s leveraged innovation to achieve substantial cost savings and business process improvements.

 

PodCast: Vangard CEO on Future of Voice Productivity for the Mobile Workforce

Bob Bova discusses how new mobile voice solutions power mobile workforces with new gains in productivity and capability.

'VoiceExpress' - ‘A Snail Being Mugged by a Turtle'

By Dan Villanueva
Vice President, Marketing
Vangard Voice Systems

Martin Henry Fischer, a German-born,  early 20th century American physician, chemist, and professor of physiology at the University of Cincinnati, known for his research in colloid chemistry said ‘that a conclusion is a place, where you got tired of thinking’.   Last week on April 19th, less than 90 days after the release of a January 2012 Aberdeen Report critical of its pioneering voice technology, Vocollect Introduced Voice Express.

In short the Aberdeen Survey reflected user frustration about the complexity, costs, human resource drain, and integration, required to make voice changes to WMS workflows and applications.

42% of the voice users surveyed by Aberdeen said they batched their voice changes until the work effort was cost-justified. Worse yet, 37% said they simply didn’t make the voice changes at all. 50% said they needed a voice solution that is easier to integrate with their WMS. 33% said they needed a solution that eliminates the excessive cost to make voice changes. These and other related acquisition related factors underscore why after 20 years only 8% of the applicable WMS market has adopted voice productivity in the warehouse.

Vocollect’s press release declares that VoiceExpress (the 5th in a series of server-based, integration dependent interfaces) will “minimize their [customer’s] need to modify the host or tap precious IT resources." 

The initial VoiceExpress includes middleware, client software to initially upgrade multi-vendor vehicle-mount and fixed-mount computers, and again continued dependence the Voice Artisan (custom code development) to aide certified partners and customers to re-engineer voice processes.

Professor Fisher's view is relevant here. VoiceExpress…is a place Vocollect arrived at last week, after being tired of thinking.  Another server-based  ‘interface’ is not the answer for its customers, it’s actually the underlying architectural  problem.

By design it’s causing the frustration of Vocollect customers, and adoption resistance for the remaining 92% of the non-voice installed WMS market.  As long as the IT server is the center for voice integration, the related costs and complexity will  slow WMS voice productivity penetration and adoption.

The solution is to be found in mobility, not the back-end IT infrastructure. VoiceExpress might be incrementally faster, but compared to what? It’s  like the snail, being mugged by the turtle. When asked to describe the mugger, the snail said, I can’t… it all happened too fast’.  

If a fully mobile voice solution alternative powered from the device was an option, why would WMS professionals intentionally complicate their IT server environment with unnecessary voice applications,  links, interfaces and integration?

Today large warehouse operations are using mobile innovation that completely circumvent the IT server. Now WMS voice functionality and application integration is delivered, seamlessly and solely from the mobile device. 

Mobile innovation changes everything.   A genuine solution, not a conclusion. The answer is a simplified mobile architecture for voice-upgrading any WMS, ERP workflow or application.   

WMS in the Cloud: The Power of the Mobile Device, Often Ignored

By Dan Villanueva
Vice President, Marketing
Vangard Voice Systems

The excitement, projections, and growth anticipation about enterprise cloud computing in general and WMS-in-the-Cloud specifically, in time will be an absolute game changer for the SMB marketplace. It’s a no-brainer, once the SMB market, not typically risk takers, are satisfied that it can entrust their business to this evolving distribution model.

Few doubt this value in the model or and all hope that this innovation 'evens the playing field' for all customers.

However, the ‘Rodney Dangerfield’ of cloud-computing’s future is the role of the mobile device in this proposition. It’s not always just about ‘the cloud’ per se. It’s also about the increasing power of today’s mobile devices. So significant, the ruggedized mobile computer can also function as the ‘mobile server’ driving the all the on-board data access and data collection capabilities to support a diverse mobile workforce.

Our recent partnership with BellHawk Systems Corporation exemplifies how sophisticated manufacturing, industrial and retail supply chain applications can be cloud-deployed to devices operating a web-browser, or alternately as a .Net application. The .Net application can operate in a wireless and un-wired store-for-forward environment. When bandwidth is available, the flexibility allows the updating of back-end data bases and other associated applications.

This mobile paradigm continues to reassert itself with our device-centric, server-less voice solution for existing mobile applications. Because of mobile innovation we offer ‘voice made easy'. All of yesterdays complexity, simplified on today’s mobile platform.

The upside of wireless mobility and mobile voice deployments remains its lower cost to buy, apply and maintain compared to server-based and dependent implementations. PLUS it offers the flexibility to deploy over the cloud. And we owe this architectural alternative to the power of the ruggedized mobile computer, the new server, in a mobile world.

Enterprises Report Frustration with Outdated ‘Pioneering’ WMS Voice Technology

by Dan Villanueva

It was no surprise to us when a recent research report was published indicating that enterprises using older ‘pioneering’ voice technologies in their DCs were disappointed with both the costs and complexity of their existing (server-based) WMS Voice implementations. The report indicated the WMS voice users were using outdated rigid architectures, incapable of keeping up with rapidly changing business processes.

The survey indicated that because of the lack of flexibility and the substantial change management costs related to their existing WMS voice solution, that when business processes changed:

• 42% said ‘we batch a number of changes together to justify the time and money’, or;

• unbelievably, 37% said ‘we don’t consider [voice] changes because the cost to have the vendor modify the [WMS] application is just too high.

Three Steps Backwards

Imagine that. Voice productivity is all about optimizing your workforce, streamlining business processes and remaining competitive. Now, enterprises are ‘taking three steps backwards’.
They either delay voice productivity upgrades to their WMS until they can afford it, or avoid them all together. Why, because 1990’s voice technology, simply can’t keep up with today’s fluid distribution processes. Again, we're not surprised by the results of the survey. And our customers…they know better.

Innovation changes everything. Discover how mobile voice innovation can be a game changer in your distribution system.

‘Voice Picking Not Gaining Traction’, After 20 Years, Why?

By Dan Villanueva

It’s taken some by surprise that Logistics Management’s 2011 Warehouse & DC Operation’s Survey (Web Cast)reported a down-turn in the use of voice-directed picking by companies in the operations and fulfillment world. Only 3% of the companies surveyed in 2011 indicated the use of voice-directed picking, a down turn from the 5% in the 2010 LM Survey. Conversely, RF [barcode scan] Picking increased to 42% in 2011, compared to 37% in 2010. So why the shock? After 20 years of evolution, voice technology has only achieved 8% penetration of the applicable WMS market (Tern Systems, 2011 Voice in the Supply Chain).

Everyone knows this. That’s not the point. There’s other recent research that predicts an increase in voice picking in the next few years. That’s not the point.

The broader question is: Why has WMS voice, after 20 years only penetrated a fraction of the applicable WMS market? And, is there something to learn from much deeper market penetration of barcode scanning technology in warehouse operations?

Bill Kuipers, president of operations consultancy Spaide, Kuipers & Co. in Voice-Directed Picking Not Gaining Traction says his clients tell him these[server-based]voice systems are too complex and expensive in terms of required [server]integration, new hardware and the need for additional server-based middleware. He’s absolutely right. In addition, these expensive voice implementations also require a significant change in business processes, which adds yet another dimension of business risk to the proposition. Only certain types and size companies will use them, leaving the remaining 92% of the WMS market off-the-table for voice.

So as ESPN’s Chris Carter says, C’mon Man! Barring the adoption of a lower cost, simplified voice innovation, yesterday’s ‘pioneering’, complex server-dependent voice technologies, will remain the distant productivity ‘step-child’ compared to RF Scan Picking. For many warehouse professionals it’s like choosing between the complexity of brain surgery to an out-patient colonoscopy. How many warehouse professionals are willing ‘bet the farm’ or their jobs on such complex and risky voice implementations? Compared to these older voice technologies, RF Scan Picking is simply a lower-risk, higher return WMS productivity option for large and particularly small and medium size companies finally converting from paper. Unlike barcode scanning, these legacy voice architectures, are by design, incapable of capturing a substantial portion of the WMS market. It’s a technological reality, reflected by marketplace statistics.

The January 2011 DC Velocity article ‘Voice Made Easy’ reports there is a next generation fully mobile WMS voice alternative to the risk and expense of older pioneering voice technologies.

In 'Voice Made Easy' Kevin Thompson, senior system manager for distribution for Cabelas’ World’s Foremost Outfitters, found a completely mobile, ‘server-less’ voice solution that seamlessly integrates with their Manhattan WMS that supports 3 national distribution centers and 1100 warehouse workers. Thompson said “both productivity and accuracy have jumped since the voice technology was deployed”. But here’s the kicker, The DC Velocity article goes on to say that “ in Thompson’s eyes one of the key selling points of the new system has been the ease of integration and low costs."

By completely eliminating the IT server as center of voice services and WMS integration and placing all integration and voice on today’s powerful mobile devices, voice productivity can become an affordable, practical and high value productivity option for the remaining 92% of the WMS market.

’Hands-Free, Eyes-Free Voice Productivity’: For Many a Hollow Promise

by Bob Bova

For many IT professionals responsible for supporting large mobile workforces at Fortune Class companies, the promise of ‘hands-free, eyes-free voice productivity’ is quite possibly, with few exceptions, the most disappointing mobile and wireless technology in the last decade. Many have either ignored it, been sucker-punched by it, under-whelmed by the actual functionality and often shocked by the investment required to deploy it. Even we have stopped using the ‘hands-free, eyes-free’ moniker. It has become a hollow, throw-away expression to those seriously evaluating productivity solutions.

In the world of voice (or speech recognition) technologies, what does ‘hands-free, eyes-free really mean? Because of excessive hype and poor performance, it means limited and often unreliable voice functionality…yet its declared a productivity solution. It’s like mobile hardware manufactures charging you $2K for a mobile computer with only 2 F-Keys and 10 alphabet keys.

Voice has been credited for what would be consider fairly simplistic mobile functions. Say you’re a director of store operations for 5 retail locations in your district. On your mobile device, you use a voice command to search and call up a sales performance report for your Poughkeepsie location from your back-end database. Boom. There it is. OMG! ‘Scotty you’re a miracle worker! But still you have to stop, look down and read the report. Is voice search ‘technically’ hands-free, eyes-free? I suppose…technically.

Are simple voice functions like ‘go to my documents’ and voice search, real productivity accelerators? If so, we all owe an apology to Motorola Solutions, Intermec, LXE, Psion Teklogix and the other enterprise mobile computer manufacturers. They market powerful mobile devices used for a myriad of complex work directed applications; i.e., warehouse management, mobile inspections, dispatch & delivery, mobile maintenance and repair. These devices are often used by very capable multi-tasking workforces, each worker pivoting from application to application, using the device to guide them through reporting, business process flow, specific work dynamics and truly provide a level of productivity unthinkable even 4 years ago. That’s productivity. Voice search? Not so much.

Now let's raise the ante. If you’re a police officer, 1st responder, electric, a warfighter, what voice capabilities would make you genuinely‘hands-free-eyes free’?

To serve as a legitimate productivity alternative voice technology must mean complete voice collaboration between you and your existing mobile applications. And that means: 1) voice driven navigation for all application and device commands; 2) the ability to collect heavy data needed for mobile complex transactions and reporting, and; 3) it must mean that your mobile computer should be able to talk to you, voice reporting or alerting you with the information you want or need, when and where you need it. And all these capabilities need to be easily adaptable to all mobile workforce applications, not just for warehouse workers, but anyone in the field dependent on industry grade mobile apps.

Now, if Scotty can build you a voice solution that can do that…then genuine voice productivity can follow in the foot-steps of today's mainstream mobile and wireless productivity technologies.

WMS Voice and Voice Picking: Only 8% Market Penetration?

by Bob Bova

In the 2011 study ‘Voice Technology in the Supply Chain 2011’ developed by Tern Systems, Inc., it was confirmed that only 8% of the potential WMS market that could be taking advantage of voice directed applications were actually doing so. Why is voice data collection a ‘second cousin’ to barcode scanning, RFID and other ADC technologies? The pioneering voice technologies which brought voice to the warehouse in the early 90’s proved the productivity metric for WMS voice (especially for voice picking and cycle counting). So why has such a small segment of the WMS market embraced voice technology… what’s the other 92% of market worried about?

Our company markets our voice solution to scores of supply chain professionals, that manage a variety of mobile applications that support mobile workforces serving both Fortune Class and SMB markets. When we ask them why they have resisted the adoption voice productivity solutions, they tend to categorize their objections in four areas; business risk, relative performance of existing systems, complexity, and costs.

One customer said, ‘I have an existing high performance WMS system, my small warehouse team is knocking out 22+ million pieces a year. I just couldn’t justify, the change in my business processes and the costly complex server-integration from the other vendors in exchange the bump in promised productivity. Another customer said “ I want to implement productivity improvements quickly, when and where we determine it works best, the other guys didn’t offer me that…they’re implementations are simply too complex, and didn’t provide the flexibility we needed.”

The complexity of legacy voice systems over the last 20 years have been costly, resource intensive endeavors, in most instances leaving the small and medium size business (SMBs) out of the picture. Even larger companies have blanched at the inflexible implementations that require substantial investment and 12-18 months for deployment and training.

We don’t own the crystal ball on all things regarding the WMS market…but my guess is the 92% of the non-voice market have resisted voice productivity for a combination of these and other reasons.

It has always been our goal to alter the resistance to voice productivity, not only in WMS marketplace, but for mobile applications throughout the supply chain…from mobile field services, mobile inspections, dispatch and delivery, mobile maintenance and repair, wherever mobile workforces are deployed. IT professionals are managing huge inventories of custom built and commercial applications, supporting ‘boots-on-the-ground’ mobile workforces. The voice productivity metric proved in the warehouse market, is viable for the entire supply chain.

Like other ADC technologies, voice technology should be easy-to-adopt and applicable across the supply chain, an additive benefit not a huge rip and replace money pit. It should not be relegated to a specific terminal emulation or hardware platform; voice should be flexible, dependable and reliable on all software presentation products (terminal emulation flavors, .NET. browsers) and all types of mobile hardware (smartphones, bar code scanners, tablets, laptops, PC’s etc). The evolution of device based voice technology now empowers business operations to get real work done faster and more efficiently, to bolster profitability.

Voice can now be embraced as a strategic direction for enterprise wide mobile applications, providing the operations teams with new incremental productivity, while providing the IT departments the assurance of ease of integration, implementation, use and management.

Cloud vs. SaaS WMS: A Level Productivity Playing Field

by Dan Villanueva

What’s great about the Cloud-SaaS debate is that innovation provides greater opportunity for a level productivity playing field. The small to mid-size companies with a smaller mobile workforce can adopt evolving distribution technology, benefit from faster, more accurate distribution, without ‘breaking the bank’. The one constant continues to be change. WMS customer-demand is driving it. Innovation delivers it.

Chad Collins, VP of Marketing and Strategy for HighJump Software makes a great case for extending WMS capabilities through the cloud. Specifically, the distinctions between cloud, SaaS and Hosted services, and the criteria for successful adoption. His point is that its not just about lower costs, its also about the level of customization that even the small and medium size warehouse operations need. He’s right, ‘one-size’ seldom fits all, neither does one price. Any warehouse professional, advocating for any size warehouse operation will assess business requirements and risk with affordability, cost-justification and return on investment.

The attraction of a cloud based/subscription costing model for WMS applications has to be tugging at warehouse management professionals. The ability to walk away from hardware maintenance, upgrades, software costs would be freeing for these overworked folks; problem is that the applications are generic in nature; not focusing on core business differentiators that the staffs have taken years to perfect providing substantive process improvements, productivity gains and exploiting multi modal approaches to very complex WMS needs.

If you’re a proponent of the WMS SaaS model, you're likely to suggest that cost, customization and flexibility can be addressed by process models and business rules.

Regardless of which side of the SaaS vs.Cloud fence one might sit on, the reality is that after a two year economic down turn, all of a sudden HighJump and a handful of its competitors will fight over a WMS market CAGR of 8.2 percent (TechNavio), through 2014…a substantial portion of the anticipated market growth will from small and medium business sector.

A Level Playing Field for Voice Productivity
We assessed the same business dynamics, when developing our voice productivity solution for warehouse, field services and other mobile workforce solutions. We saw the limitations and substantial integration costs of existing server-based, server-dependent voice solutions, the costly integration, upgrades and maintenance placed voice productivity out-of-reach for many companies, large or small. Research underscored that only a fraction of the total WMS market could afford the expensive voice pioneering technologies, for voice picking, receiving and inventory management, nor would they risk the change to their business processes to adopt it.

So we built a voice productivity solution completely and seamlessly delivered from the mobile computer… circumventing the server as the point of application voice integration. Integration with the WMS or other SCM application is achieved completely on and from, the mobile device, allowing customized voice functionality to support the specific needs of the customer. By design, we eliminated the substantial acquisition and maintenance costs associated with server-based solutions, and provided maximum customization and enabling voice productivity for any size business.

Like cloud and SaaS customer options, innovation created a level playing field for voice productivity… for any size business operation, for any mobile SCM application, at a cost-justifiable price. Whether the customer’s WMS is on-premise, or delivered via cloud, SaaS, ASP or other hosted systems, the customer wins.

Apple's Siri and the Star Trek Syndrome

by Bob Bova

There is so much hype, spin, and dare I say manufactured excitement  about SIRI voice, and before that with  Google Voice. And again, after a closer examination, Siri is nowhere near ready for prime time.   Voice will continue to be heavily covered in the consumer space because analysts and bloggers have what our late, great Director of Engineering, David Seifert, used to call Star Trek syndrome. You should speak and the door should open.  Cool, yes, but really…what’s voice good for, if you’re not providing a  legitimate alternative for getting real work done…faster.

Voice:  The Cool Factor Vs. Real Work

Most mobile enterprise IT professionals know that the performance bar is much higher for enterprise mobile solutions supporting mobile workforces.  They know that the ‘cool factor’  has it’s fascination for speech enabled devices that surf the web, find the closest Starbucks, dial their phone and attempt to dictate an email message.  Whether it’s Siri or Google Voice, both still have a long way to go.   Better  noise cancellation capabilities, for one, without it, forget the ‘voice  anywhere’ option. Then there’s the network and server dependency. Siri and Google Voice are storing and processing millions of usage and voice patterns, of course doing some “thinking” via artificial intelligence.  The Cloud Server Farms must be the size of Australia.  That’s why there’s latency, and it will impact the user experience.  As long as the voice processing occurs OUT THERE, you’re going to wait. And for the enterprise professional none of this matters unless you can easily integrate this technology with their existing COTS or custom-built mobile workforce apps. Which you can’t.

It’s OK for consumers playing with their SIRI on their IPhones, but completely unusable for the mobile voice market serving industry-grade and corporate applications designed for ‘ WORK’.

That’s right, WORK.  The new four letter word for the consumer market. While analysts and bloggers  trumpet the latest and greatest way to open your garage door by using your voice on your IPhone,  today’s U.S and International companies strive to provide the next level of mobile workforce productivity,  worker safety, and training. They examine voice and other technologies that will stretch their workforce’s performance. They are employing voice to speed  warehouse management, mobile inspections, field mobility, mobile maintenance and repair, dispatch, delivery and dozens of other industry grade applications. These voice-powered applications work on very sophisticated handheld devices including bar code scanners, RFiD readers, Smartphones, custom hardware and tablets….with 99% accuracy…… its user independent…..and it’s been available for years.   Voice technology has already reached beyond the warehouse and call center,  to mobile enterprise applications and devices supporting mobile workforces with 24/7, anywhere, anytime voice productivity.  It has been, and continues to deliver an unbelievable ROI for those companies. 

We voice enable our  customer’s mobile applications and devices to stimulate real work productivity, with  a reliable interactive voice option to keyboard and touch screen.  Its  already performing today, in prime time, to get real work done, faster.