Fostering Mobile Technology Value Proposition through User Participation: Results from two Industrial Case Studies

Mobile technology within corporate IT-Systems is a major and still increasing issue. Although the usage of mobile technologies for business processes is far behind expectations, still little research has been done in analyzing critical success factors for mobile technology acceptance and application after replacing a former paper-based process within the IT-Service domain. Therefore a mobile workforce solution for IT- Service technicians has been implemented and usability tested. Different extents of user centered design during the development and deployment of a mobile tool for service technicians have been observed in two industrial case studies. Major results are (a) same archetypical business process metrics are affected after mobile tool deployment in different IT-Service companies, (b) major process improvements arise not from faster job processing but from faster and more accurate data access and transmission and (c) user participation in business process reengineering and mobile tool development fosters tool acceptance and reduces the return on investment time.