Fresh Ideas in Enterprise Mobility

If you’ve ever stayed in an extravagant resort or hotel, what is it that you remember the most about it? Was it the ultra-soft bed, the fine cuisine in the restaurant, the size of the room? Odds are what you remember the most from a great hotel stay is the service. This is what inspires loyalty in customers, and it’s what hotels know can distinguish them from their competition.

By leveraging the latest technology, hotels can offer memorable, personalized service. Knowing when a guest has arrived, their name and loyalty status, and being able to greet them personally is a service enabled by the power of an IP network. Many services and applications, like CATV, video surveillance, wired and wireless high-speed internet access, and onsite communications are all possible through a converged IP infrastructure of Ethernet and WLAN. Hotels can create a truly personalized experience for their guests, which will keep them coming back.

A robust IP network also enables hotels new opportunities for income. In-room entertainment with IPTV like on-demand video and high-definition television can rival and even surpass the services guests have at home. Location-based services and tiered levels of broadband access allow hotels to engage their guests throughout their stay. Having a strong, reliable wireless network makes any property a more desirable location for business conferences, events, and meetings, as organizations can connect with their attendees in new and exciting ways through mobile and social apps.

All of these new services and capabilities through the latest wireless LAN technology mean the hospitality industry is currently in a very interesting period. Being able to engage and connect with guests on a personal level is certainly an exciting opportunity for hotels, and it makes for a more memorable experience as guests seek the ‘ultimate’ experience.

Tom Moore leads Motorola Solutions’ go-to-market strategy and direction for the hospitality and healthcare industries.

For more information about enhancing guest experiences and creating new revenue streams, please read Mobilize Your Hotel, or learn more about Motorola’s suite of hospitality solutions.

Right now, in California, a logistics provider is trying to coordinate shipment containers and checks the overseas shipments schedule for the latest update. Later that day, a distributor in Tokyo accesses his company’s online database for records of the top channel partners in his region. While traditional thinking would suggest that all of these examples would rely on one common element, a wireless network, current demands suggest that these real-world examples require a uniquely tailored wireless network solution built for industrial facilities and use cases.

How does your IT team today determine your company’s current industrial wireless system needs and assess whether they are being met? When was the last time the wireless network at your industrial sites was upgraded or refreshed – does it lag behind the deployment of new mobile devices or applications? Do you need an overhaul or just a tweak? How different are the capabilities of your wireless coverage at these industrial facilities, and are those differences advantageous or harmful to your productivity and profitability at those sites?

Ask yourself these five key questions to gain a better understanding of your current situation and identify areas for improvement:

1. Can your WLAN support reliable mobile connectivity in a complex and dynamic environment?

Think in terms of changing inventory, higher density racking systems, fast-moving vehicles and devices and the increasing demand on your staff, equipment and time. Your wireless network must adapt as your industrial facilities and environments change, ensuring you can meet your customers’ needs now and in the future.

2. Can your network support a broad range of consumer and industrial strength devices?

Extend your thinking beyond the common Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) categories to the wide variety of wireless devices – handheld, tablet, and vehicle mount, for example – needed to conduct your day-to-day business. The multitude of mobile devices can wreak havoc on your wireless network if it’s designed to support legacy portable high-power devices (like laptops) and not today’s truly mobile handhelds.

3. Can your industrial network deliver the optimum amount of bandwidth for each voice, data and video application?

Let’s face it, the demands on broadband are large, and they only are getting larger. Although the 802.11n standard provides significant bandwidth capabilities, and 802.11ac on the horizon provides even more, bandwidth is always finite. Optimization of 802.11n benefits depends largely on how you architect your network, making a solid understanding of your bandwidth needs key to successful operations.

4. Do you have the tools and/or resources to monitor and manage your industrial wireless network and devices in real time?

This can be summarized to a few simple phrases: real-time management and proactive troubleshooting. Downtime is everyone’s worst enemy, but how prepared your team is to ideally prevent and minimize that downtime is the differentiator between a solid industrial wireless network solution and one that needs improvement. Without a robust software toolkit and embedded resiliency and adaptability within your wireless network, your IT staff runs the risk of constantly chasing issues and your operations teams will be constantly frustrated with spotty service and unreliable coverage.  Industrial wireless demands the intelligence within the platform itself to deliver mission-critical performance, and partnerships that can provide flawless service levels to ensure your production and fulfillment operations aren’t interrupted by wireless issues.

5. Can you deploy a unified corporate-wide WLAN optimized for both carpeted and industrial environments?

Companies operating both industrial sites and corporate, carpeted office environments have traditionally had a tough decision to make.  Do they run a bifurcated network where industrial sites are insulated from corporate carpeted sites (and potentially from one another) with purpose-built networks optimized for each, and struggle with a lack of a unified backbone to tie it all together? Or do you make compromises with networking equipment that isn’t optimized for either your industrial sites or corporate sites in the spirit of achieving the greater good of a core common backbone?  New offerings provide the opportunity to optimize your wireless networking equipment with purpose-built solutions for both environments without compromise or tradeoff, and retain the vision of a single unified solution.

These questions reflect the fact that real-world industrial wireless network demands are hectic, intense, demanding and complex, and they come in a wide variety of sizes and shapes. Yet virtually every industrial environment demands a high-speed communications network that is more robust, more efficient and more reliable than any standard system deployed in an office building or corporate headquarters. It’s time to evaluate whether the network in place at your industrial sites and facilities is truly industrial-grade and, if not, what changes you need to make to ensure your employees, assets, and materials at those locations are fully connected  to enhance your productivity and profitability.

Cal Calamari is Global Solutions Lead for Enterprise Networks and Connections at Motorola Solutions.

Read an additional blog by Cal Calamari here. Learn more about wireless LAN networks at www.motorolasolutions.com/wlan and about Motorola’s manufacturing solutions here. Learn more about Motorola’s 802.11ac access points here.

How does mobility affect data security across BYOD?

Mobile technology adoption in healthcare is widespread. According to the 2nd Annual HIMSS Mobile Technology Survey, 45 percent of clinicians now use mobile handsets to collect data at the bedside, a 30 percent increase from 2011. Twenty-five percent of clinicians reported that all data captured by mobile devices integrates directly into their organization's electronic health record. Additionally, 36 percent of providers now allow patients to access their own medical information through patient portals on a mobile device.

This increased use in mobile tools across several facets of the healthcare spectrum demands recognition that security is vital, and a strict Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) policy must be in place and enforced. Data collection, storage and even sharing have become mobile and, as a result, healthcare environments must design boundaries to ensure patient information remains secure. The conundrum, however, is to also ensure that information is readily available and easily accessible to those who have the right to access. In other words, fencing the data to make it secure must not interfere with the ability to quickly and easily access the information. This would slow down caregivers and discourage patients in the process.

When thinking of mobility and data security, it’s important to step back and consider the separate stakeholders when it comes to BYOD. First are the healthcare providers, i.e., the doctors, nurses and technicians, who bring their personal devices to work. These stakeholders want their smartphones and tablets to work on the hospital’s or clinic’s network with the ability to access HIS, CIS, PAC, lab and other networked systems containing patient data. It’s up to the information technology department to provide that access while ensuring the data exchange remains secure.

Because these healthcare providers use their personal devices to access the health system’s network and applications to conduct their day-to-day activities, facilities must develop data security strategies that provide the same secure access for personal devices as for enterprise-grade devices purchased and maintained by the hospital. A doctor on call needs to access the healthcare records of his patient from home as easily and securely as he does when he is sitting at his desk with his work-issued laptop.

Second are the patient-access BYOD stakeholders. These are patients, visitors or family members who, for one reason or another, need to access the health system’s network while they are on campus. You need a BYOD policy that not only supports the healthcare providers who enter the data into your systems, but also considers the guest access of others trying to review their medical history, or spend time on internet sites to view local news, sports scores or online shopping while they are on your campus.

The network security protocols of patient access cannot come at the expense of secure data exchange at the provider level. Information exchange must be secure for the providers who ultimately access the same network as your guests. With the increase in mobility across healthcare, it is crucial to consider all side effects, specifically when it comes to data security. Putting the fence around the stakeholders while allowing easy, timely and guarded access will reduce the risk, improve the user experience, and help you meet your goals of developing and implementing a sound, reliable and trustworthy security strategy that supports a BYOD mobile environment for caregivers and patients alike.

Vivian J. Funkhouser is Global Healthcare Solutions Principal with Motorola Solutions, Inc.

Read additional blogs by Vivian Funkhouser, including:

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Today's customers can interact with a retailer's brand on their mobile phone or tablet, through social media or the old-fashioned way of physically visiting the store. With customers more connected than ever before, retailers must adapt to this omnichannel reality in order to succeed. Creating a seamless customer experience through all channels of engagement is vital, as omnichannel shoppers purchase five times more from a brand than someone using only one channel.

Customers are “omnichannel shopping” more and more, by researching products online, checking pricing and available inventory, and purchasing either from brick-and-mortar or online stores. Also, people can now see something in a store and look for a better price online immediately. One retail study showed that nearly 20 percent of customers who ordered a product online or over the phone for an in-store pickup actually left without the product they purchased because it could not be located. Retailers need to be able to satisfy these omnichannel customers. One tool available to retailers to help is RFID.

RFID can improve retailers’ inventory accuracy and control because it helps them count faster, count more frequently, and provides accurate locationing, which then gives them the confidence to share that inventory information with customers for flexible fulfillment. Specifically, RFID improves stock disposition and the way a customer interacts with a retailer’s data by taking regular cycle counts. It can update a stock ledger on a regular basis, tracking item movement in and out of fitting rooms and transitional portals. The result is the accuracy with which data is exchanged between retailer and customer becomes more precise, allowing retailers to expand their omnichannel presence. Item-level RFID tagging is proving to deliver product inventory data that is up to 99.5% accurate.[1] This grows the reputation of the brand, and enhances the customer experience, item by item.

Susan Flake is Director of RFID Business Development at Motorola Solutions, Inc.

For more information about RFID and omnichannel retailing, please read the RFID Omnichannel Superstar white paper, or view the suite of Motorola’s RFID solutions at www.motorolasolutions.com/RFID.

Read an additional blog by Susan Flake here.

[1] Third party case studies produced by Motorola partners and universities.

The Sheraton Dallas is a premiere hotel located in a highly competitive hospitality market. So when more and more customers began demanding a faster Internet connection, it was decided to upgrade the old DSL system that had been struggling to serve 1,840 guest rooms.

Better: Less is a Lot More

The old system in the Sheraton Dallas used combined wired DSL/wireless access point units that served not only the rooms they were located in, but a number of adjacent rooms as well. As you can imagine, this slowed things down, causing delays. And delays in Internet service are a big headache for guests, which turn into an even bigger headache for hotel management. Not to mention the sheer number of DSL units that required troubleshooting and maintenance.

The hotel decided to test Motorola’s WiNG 5 802.11n WLAN solutions in one of its three towers. It replaced all of the old DSL units that were in many guest rooms with only two Motorola access points on each floor, one at each end of the hallway.

Faster: Virtually Unlimited Bandwidth

The test’s results showed the new Internet infrastructure built was performing extremely well for the Sheraton, showing a clear end to the number one type of complaint from its customers: Internet service issues. The faster speed helped bring down the costs and time devoted to troubleshooting connectivity issues, and Internet complaints decreased significantly with the new WiNG 5 system. Plus, the hotel was able to increase revenue by offering a tiered fee structure, something they simply couldn’t do with a DSL system. All three towers of the Sheraton Dallas were quickly changed to the new Motorola WLAN.

Stronger: Industry Position from Technology Edge

In a very competitive market, having the latest high-speed Internet and reliable Wi-Fi is a big advantage. Hotel guests have an ever-increasing number of mobile devices, and they expect reliable Wi-Fi in their hotel, whether they are there for business or pleasure. Fast, 24/7 access gives the Sheraton Dallas the edge in providing service and hospitality. And since this hotel is in Dallas, it’s fitting that it provides more bandwidth than any other hotel in the country. Because everything’s bigger in Texas!

Tom Moore leads Motorola Solutions’ go-to-market strategy and direction for the hospitality and healthcare industries.

For more information, please read “The Sheraton Dallas Hotel Offers Guests Texas-Size Bandwidth” white paper.

Learn more about Guest Wi-Fi solutions from Motorola Solutions.