Windows Mobile Customer Solution Case Study

Global Manufacturer Empowers Employees, Increases Efficiency with Mobile Solution

Overview “We’re a large, global organization competing with Country or Region: United States regional companies that can act and adapt quickly. Industry: Manufacturing … Windows Mobile helps us move more nimbly, Customer Profile more like our smaller competitors.” Headquartered in Denver, Colorado, Gates Corporation is a manufacturer of Greg Vigil, Director of Global Enterprise Collaboration, Gates Corporation belt and hose products serving the industrial and automotive markets. It has 13,500 employees and operations in 22 With manufacturing facilities and customers spanning the globe, countries. Gates Corporation, a leading maker of automotive and industrial

Business Situation belts and hoses, needed a better way for employees to work The company did not have a cohesive while away from the office. Customers demanded faster mobility strategy and wanted to provide its executives, salespeople, and other responses, and the company needed to react with the agility of employees with mobile access to e-mail, its smaller competitors. Gates established a Mobility Center of documents, and line-of-business applications. Excellence and adopted a comprehensive mobility strategy that

included standardizing on Windows Mobile® powered Solution As part of a strategic collaboration smartphones and Pocket PCs. Gates is finding that employees initiative, Gates chose to standardize on are using their devices to work more efficiently, with a greater Windows Mobile® powered devices, including smartphones and Pocket PCs. emphasis on strategic efforts. The company plans to expand its use of Windows Mobile powered devices to include remote Benefits  Increased productivity and efficiency access to business applications, which will increase the value of  Faster response to issues the devices by improving the speed and quality of customer  User-friendly interface for minimal learning curve service.  Device flexibility and availability Situation files. “Because we depend on them to keep As a leading manufacturer of belts and our business aligned with strategic hoses, Gates Corporation primarily serves initiatives, our executives needed to be the industrial and automotive original able to receive and respond to key equipment and replacement markets. The information from the road,” says Vigil. company sells its products directly to original equipment manufacturers and tier- In response, Gates had originally deployed one suppliers as well as through a network RIM BlackBerry devices and BlackBerry of 150,000 distributors and dealers Enterprise Server for executive use. The worldwide. devices, however, did not provide comprehensive service; executives felt that Gates has 13,500 employees and they lacked essential functionality, such as manufacturing facilities in 22 countries, and the ability to view and manipulate it serves customers across the globe. attachments in a high-quality manner. Therefore, company executives, salespeople, and others with cross- Elsewhere in the organization, mobile functional responsibilities spend a devices had not been adopted at all. Gates significant amount of time on the road, saw an opportunity to improve workflow for visiting customers and Gates sites around its salespeople and other internal business the world. personnel by establishing mobile device use across the company. One after-market The Information Technology group began sales group, for example, struggled to to sense a growing expectation among its report and track sales activities and even internal constituents and external place orders in a timely manner because customers that responsiveness should not the processes were so time-consuming, be limited by how close employees are to requiring salespeople to toggle between their desks. “Our customers are demanding the company’s customer relationship faster product lifecycles as well as quicker management (CRM) system and its pricing and better service in what is a high-volume, and inventory systems. competitive, global marketplace,” says Greg Vigil, Director of Global Enterprise “With such cumbersome, labor-intensive Collaboration at Gates Corporation. procedures, salespeople tend to wait until “Business doesn’t stop when we leave the the end of the week to complete their work, office. It’s all about speed to market. We which means that orders aren’t placed needed to demonstrate that a worldwide quickly,” says Vigil. “Putting a CRM corporation like ours can react and deliver application on a mobile device will a level of customer service that is as high eventually allow us to unify our systems as that of smaller, regional companies.” and be more responsive to customers through the use of mobile devices.” Additionally, Gates executives began to request around-the-clock access not only The need for mobile devices was not to e-mail messages, but also to their restricted to Gates executives and schedules, tasks, contacts, and important salespeople. The company’s Industrial “Exchange Server Power Transmission group is made up of That systematic approach helped allay the engineers who visit customer locations to company’s concerns about the financial 2003, along with gather specifications for new products. ramifications of deploying mobile devices. devices that have Historically, the engineers would take Says Vigil, “The goal of all our IT efforts is paper notes while on-site with a customer to deliver true business value back to the native support for it, and then later enter the information in their company, so we fully investigated the gave us the ability to PCs. This inefficient method not only made range of available mobile devices and it difficult to record all the necessary carefully mapped them to our workflow.” easily provide mobile information, but also led to inaccuracies access to e-mail, which and transcription errors. “We wanted to Choosing the Right Technology eliminate the paper process and enable our Gates determined that the best strategy we knew could greatly engineers to do critical design work in real was to deploy Windows Mobile® powered enhance our work time, right at the customer’s site,” says devices, starting with a pilot program. Part Vigil. of the appeal of the Windows Mobile 5.0 force productivity.” software was its support for attaching files Greg Vigil, Director of Global Enterprise In all, Gates wanted to find a way to from such programs as the Microsoft® Collaboration, Gates Corporation maximize its employees’ time, whether they Office Excel® 2003 spreadsheet software, were sitting in an airport or working with a the Microsoft Office PowerPoint® 2003 customer. “Our company is known for the presentation graphics program, and amount of time that we devote to our Microsoft Office Word 2003. “With customers,” says Vigil. “We wanted to Windows Mobile, we have lots of devices to develop a mobility strategy that would choose from that deliver the functionality enhance, rather than reduce, the time our users want,” says Wise. “Plus, from an spent with customers as well as streamline e-mail perspective, the Windows Mobile our internal processes.” interfaces are similar to that of Microsoft Office Outlook® 2003, which our workers Solution already use and are familiar with.” To embark on its quest for mobile technology, Gates first established a At the same time, Gates decided to Mobility Center of Excellence as part of a implement Microsoft Exchange Server greater strategic collaboration initiative to 2003 communication and collaboration study employees’ communications patterns server running on the Microsoft Windows and define user profiles according to job Server™ 2003 Enterprise Edition operating requirements. “Mobility as a concept had system. Windows Mobile played a large good momentum, but we didn’t want role in the company’s decision to migrate people to start using random devices at its entire global user base from Novell will,” says Paul Wise, Global Mobility GroupWise to Exchange Server 2003. Specialist for Gates Corporation. “We had “Exchange Server 2003, along with devices to make sure that we deployed the best that have native support for it, gave us the mobile device to meet the needs of each ability to easily provide mobile access to job profile in the most cost-effective e-mail, which we knew could greatly manner.” enhance our work force productivity,” says Vigil. such as group leads, sales management, The company also deployed Microsoft the sales force, and other key groups in the Office Live Communications Server 2005 next 12 to 24 months as the devices and Microsoft Office SharePoint® Portal continue to provide business value as Server 2003 along with other Microsoft measured by speed and responsiveness, technologies, including the Active potentially affecting over 500 employees,” Directory® service, Microsoft Windows® says Wise. SharePoint Services, and Microsoft Office Live Meeting. Gates also rolled out The second phase of the implementation Microsoft Office Communicator 2005 for will include developing and implementing instant messaging and was an early applications for Windows Mobile that adopter of the Microsoft Office enable the field sales force to place orders Communicator Mobile client. in real time, as well as to interact with internal systems, such as inventory and Deploying Mobile Technology trouble ticketing. In this phase, Gates plans The company’s mobility strategy includes to implement Microsoft Dynamics™ CRM adopting a standard set of approved version 3.0, formerly known as Microsoft devices, including mobile phones, CRM. “We want to make the shift to doing smartphones, and Pocket PCs. Gates things from the field as efficient and easy deployed Exchange Server 2003 Service as possible,” says Wise. “With Microsoft Pack 2 with the Messaging and Security Dynamics as an upcoming CRM Feature Pack for Windows Mobile 5.0 and implementation for the Gates Corporation, plans to use only those devices that run there is a great opportunity to extend back- Windows Mobile 5.0 software. “We’re very office interoperability to the mobile user.” eager to take advantage of functionality such as Direct Push Technology, enhanced Benefits contact management, remote security By standardizing on Windows Mobile services, and native usability of Microsoft powered devices, Gates is experiencing Office programs on the mobile devices,” the efficiency gains and faster response says Wise. times that come with mobile technology, yet the company has choices regarding the As of April 2006, the Gates pilot program devices themselves. As it expands its use involves approximately 75 Cingular 2125 of smartphones and Pocket PCs and smartphones and 75 Cingular 8125 Pocket adopts mobile line-of-business PCs. Fewer than 20 employees still use applications, Gates anticipates even more BlackBerry devices; the company plans to timesavings and increased service to phase out the remaining BlackBerry customers. Enterprise Servers in favor of Exchange Server 2003 and Windows Mobile powered Increased Productivity and Efficiency devices. “We’re starting with just a few By giving users access to e-mail, hundred pilot users, but we plan to extend calendaring, and contact management from the use of Windows Mobile powered anywhere, Gates is finding that employees devices to other areas of the organization are able to work smarter. “We know that we’re providing a valuable solution, the computer later. Plus, the process is particularly when we hear our users more efficient, reducing two or three hours referring to their mobile devices as ‘mission of manual labor to about 30 minutes.” critical,’ ” says Vigil. “When we give new users a Windows Mobile powered device Continues Wise, “We’ve had several critical and they see its capabilities, it internal projects run more smoothly as a fundamentally changes the way they work. result of collaboration using Windows Mobile-device users are working at least 38 Mobile powered devices. For instance, to 46 more minutes per day, and they we’ve reduced some project plans by days report back that they love the ability to take —in some cases, up to a week—due to the care of business from home, on a train, in better collaboration and flow of information the elevator, and so on.” between the core groups responsible for those projects. Additionally, having mobile But Gates employees are not simply capabilities for our IT staff makes it spending more time working; they are able possible to deliver customer service to be more effective. “Our employees like remotely and to help our global being able to take care of common tasks manufacturing facilities make sales and during idle time because it means that they other processes more efficient and cost- can focus on more value-enhancing effective.” activities when they’re in the office,” says Wise. “Using mobile devices is a Says Vigil, “Gates is known for how much fundamental shift in the way work gets time and energy we spend on our done and where. Users make business use customers, and we don’t want to change of previously idle time, which not only that. Rather, providing our employees with makes them more efficient, but leads to a the right mobile technology and devices to better work-life balance as well.” use while they’re with, or servicing, customers will make them more efficient, One group of users that is experiencing help them maintain or enhance customer significant benefits thanks to the mobile relationships, and drive increased sales by pilot solution is the Industrial Power meeting customer needs in real time.” Transmission group. Engineers no longer jot down product specifications on paper at Faster Response to Issues customer sites; instead, they collect In addition to improving efficiency, the complete, accurate data, which is important Windows Mobile powered devices are because they usually have only one helping Gates react more quickly to chance to visit a customer’s secure area to everything from customer requests to get the specifications right. “It’s a huge changes in the market. “We’re a large, advantage to fully capture, digitize, and global organization competing with regional customize our customers’ engineering companies that can act and adapt quickly,” specs and other information,” says Wise. says Vigil. “Adopting technology such as “The information is easier to keep track of Windows Mobile helps us move more as well as more accurate because we’re nimbly, more like our smaller competitors.” not transferring the data off paper and into “Our users love that The ability to respond quickly will have a Device Flexibility and Availability positive impact on the company’s customer Use of Windows Mobile powered devices now they can receive, service once the Gates sales force is using began at Gates corporate headquarters in alter, and return Word Windows Mobile powered devices. “Even the United States, but locations in Europe the skeptics have been converted as they and Asia are beginning to use them as documents, see issues being resolved more quickly, well. “Windows Mobile powered devices PowerPoint particularly from the road,” says Wise. “We have a far greater worldwide availability believe that giving the people who interact than our other choices,” says Wise. “The presentations, and with our customers access to e-mail helps prevalence of Microsoft technology is Excel worksheets.” satisfy those customers more fully because important to us because our mobile base they enjoy a more responsive connection could span 22 countries in nine languages.” Paul Wise, Global Mobility Specialist, with their Gates representatives.” Gates Corporation Concludes Wise, “Part of the advantage of User-Friendly Interface for a Minimal Windows Mobile is having the tools to Learning Curve enable our management groups, business One of the reasons why it has been so personnel, and the sales force to easy for Gates users to adopt Windows collaborate, as well as gather, share, and Mobile technology is that it offers more respond in real time to customer needs, intuitive functionality than other mobile which is at the very core of our business options do. “One of our executives initially model. And the flexibility available with wanted to keep his BlackBerry device, but Windows Mobile powered devices enables after trying out the Windows Mobile us to easily expand that functionality to powered device, he didn’t want his meet our future as well as current needs.” BlackBerry back,” says Wise. “Seeing how straightforward it was for our employees to learn to use the devices made our decision to deploy them even easier.”

The devices that Gates has chosen have a similar user interface to that of Outlook 2003, and they require fewer mouse clicks and screen changes than BlackBerry devices in order to accomplish tasks. “A lot of the Blackberry devices that were originally handed out to Gates users were given back again because of the frustration with not being able to send attachments and having to rely on raw text format,” says Wise. “Our users love that now they can receive, alter, and return Word documents, PowerPoint presentations, and Excel worksheets.” For More Information Windows Mobile For more information about Microsoft Windows Mobile brings the power of the products and services, call the Microsoft Windows operating system to mobile Sales Information Center at (800) 426- devices, helping businesses and their 9400. In Canada, call the Microsoft mobile employees stay connected while on Canada Information Centre at (877) 568- the go. Windows Mobile runs mobile 2495. Customers who are deaf or hard- versions of Microsoft programs, including of-hearing can reach Microsoft text Microsoft Office Outlook Mobile, Internet telephone (TTY/TDD) services at (800) Explorer Mobile, Pocket MSN®, Windows 892-5234 in the United States or (905) Media® Player Mobile, and Microsoft Office 568-9641 in Canada. Outside the 50 Word Mobile, PowerPoint Mobile, and United States and Canada, please Excel Mobile. With Windows Mobile, contact your local Microsoft subsidiary. information workers get powerful software To access information using the World combined with the familiarity of Windows. Wide Web, go to: www.microsoft.com Combined with available service plans and connectivity options, Windows Mobile– For more information about Gates based devices, available from 42 device Corporation products and services, call makers and 68 mobile operators in 48 (303) 744-1911, or visit the Web site at: countries, can be used to make calls, send www.gates.com e-mail and instant messages, surf the Web, and access critical business information even when users are away from the office.

More information about Windows Mobile can be found at: www.microsoft.com/windowsmobile

Software and Services  Microsoft Office  Windows Mobile 5.0 for Pocket PC − Microsoft Office Professional Edition  Windows Mobile 5.0 for Smartphones 2003  Microsoft Servers − Microsoft Office Communicator 2005 − Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 − Microsoft Office Communicator Mobile Enterprise Edition − Microsoft Office Outlook 2003 − Microsoft Office Live  Technologies Communications Server 2005 − Active Directory − Microsoft Office SharePoint Portal − Microsoft Office Live Meeting Server 2003 − Microsoft Windows SharePoint − Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Services Enterprise Edition Hardware © 2006 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.  Cingular 2125 This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR  Cingular 8125 IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY. Microsoft, Active Directory, Excel, Microsoft Dynamics, MSN, Outlook, PowerPoint, SharePoint, Windows, the Windows logo, Windows Media, Windows Mobile, and Windows Server are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. All other trademarks are property of their respective owners.

Document published May 2006