Palm® Treo™ Smartphone, ReForm Give BooKoo an Edge Over the Competition
(Excerpt from Palm Case Study. See link at left for More Information)

Challenge
BooKoo competes in an environment that’s just as rough-and-tumble as the one inhabited by the extreme athletes who gulp down its BooKoo Energy drinks. The Dallas-based company constantly jockeys for shelf space, trying to elbow out rivals as it fights for room to display its ever-growing product line-up.

BooKoo’s market development managers, however, found themselves on the front lines armed with a paper-based reporting system that was as out of sync with its environment as Tiger Woods competing in a motocross race. The field staff works with retailers to expand the company’s products into new markets, taking on multiple roles as they stock shelves, check inventory and keep a close eye on the competition. They needed a way to relay that information before they even left a particular store.

Jay Hills, BooKoo’s market development program manager, soon found himself on a quest to replace the company’s antiquated set-up with a digital system that would give him real-time feedback. He looked into laptops, but he characterized that as “quite an undertaking, when all we need is a spreadsheet.” Not only was the cost much higher, but the technical complexity of rolling out wireless-enabled laptops prompted him to search for a simpler solution.

Solution
Hills found what he was looking for in the Palm Treo smartphone, loaded with a data collection application developed with Anyware Mobile Solutions’ ReForm. Good Technology’s GoodLink handles the back end, making sure information is securely transmitted. GoodLink also enables BooKoo’s IT staff to easily disseminate software updates to employees scattered across the United States, as well as remotely wipe sensitive data from a lost or stolen smartphone.

Now BooKoo’s market development managers can visit a store and use their Treos to quickly answer a series of questions covering inventory data, shelf spacing information, competitive product pricing and spacing, and more. Then they use the Treo’s built-in digital camera to snap a photo of the product display and submit it with their information. The interface is clean and simple, and there’s no need to boot up a laptop and wait for an application to load.

While a laptop would have forced them to then find a network connection in order to transmit their information, the Treo offers anywhere, any time Internet access, so the sales force can send their data even before they leave the store. Hills and his management team receive constant updates throughout the day, enabling them to track sales performance on an hourly basis, if they desire.

“The Treo gives us an advantage in street execution,” Hills explains. “You can see who are the superstars in your group, as well as who needs work. Learning about successes and pitfalls in real-time allows us to generate best practices in a centralized manner and implement them in all facets of what we do.”

He estimates he’s in the field with his team three weeks out of every month, crisscrossing the country in the process. BooKoo used functional usage information gleaned during those trips as it developed its proprietary application with Anyware.

Hills is a Treo user himself, relying on it constantly to send and receive email, as well as to monitor the progress of the market development managers. “It’s like night and day,” he says of his work now compared to the past, when he carried a laptop and had limited Internet access.

Solution Summary

• The Treo is not only cheaper than a laptop but it also offers a much simpler way to access the required application and enter data.

• Anyware Mobile Solutions' ReForm enabled BooKoo to create a clean, simple interface for data collection.

• The Treo enables the simple taking and transmission of product photos from the field.

• GoodLink keeps information secure as it travels over the cellular network and offers such IT features as the ability to remotely wipe a lost or stolen smartphone.

• Market development managers can transmit data anytime, anywhere, rather than hunt for an Internet connection with a laptop.

• The Treo replaces a cumbersome paper-based system, enabling BooKoo management to track sales performance in real-time.

Technical Summary

• Palm Treo smartphones

• Anyware Mobile Solutions’ ReForm

• GoodLink from Good Technology