Adding Speech To Your Mobility Strategy By Daniel Hong, Datamonitor

The use of speech recognition in field services is growing slowly but surely, due to its enormous advantages. Today, the majority of companies leverage the technology for customer service, and have begun adopting it to streamline business operations. The strategic focus on the ‘real-time enterprise' and increasing worker mobility has led to an upswing over the past two years. Now, as we enter 2007, consumer adaptation to speech as an interface is laying the groundwork for even greater expansion of speech's role in the enterprise.

As consumers continue to use speech interfaces to check their account balances, pay their bills, and check on their flights, they are also becoming more comfortable with speech technology in other contexts. Speech technology is gradually penetrating the consumer market on mobile phones, automotive telematics, and automated attendants. Even Microsoft Windows Vista™ has integrated speech capabilities. Businesses which recognize that speech technology is at a new level of maturity are poised to leverage it in the automation of internal business processes, especially for mobile workers.

Applying speech self-service to enterprise business processes is new thinking. Capital requirements are reduced by as much as 90%, quick deployment is enabled through configurable packages and risk is reduced through architectural simplicity. It has proven to be especially valuable to the mobile workforce, significantly reducing operational costs, enhancing user satisfaction and worker productivity, enabling new revenue streams and creating competitive edges.

Companies are now beginning to seize upon speech-enabled mobility as a highly effective real-time solution. The current breadth of customer success stories reflects a high-certainty of project success as demonstrated by solutions flourishing in companies such as Energy South, GE Medical Systems and Bell Canada to name a few.

This white paper will help readers understand where and when speech fits in an enterprise mobility strategy and describes:

• The benefits of speech-enabled field service solutions and how they complement existing mobility approaches;
• The current market dynamics and the business case for speech solutions;
• The differences between customer-facing and employee-facing speech applications;
• Enterprise-class speech-enabled mobility solutions and insights into the competitive landscape;
• Strategic recommendations for companies evaluating mobile speech solutions.