March 16, 2025 • 33 mins
From advancements in AI to innovative solutions for employee experience and device management, join BlueFletch's Brett Cooper and Lee DeHihns as we recap the highlights of emerging trends from the first quarter of 2025 conferences we attended.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the Enterprise Mobility Roundup
podcast brought to you byBluefletch.
We discuss technology topicsrelated to Android and workforce
devices and how they intersectwith business and mobility.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Hello and welcome to another episode of the
Bluefletch Enterprise MobilityRoundup podcast.
I'm joined by Lee DeHines, headof sales at Bluefletch, and
today we're going to bediscussing a recap of
conferences and events we'veattended for Q1.
So, lee, thank you for hoppingon with me.
I know it's been about three orfour months since we've done
one of these, and it's not forlack of wanting to do it.
It's more that you and I haveboth been on the road.
(00:33):
A lot of the folks from ourteam have been on the road for
the last three months at variousconferences, which is the nexus
for this.
I think we wanted to cover someof the key themes we saw at
various events we went to andjust some of the key takeaways
we had from those.
So, lee, thanks for hopping onwith me today.
Sure thing To hop into it.
There's two very, very bigconferences we went to.
(00:57):
The first one was NRF.
This is NRF Big Show.
Is that the actual formal titleof it?
Speaker 3 (01:03):
I believe it's the NRF Big Show.
Yeah, so it's the NationalRetail Federation.
It's their largest show thatthey do every year.
Despite the name national, theydo global shows and this one's
obviously retail focused.
Always in New York City, alwaysat the Javits Center on the
west side of Manhattan.
About 40,000 people, a thousandexhibitors, always second week
(01:27):
of January, so you can count onsome really nasty weather every
year, but it's something I thinkwe've been doing as an
organization since 2014 or 2015.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
I feel like everybody always gets the cold, cold or
flu from that.
How did you fare this year?
Did you end up okay?
Speaker 3 (01:43):
I did okay, but I think I probably went through
three bottles of hand sanitizer.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
I definitely saw you walking around with those.
Speaker 3 (01:50):
Yeah, and I steal them off of everybody's tables
if I see them.
But yeah, you got to be on yourtoes to try to not get sick
there.
But it was a really good showfor us.
I enjoyed it.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
So if you're an exhibitor at NRF and all your
hands sometimes went missing, wefound the guy.
Speaker 3 (02:06):
It's me Just follow the guy with the super dry hands
now, but I'm healthy.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
So to hop in, I know there was a couple of themes we
saw.
So I think, as we looked atthis, we were you and I talking
about this outline.
I think that we've been to NRFin the past.
We've seen a lot of things, Ithink, things that are repeat
themes.
We We've seen a lot of things,I think, things that are repeat
themes.
We're not going to includethose unless there's something
new or novel about it, but thethemes I think the first one,
(02:30):
which was this is similar acrossa lot of conferences we went to
is really around the dominanceor prevalence of AI.
What was your take or your read?
What's some of the key thingsyou saw at NRF around artificial
intelligence?
Sure.
Speaker 3 (02:49):
So I think AI is a tough thing to define.
When you just hear it,everyone's like, oh, this is
probably important and good, butI think what comes down to it
is like a practical focus for it, and what we really saw from a
retail perspective was a focuson personalization, and that's
not only for the associate butprimarily for the customer
experience.
Also, inventory managementDynamic pricing is something
(03:12):
that you're able to see nowbased on demand using AI and
we'll get into it a little bitmore on how the prices are
changed dynamically in one ofthe other points that we can
talk about and then just generaloperational efficiency.
So those were kind of the keyareas for it.
So AI as an umbrella notnecessarily helpful to read that
on every booth, but if they hadthings that were actually
(03:33):
practically applicable, I thinkit can make a lot of difference.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
Yeah, it makes me think of the article you and I
talked about last quarter, whichwas, you know, nobody talks
about their transistor strategyor their electricity strategy.
It's just an underpinning,fundamental tool that helps us
solve problems.
So it makes me think AI isstarting to actually mature into
that space, which is alwaysinteresting to me.
(03:58):
On that note, the second themeyou and I talked about was the
focus on customer experience andpersonalization, or customer
personalization.
What's your?
You know any key things youtook away?
Are you observed at nrf aroundthat?
Speaker 3 (04:12):
yeah, so the saw a real heavy focus on real uh
retailers creating a veryauthentic and tailored
experience in their stores.
That was, you know, think ofthe execution of the brand down
to everything in the store, fromthe hardware, the shelving, the
lighting.
(04:32):
I talked to one retailer whoactually sources deer antlers
from a processing shop inWisconsin for every one of their
stores, just because it's thatimportant for them to have, like
their outdoor brand experiencein each and every one of their
stores.
And really focusing on when thecustomer is in there, utilizing
(04:55):
the AI aspect of it to makethat customer feel like they are
known.
So going from you know, kind oftaking the online and marrying
it to the in-store experience.
So when someone walks in there,the experience they got online
is going to be the same thingthey saw in the store.
There's the ability to continueshopping from one to the other.
That whole endless aisle thingthat was really seeming to come
(05:17):
together this year.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
Yeah, I think it almost feels to me like a
whiplash from everybody goingdigital during COVID to people
wanting to be in stores, andthat you're looking at some of
these successful brands like I'mgoing to call it the
Chick-fil-A experience, whereeverybody saw how well they did,
where they had thatpersonalized high touch
experience, and I feel likethat's I like the fact that
(05:39):
that's making its way back intoretail.
Speaker 3 (05:42):
Yeah, I think it makes a big difference.
Speaker 2 (05:45):
Which, like I think the point number three or theme
three which I wrote down, iswhere did the robots go?
Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 3 (05:52):
You know, no one wants to hug a robot and no one
feels personally loved andtouched by a robot when they go
into a store.
So I think, for the time beingstore, so I think for the time
being, robots are back of houseand DCs right.
I know Amazon's building awhole robot-enabled DC right now
(06:13):
, but I think that's whererobots are probably going to be
staying in the near future, aslong as personalization is the
focus.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
Yeah, no, I agree with that, Nobody wants to hug a
robot, especially a little meanrobotic dog.
Yeah, exactly.
So the fourth thing that wenoticed and I know you and I did
a couple of walkarounds talkingto different vendors and
partners and companies but thematuration of digital displays
and how that's gotten better.
(06:40):
What stood out there to youaround the digital display space
, or what?
Speaker 3 (06:44):
stood out there to you around the digital display
space.
Sure, so we've been in thedigital space Bluefletch as a
company for a couple of decadesnow and some of our early
projects involved really complexintegrations with TVs, with USB
drives that we were trying toprogram stuck in the back of
them, trying to reallyconsolidate and keep consistent
(07:07):
the digital out-of-homeexperience.
What we saw this year was areal advancement in the e-paper
displays that are out there, soessentially same thing as a
Kindle, but at full digitalmonitor size.
They look great, they're reallyeasy to maintain, they use
virtually no power, they can becontrolled centrally.
So it was just reallyinteresting to see that in
(07:31):
pretty much every retailtechnology booth that we saw.
And then, dovetailing directlyinto that is our next point the
electronic shelf labels are ESLs.
So I think ESLs have beenaround for at least 15 years and
you've been hearing every yearlike this is the year this whole
store is going to ESLs.
But I think they finallyreached a maturity, or maybe
(07:54):
reached a point where the pricepoint is at a level where
they're easy enough to deployand so you're starting to see a
lot more of those out there.
There's some really interestingintegrations you can do with
ESLs, with small e-paperdisplays on there so you can
have product-specificinformation.
You can do dynamic pricing,like we talked about earlier.
It just makes a much moreself-educated and seamless
(08:19):
shopping experience if you're ina store and you see those
things.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
Yeah, I think on the ESL and also the EXI.
One of the things I noticedthere and you mentioned it was,
I feel like those help mitigatea lot of the power issues that
you run into with digitaldisplays.
And I know one of the vendors Ithink it might have been
Samsung had a display that wasfully powered by itself and the
full days you actually move itaround different locations in
(08:42):
stores.
So it's interesting that peoplewith a lower power consumption
you actually start to get moreportable experiences like that.
So, on the theme of experience,the theme six you guys saw was
I'm going to call it employee UXor EX, or employee engagement.
What were some of the thingsthat you observed around that
(09:03):
that's down to you aroundemployee engagement.
What were some of the thingsthat you observed around that?
That?
Speaker 3 (09:06):
stood out to you around employee engagement.
So for a long time retail hassuffered from a lot of turnover
rates and I think what'sinteresting is, because of that
high turnover, two things havestarted to coalesce in terms of
employee experience is makingthe employee's job as easy as
possible for giving for, sogiving them really useful tools
(09:28):
that don't require a lot oftraining and are very intuitive,
so like making the mobiledevice that's in their hands
look and feel as close aspossible to what they're using
in their day-to-day lives toeliminate a lot of that training
.
But then, on the flip side ofthat, they're trying to mitigate
turnover, but then also they'retrying to increase employee
experience from the perspectiveof making people's jobs more
(09:52):
enjoyable.
So they want to stick aroundlonger and they're seeing.
I think it's an actualinvestment in the employee and
the employee experience, becausepeople are understanding that
you can get customers to comeback in the door at those stores
if the people who are workingthere are happy and are wanting
to help them out.
So leveraging that technologyin hand and really making
information easier for them toget to, I think, is the focus
(10:14):
around that.
Speaker 2 (10:15):
Yep, you sort of touched on this with the
electronic shelf labels, theyear of the ESL, but I know one
of the things we've joked aboutin the past is the year of RFID.
I feel like in one of thethemes I think I described the
theme as RFID is becoming moreaffordable.
(10:36):
What did you see there?
What were some of the keythoughts you had on the RFID
space?
Speaker 3 (10:40):
Yeah, so RFID is definitely becoming more
affordable per label, but I alsothink people are figuring out
how to use it in a retailexperience, not only for the
shopper but for, like we talkedabout, the employee.
So, for example, when we were inthe direct source booth, we had
, I think, four different kindsof hats that all had RFID labels
assigned to them, rfid labelsassigned to them, and we could
(11:02):
scan an entire shelf array.
If someone wanted, say, a brownhat in size, large, we could see
exactly how many we had instock and where it was and what
the price was.
And being able to do thatwithout having to you know, if
you've been to some of thoselarge retailers where you have
to go, like aisle 37, bay 15,row 6, to see if something's
(11:24):
there and then it's not, this issuper helpful, that I think you
can have RFID to be able toscan a really large area to see
if something is there, and so itallows you to do and since you
can do point of sale right thereas well with tap on glass
payment something else wedisplayed at NRF you can
(11:44):
deprecate that from inventoryright there on the fly as well.
So you get really good analysison sales trends, but also on
just inventory management andthings like that.
And seeing a real applicationfor RFID outside of just
something like loss preventionwith having someone walk through
an RFID on an array on the wayout the door, I think is going
(12:06):
to go a long way to making itstick If people can see it
moving the needle from a salespoint of view.
Speaker 2 (12:12):
Yeah, make it easy.
Yeah, absolutely.
The next theme and this is thisis Verge, is not a theme that
we've seen consistently, but Ithink mobile becoming a primary
channel.
Yep, and I think a lot of this.
It was driven by COVID, butpeople went from a screen back
to wanting, as you mentioned,like the endless aisle
(12:34):
experience with their mobiledevices, what they transitioned
in the store, anything else tostood out to you around that
that sort of mobile plusphysical store experience.
Speaker 3 (12:44):
Yeah, we're seeing a real drive towards retailers
wanting to have a device in thehand of every employee while
they're on the floor duringtheir shift so you can when
you're engaging with a customer.
You know there are studies thatyou see a lift in spend of about
15% if someone engages with anassociate when they're in the
(13:06):
retail environment.
An associate in the retailenvironment that you're engaging
with, they can help you findyour purchase right there on the
spot and pay for it and checkout.
The likelihood of you wantingto continue to work with that
person is high and your spend isgoing to go up.
But then also having thesedevices for the associate
(13:28):
perform a multitude of tasks forthem.
So if they need to do a cyclecount, if they're doing buy
online, pick up in storefulfillment, even if they need
to do a cycle count, if they'redoing buy online, pick up in
store fulfillment, even if theyneed to dock it and have it be
essentially their laptopreplacement, like we're seeing a
lot for managers with tablets,I think people are realizing
just the modularity of what youcan do with a mobile device.
(13:49):
I don't think we've seen theend of the executions of how
that can be deployed in thestore environment.
Speaker 2 (13:55):
Yeah, it's a good call.
I'll hop back into that in acouple of questions about our
demo in a second.
But the last theme, which istheme nine, we had was and I
know you and I spent quite a bitof time just talking to the
folks at the ELO booth.
So Target and ELO put togethera demo and I had posted on
LinkedIn about it booth.
So Target and Elo put togethera demo and I had posted on
(14:16):
LinkedIn about it.
But I think the thing thatimpressed me the most was
thinking about accessibility andmaking it affordable for
companies.
Do you want to like re-describewhat we saw and what the you
know what we took away from that, those discussions?
Speaker 3 (14:28):
Sure.
So, like Brett said, target andElo had a booth at NRF.
I believe it was the Elo boothand Target's display within it.
Target has reimagined theirpoint of sale so that it's
accessible to people that arevision impaired, hearing
impaired or mobility impairedfrom the perspective of maybe
(14:51):
being in a wheelchair.
So everything is heightadjusted, including even like a
touchscreen, for example.
So everything's below a certainline on the screen.
For anything you need tointeract with, there's the
ability to plug in headphones.
If you're hearing impaired,there's the ability to do
different button touches withBraille for if you're visually
(15:13):
impaired.
Just really interesting that,recognizing that it's not always
easy for everyone in day-to-daylife and, you know, even from a
Target experience perspective,it makes it easier for their
employees too if they know thateach shopper in the store is
empowered to, you know, sortcare of themselves, I guess, for
(15:34):
lack of a better way of puttingit.
But what was cool about it istarget and elo developed all
this standard for what a pointof sale terminal should and
could look like if you'reaccounting for accessibility,
and they open sourced it, um, soanyone can take what they did
and and uh, implement it andacross their stores it.
It was really cool.
Speaker 2 (15:54):
Yeah, I love it.
I call it my favoriteinnovation of NRF, even though
it didn't include AI or allthese other things, just like
really thinking aboutinteracting with the customers
and help people out.
On that note, I know we talkedabout the mobility for users and
a lot of things moving awayfrom workstations towards mobile
devices.
(16:14):
So do you want to talk aboutwhat we showed off at NRF?
Maybe the quick highlight ofwhat Bluefletch did there.
Speaker 3 (16:20):
Sure, so I touched on it a little bit earlier.
But Bluefletch was in thedirect source booth and what we
had was a retail applicationthat was on Zebra devices and
Honeywell devices that wereenabled with RFID.
So a user could come into thebooth or an associate come in as
(16:42):
the associate with the device.
Customer could come in,determine what hats were
available in stock using RFID,like I talked about earlier, and
then they could fulfill thatorder right there on the floor
by saying hey, here's your hatand your size and your color.
You can take it with you.
Right now we can transact thepayment right here on the device
(17:04):
with tap on glass, with PXPpayment, and I think you're
seeing a lot of that.
Some stores did it early on,but now I think it's going to
start getting much morewidespread so that you can just
basically check out where youare in the store as opposed to
having to walk to the front andjust increase that employee
interaction.
So what we did there wasshowcasing that particular
(17:29):
retail interaction but then alsokind of driving.
That is the NFC loginexperience on newer hardware.
So if I'm an associate, I comein at the beginning of my shift.
All I have to do to log into myapplications.
To do my job is tap my badgeand enter a four digit pin so we
show that aspect of it and then, once I'm in, I'm operational
and ready to help customers andcomplete transactions.
Speaker 2 (17:52):
Yeah, so aligned a lot of the themes we talked
about above.
So shifting gears to the next.
I'm going to call it like megaconference, but HIMSS was
something that it's, I guess.
Can you talk about what HIMSSis and who goes there?
What's shown there?
Speaker 3 (18:09):
Sure.
So HIMSS is?
It's a healthcare conferenceand HIMSS is a beefy acronym.
It stands for HealthcareInformation and Management
Systems Society.
It's another one of those giantinternational conferences.
I think there's around 30,000people there.
It was in Las Vegas.
It was the first week of March,so March 3rd through 6th,
(18:31):
richard Makerson and myselfattended.
Most of the people who attendare technologists within
hospital and healthcare systems.
So if you think about it likelet's take the clinical aspect
from a nursing point of view, sochief nursing officers, chief
nursing informatics officers,the IT departments and
operations departments withinhospitals, so basically making
(18:55):
sure that the hospitals have thebaseline technology and
infrastructure to ensure thebest patient care possible those
are the people that attend thisevent.
Speaker 2 (19:04):
Got it and the themes .
I know you and I jotted down acouple of themes just based on
the notes of what you guys saw.
First one also artificialintelligence.
So what did you see at HIMSSrelated to healthcare and
technology around AI.
Speaker 3 (19:19):
Yeah, it's interesting because Richard and
I were talking about it and itwas before the conference had
started and both of us weretrying to guess how AI was going
to be presented at theconference, because, again, it's
like AI umbrella and thenyou're like, all right, well,
how can that actually help meout?
So what we saw and both Richardand I were concerned with
(19:41):
feeding data into an artificialintelligence model, particularly
if it contains patient data howare we going to handle security
?
So that was something that wasinteresting to us.
Microsoft had a booth therethat they essentially are
presenting AI infrastructureplatform that allows you to
manage your data and do datacleanup and data security across
(20:04):
different systems.
So that was pretty interestingbecause the amount of
information that theseorganizations are taking in but
not necessarily synthesizingorganizations are taking in but
not necessarily synthesizingit's.
I saw something the other daywas kind of death by dashboard,
but they're not necessarilyanalyzing any of it or making
sure that it's being safelystored and used.
Microsoft has a wholeinfrastructure platform that
(20:25):
they're going with, which seemspretty interesting.
So really, what they're tryingto do is take existing data and
help out cleaning it up andgetting information out of it.
So when you're looking aroundlike planning services for
patients, patient outcomes, thatkind of thing, just
(20:46):
understanding all this datayou're collecting, how to get
those key metrics out of it.
Also, another thing that wastalked about quite a bit was
making sure you're coding andcharting correctly for clinical
interactions with patients.
So take, for example, a kneereplacement in the OR.
(21:06):
Probably if you had 10different nurses in there, you'd
chart it 10 different ways, andthat means you're going to be,
as a hospital, reimbursed byinsurance 10 different ways,
some of which may be less, muchless than what you should
actually be getting.
So leveraging AI to make surethat if you've got procedure A
with equipment B and outcome Cis what's supposed to happen.
(21:29):
Typically, these are thecharting actions that need to be
occurring, and then you canjust check off from there, as
opposed to just having it beingan open-ended question.
So, kind of, around the whole,like clinical decision support
system, is what we were lookingat from an AI perspective.
So it was pretty interesting.
Speaker 2 (21:46):
Yeah, it's definitely a.
It seems like a area that'sripe for leveraging that
technology If they can figureout the HIPAA and security
requirements, absolutely.
Next theme was around, you know, along the lines of HIPAA,
cybersecurity or security in thehealthcare space.
What were some of the keythings that resonated around
around that for you guys, as youtalk to folks?
Speaker 3 (22:09):
So privacy obviously is is the the overarching theme.
It's just a rule to live bywithin healthcare.
A lot of things that we sawaround zero trust,
infrastructure, biometrics, notonly for the healthcare workers
for login but also for patientsto validate that the care that's
(22:32):
being administered on thatpatient is the correct person
because that happens a lot morethan you might like to think.
And then also, just from youknow, making sure that the
pharmaceutical side of thingsprescriptions are being
dispensed to the correct person.
They know who checked thoseprescriptions out before they
(22:52):
administered the medications.
And a lot of just making theexperience on device for
clinical workers, for frontlineworkers, when they're logging
into healthcare devices.
Making single sign-on as secureas possible and particularly on
logout, if there's thingsaround EHRs and communications
(23:13):
with patient information, makingsure that data is completely
cleared off that device beforethe next person on the next
shift picks up that device.
Speaker 2 (23:21):
I know that's.
It's one of the things we'vebeen getting.
A lot of inquiries around is.
I know Improvod has been inthat space for a while,
especially as companies havestarted to move to Android.
We've we've gotten a lot ofinquiries, which is one of the
main drivers for us being atHIMSS was a lot of customers
want to talk to us about that.
Yeah, talked to us about that.
(23:42):
I can see that On that notesort of.
The next theme was mobiletechnology and the prevalence of
mobile technology moving intothe healthcare space.
What are some of the themes yousaw there?
Speaker 3 (23:49):
Yeah, I think mobile technology and healthcare
traditionally has been a bitfragmented a lot of times
because doctors are going tobring the devices to work that
they want to use and aren'tnecessarily going to be using
hospital issued tablets, forexample.
But at the frontline level,particularly on the floor with
clinical interactions, we'reseeing a desire to have because
(24:11):
of security and because ofpatient outcome being the focus
a much more unified deployment,with tablets and handhelds that
are going to have each personwho is interacting with a
patient use a standard set oftools to standardize patient
care as much as possible.
So you know, we're getting ridof the clipboard for patients,
(24:34):
even in terms of handing themtablets for intake at the
beginning of hospital visits.
We're even seeing tabletsreplacing bedside entertainment,
so they're going to hand you atablet when you're staying in
the hospital.
You can log into your ownNetflix instance, things like
that.
And Android started to show upin that space as well because,
as tablets and handhelds arebecoming more prevalent for
(24:57):
frontline workers and forpatients, you need a way to
easily manage those things, andhandhelds are becoming more
prevalent for frontline workersand for patients.
We need a way to easily managethose things, and Android is
definitely going to be theeasiest of the three platforms I
would say that are out therebetween that, ios and, to some
extent, windows tablets as well.
Speaker 2 (25:13):
And we've seen a lot of vendors moving that space too
.
I think Spectralink wasprobably the first one, and then
Zebra with their HC series ofdevices, and now Honeywell and
both Samsung have healthcarespecific SKUs.
So it's definitely the Android.
Companies are pushing a lotinto that space and I think
we're going to see a lot lessiOS there in the next couple of
(25:33):
years.
I agree, I think that the nexttheme you talked about it's sort
of grouped into a couple ofthings but virtual care,
telehealth, and then, I guess,remote or digital patient
engagement.
Speaker 3 (25:46):
Maybe talk a little bit about what you guys saw
around that as you talked todifferent vendors, sure, so I
feel like telehealth really it'sa lot more mature now than it
was prior to COVID, and COVIDwas obviously a huge driver of
that because people weren'tnecessarily able to go visit
their doctor or hospitalsweren't necessarily taking in
(26:06):
patients unless they had anemergent COVID related illness,
but people still had other, youknow, health needs that needed
to be taken care of.
So a lot of the initial visitsduring COVID got pushed to the
telehealth and mobility side ofthings.
So there's a lot of focus onthat there and looking at
extending that telehealth topeople that may not otherwise
(26:29):
have the ability to go see adoctor easily because of either
constraints on not being able todrive or being far from a
hospital.
It's just really looking attelehealth as another part of
the healthcare patientengagement ecosystem.
The other part we saw of thatwas actually technology in the
(26:50):
field, like literally a mobileclinic, like an A-class tour bus
size RV.
That was a mobile hospital thatcan be deployed for areas that
may not have hospitals, like arural area or even in disaster
areas where the normal healthcare facilities could be
disabled or not reachable, andbecause of that there's a lot of
(27:12):
centralized monitoring systemsthat need to be stood up so that
these people can give frontlinecare in the field but then have
that information go back to acentralized place in order to
focus on the overall patientoutcome.
So it was an interesting kindof full circle to see what was
developed during COVID reallyget rolled out into what is now
(27:32):
the norm for healthcare.
Speaker 2 (27:33):
Yeah, you can modernize the next two themes.
I think the last two themes aresort of together, but I think
the first one you articulatedwas just workforce challenges.
Speaker 3 (27:44):
You can talk a little bit about that, yeah well, you
know a number of the boosts wewent into, particularly like
Zebra, honeywell and Samsung,from a hardware perspective.
They were just saying like look,healthcare is a very, very
important field to work in.
The people who work there tendto be undervalued and overworked
, so we're here to make thosejobs as easy as possible,
(28:08):
because patient outcome is whatreally needs to be the focus.
So there's a lot of focus on,you know, there's clinical
shortages and so we're trying tomake the job easier, extend the
shortages or mitigate theshortages by making technology
as easy as possible to use.
So some of the things we sawwere companies trying to adjust
(28:30):
holes in communication wherethere's even wearables that are
being paired to mobile devicesnow that you can communicate
with without having to touchthem, so you can stay sterile
within the sterile field butstill communicate to someone at
the end of the hallway at acharge desk or something like
that.
People are really thinking of alot of the things that may be
operationally rolled out in, say, a retail or warehouse
(28:53):
environment.
They're looking at thoseincremental gains there and
looking at how they can shift tohealthcare as well, with,
obviously, the focus on makingsure the privacy is maintained
from a patient perspective.
Speaker 2 (29:04):
Yeah, it's a communication tools in the field
.
So that's HIMSS and the lastone.
I know we're almost at thebottom of the call so I'll go
through these.
But I think we went to a numberof partner sales kickoffs.
So we work with a lot ofdifferent resellers, oems, and
attended a lot of their saleskickoffs really as a partner to
(29:28):
try to support them and helpengage with their teams and I
think some of the themes there Ithink theme one we saw was
around there's still a lot ofcustomers that haven't moderized
.
So, to your point, around thehealthcare, a lot of people in
windows, ios and pen and paper.
So I think modernizationthere's still a lot of
opportunities around that forthe technology space.
(29:49):
I think the second one was I'mgoing to call this the android
gen 1 refreshes.
So I know companies like thehome depots and the lows and the
targets of the World startedrolling out Android devices
around 2013, 2014.
Those are all pretty long inthe tooth.
A lot of those companies havealready refreshed, but most of
the followers are on a four orfive year cycle for refresh.
(30:12):
There's a lot of folks that arestarting to refresh devices
this year to take advantage ofsome of the newer tools,
computes, technology.
Theme 3, which is consistentwith the other conferences we
went, a lot of the differentOEMs and resellers were focused
on AI, so really I'm going tocall it looking for problems to
(30:35):
solve with AI.
People are actually starting tolook at problems, then applying
AI to go solve those.
It's been pretty clever.
And then I think the thing wedidn't see was I know there's in
the past a lot of concernsabout supply chain, both on the
OEM manufacturer side and on thereseller side, and I feel like
that's really become quiet.
I don't think I've heardanybody complain about supply
(30:55):
chain in the last two years,have you?
Speaker 3 (31:00):
No, I have not.
Speaker 2 (31:00):
It definitely was a thing for a while where people
were behind on device rolloutsbecause they couldn't get them,
but I haven't heard anyonemention that, um, in a long time
yeah, and then I think the lastthing of note was just a lot of
interest around biometrics Iknow you mentioned that in the
um above around healthcare, butI thought that's with the
manufacturers and with OEMsthinking about the balance of
security, privacy, but alsowanting to have the iPhone,
(31:25):
android phone experience thatyou get on a consumer device.
Those are some of the keythemes.
Speaker 3 (31:30):
So figuring it out from a shared device perspective
, it's going to happen, though.
Speaker 2 (31:34):
Yeah.
So I guess, Lee, in closing, ifyou had to say one or two
things, what would be thebiggest themes you took away
from all these Q1 conferences wewent to and participated in?
Speaker 3 (31:59):
Sure.
So I think across everything wetalked about today, it's really
about operational efficiencyand how that can be applied to
really any industry.
So in retail, operationalefficiency is going to result in
lower labor costs, higher salesand better inventory
accountability.
From a healthcare perspective,it's going to result in number
one, most importantly, patientoutcome and quality of care.
And then number two, privacy.
(32:22):
And number three, justtrackability of what care is
being given to each patient andmaking sure that hospitals are
tracking that appropriately froma financial perspective as well
, in terms of how they'rereimbursed by insurance or
Medicare or Medicaid.
Speaker 2 (32:39):
Excellent, awesome, well, thank you for sharing this
with me today, as always.
If anyone has follow-upquestions, feel free to reach
out to us at info atbluefudgecom, and if you like
this podcast, feel free to shareit or like it or do a little
ding button on whatever side itis on YouTube.
But thank you very much andhave a good one, appreciate it.
Thanks y'all.
But thank you very much andhave a good one, appreciate it.
Thanks y'all.
Speaker 1 (32:59):
Take care.
Thank you for listening to theenterprise mobility roundup
podcast.
If you enjoyed the discussion,please take a few moments to
rate us.
If you'd like to listen tofuture episodes, please
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To learn more about mobilitytopics or submit any questions,
visit us at bluefletchcom.
Welcome to the Enterprise Mobility Roundup
podcast brought to you byBluefletch.
We discuss technology topicsrelated to Android and workforce
devices and how they intersectwith business and mobility.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Hello and welcome to another episode of the
Bluefletch Enterprise MobilityRoundup podcast.
I'm joined by Lee DeHines, headof sales at Bluefletch, and
today we're going to bediscussing a recap of
conferences and events we'veattended for Q1.
So, lee, thank you for hoppingon with me.
I know it's been about three orfour months since we've done
one of these, and it's not forlack of wanting to do it.
It's more that you and I haveboth been on the road.
(00:33):
A lot of the folks from ourteam have been on the road for
the last three months at variousconferences, which is the nexus
for this.
I think we wanted to cover someof the key themes we saw at
various events we went to andjust some of the key takeaways
we had from those.
So, lee, thanks for hopping onwith me today.
Sure thing To hop into it.
There's two very, very bigconferences we went to.
(00:57):
The first one was NRF.
This is NRF Big Show.
Is that the actual formal titleof it?
Speaker 3 (01:03):
I believe it's the NRF Big Show.
Yeah, so it's the NationalRetail Federation.
It's their largest show thatthey do every year.
Despite the name national, theydo global shows and this one's
obviously retail focused.
Always in New York City, alwaysat the Javits Center on the
west side of Manhattan.
About 40,000 people, a thousandexhibitors, always second week
(01:27):
of January, so you can count onsome really nasty weather every
year, but it's something I thinkwe've been doing as an
organization since 2014 or 2015.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
I feel like everybody always gets the cold, cold or
flu from that.
How did you fare this year?
Did you end up okay?
Speaker 3 (01:43):
I did okay, but I think I probably went through
three bottles of hand sanitizer.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
I definitely saw you walking around with those.
Speaker 3 (01:50):
Yeah, and I steal them off of everybody's tables
if I see them.
But yeah, you got to be on yourtoes to try to not get sick
there.
But it was a really good showfor us.
I enjoyed it.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
So if you're an exhibitor at NRF and all your
hands sometimes went missing, wefound the guy.
Speaker 3 (02:06):
It's me Just follow the guy with the super dry hands
now, but I'm healthy.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
So to hop in, I know there was a couple of themes we
saw.
So I think, as we looked atthis, we were you and I talking
about this outline.
I think that we've been to NRFin the past.
We've seen a lot of things, Ithink, things that are repeat
themes.
We We've seen a lot of things,I think, things that are repeat
themes.
We're not going to includethose unless there's something
new or novel about it, but thethemes I think the first one,
(02:30):
which was this is similar acrossa lot of conferences we went to
is really around the dominanceor prevalence of AI.
What was your take or your read?
What's some of the key thingsyou saw at NRF around artificial
intelligence?
Sure.
Speaker 3 (02:49):
So I think AI is a tough thing to define.
When you just hear it,everyone's like, oh, this is
probably important and good, butI think what comes down to it
is like a practical focus for it, and what we really saw from a
retail perspective was a focuson personalization, and that's
not only for the associate butprimarily for the customer
experience.
Also, inventory managementDynamic pricing is something
(03:12):
that you're able to see nowbased on demand using AI and
we'll get into it a little bitmore on how the prices are
changed dynamically in one ofthe other points that we can
talk about and then just generaloperational efficiency.
So those were kind of the keyareas for it.
So AI as an umbrella notnecessarily helpful to read that
on every booth, but if they hadthings that were actually
(03:33):
practically applicable, I thinkit can make a lot of difference.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
Yeah, it makes me think of the article you and I
talked about last quarter, whichwas, you know, nobody talks
about their transistor strategyor their electricity strategy.
It's just an underpinning,fundamental tool that helps us
solve problems.
So it makes me think AI isstarting to actually mature into
that space, which is alwaysinteresting to me.
(03:58):
On that note, the second themeyou and I talked about was the
focus on customer experience andpersonalization, or customer
personalization.
What's your?
You know any key things youtook away?
Are you observed at nrf aroundthat?
Speaker 3 (04:12):
yeah, so the saw a real heavy focus on real uh
retailers creating a veryauthentic and tailored
experience in their stores.
That was, you know, think ofthe execution of the brand down
to everything in the store, fromthe hardware, the shelving, the
lighting.
(04:32):
I talked to one retailer whoactually sources deer antlers
from a processing shop inWisconsin for every one of their
stores, just because it's thatimportant for them to have, like
their outdoor brand experiencein each and every one of their
stores.
And really focusing on when thecustomer is in there, utilizing
(04:55):
the AI aspect of it to makethat customer feel like they are
known.
So going from you know, kind oftaking the online and marrying
it to the in-store experience.
So when someone walks in there,the experience they got online
is going to be the same thingthey saw in the store.
There's the ability to continueshopping from one to the other.
That whole endless aisle thingthat was really seeming to come
(05:17):
together this year.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
Yeah, I think it almost feels to me like a
whiplash from everybody goingdigital during COVID to people
wanting to be in stores, andthat you're looking at some of
these successful brands like I'mgoing to call it the
Chick-fil-A experience, whereeverybody saw how well they did,
where they had thatpersonalized high touch
experience, and I feel likethat's I like the fact that
(05:39):
that's making its way back intoretail.
Speaker 3 (05:42):
Yeah, I think it makes a big difference.
Speaker 2 (05:45):
Which, like I think the point number three or theme
three which I wrote down, iswhere did the robots go?
Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 3 (05:52):
You know, no one wants to hug a robot and no one
feels personally loved andtouched by a robot when they go
into a store.
So I think, for the time beingstore, so I think for the time
being, robots are back of houseand DCs right.
I know Amazon's building awhole robot-enabled DC right now
(06:13):
, but I think that's whererobots are probably going to be
staying in the near future, aslong as personalization is the
focus.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
Yeah, no, I agree with that, Nobody wants to hug a
robot, especially a little meanrobotic dog.
Yeah, exactly.
So the fourth thing that wenoticed and I know you and I did
a couple of walkarounds talkingto different vendors and
partners and companies but thematuration of digital displays
and how that's gotten better.
(06:40):
What stood out there to youaround the digital display space
, or what?
Speaker 3 (06:44):
stood out there to you around the digital display
space.
Sure, so we've been in thedigital space Bluefletch as a
company for a couple of decadesnow and some of our early
projects involved really complexintegrations with TVs, with USB
drives that we were trying toprogram stuck in the back of
them, trying to reallyconsolidate and keep consistent
(07:07):
the digital out-of-homeexperience.
What we saw this year was areal advancement in the e-paper
displays that are out there, soessentially same thing as a
Kindle, but at full digitalmonitor size.
They look great, they're reallyeasy to maintain, they use
virtually no power, they can becontrolled centrally.
So it was just reallyinteresting to see that in
(07:31):
pretty much every retailtechnology booth that we saw.
And then, dovetailing directlyinto that is our next point the
electronic shelf labels are ESLs.
So I think ESLs have beenaround for at least 15 years and
you've been hearing every yearlike this is the year this whole
store is going to ESLs.
But I think they finallyreached a maturity, or maybe
(07:54):
reached a point where the pricepoint is at a level where
they're easy enough to deployand so you're starting to see a
lot more of those out there.
There's some really interestingintegrations you can do with
ESLs, with small e-paperdisplays on there so you can
have product-specificinformation.
You can do dynamic pricing,like we talked about earlier.
It just makes a much moreself-educated and seamless
(08:19):
shopping experience if you're ina store and you see those
things.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
Yeah, I think on the ESL and also the EXI.
One of the things I noticedthere and you mentioned it was,
I feel like those help mitigatea lot of the power issues that
you run into with digitaldisplays.
And I know one of the vendors Ithink it might have been
Samsung had a display that wasfully powered by itself and the
full days you actually move itaround different locations in
(08:42):
stores.
So it's interesting that peoplewith a lower power consumption
you actually start to get moreportable experiences like that.
So, on the theme of experience,the theme six you guys saw was
I'm going to call it employee UXor EX, or employee engagement.
What were some of the thingsthat you observed around that
(09:03):
that's down to you aroundemployee engagement.
What were some of the thingsthat you observed around that?
That?
Speaker 3 (09:06):
stood out to you around employee engagement.
So for a long time retail hassuffered from a lot of turnover
rates and I think what'sinteresting is, because of that
high turnover, two things havestarted to coalesce in terms of
employee experience is makingthe employee's job as easy as
possible for giving for, sogiving them really useful tools
(09:28):
that don't require a lot oftraining and are very intuitive,
so like making the mobiledevice that's in their hands
look and feel as close aspossible to what they're using
in their day-to-day lives toeliminate a lot of that training
.
But then, on the flip side ofthat, they're trying to mitigate
turnover, but then also they'retrying to increase employee
experience from the perspectiveof making people's jobs more
(09:52):
enjoyable.
So they want to stick aroundlonger and they're seeing.
I think it's an actualinvestment in the employee and
the employee experience, becausepeople are understanding that
you can get customers to comeback in the door at those stores
if the people who are workingthere are happy and are wanting
to help them out.
So leveraging that technologyin hand and really making
information easier for them toget to, I think, is the focus
(10:14):
around that.
Speaker 2 (10:15):
Yep, you sort of touched on this with the
electronic shelf labels, theyear of the ESL, but I know one
of the things we've joked aboutin the past is the year of RFID.
I feel like in one of thethemes I think I described the
theme as RFID is becoming moreaffordable.
(10:36):
What did you see there?
What were some of the keythoughts you had on the RFID
space?
Speaker 3 (10:40):
Yeah, so RFID is definitely becoming more
affordable per label, but I alsothink people are figuring out
how to use it in a retailexperience, not only for the
shopper but for, like we talkedabout, the employee.
So, for example, when we were inthe direct source booth, we had
, I think, four different kindsof hats that all had RFID labels
assigned to them, rfid labelsassigned to them, and we could
(11:02):
scan an entire shelf array.
If someone wanted, say, a brownhat in size, large, we could see
exactly how many we had instock and where it was and what
the price was.
And being able to do thatwithout having to you know, if
you've been to some of thoselarge retailers where you have
to go, like aisle 37, bay 15,row 6, to see if something's
(11:24):
there and then it's not, this issuper helpful, that I think you
can have RFID to be able toscan a really large area to see
if something is there, and so itallows you to do and since you
can do point of sale right thereas well with tap on glass
payment something else wedisplayed at NRF you can
(11:44):
deprecate that from inventoryright there on the fly as well.
So you get really good analysison sales trends, but also on
just inventory management andthings like that.
And seeing a real applicationfor RFID outside of just
something like loss preventionwith having someone walk through
an RFID on an array on the wayout the door, I think is going
(12:06):
to go a long way to making itstick If people can see it
moving the needle from a salespoint of view.
Speaker 2 (12:12):
Yeah, make it easy.
Yeah, absolutely.
The next theme and this is thisis Verge, is not a theme that
we've seen consistently, but Ithink mobile becoming a primary
channel.
Yep, and I think a lot of this.
It was driven by COVID, butpeople went from a screen back
to wanting, as you mentioned,like the endless aisle
(12:34):
experience with their mobiledevices, what they transitioned
in the store, anything else tostood out to you around that
that sort of mobile plusphysical store experience.
Speaker 3 (12:44):
Yeah, we're seeing a real drive towards retailers
wanting to have a device in thehand of every employee while
they're on the floor duringtheir shift so you can when
you're engaging with a customer.
You know there are studies thatyou see a lift in spend of about
15% if someone engages with anassociate when they're in the
(13:06):
retail environment.
An associate in the retailenvironment that you're engaging
with, they can help you findyour purchase right there on the
spot and pay for it and checkout.
The likelihood of you wantingto continue to work with that
person is high and your spend isgoing to go up.
But then also having thesedevices for the associate
(13:28):
perform a multitude of tasks forthem.
So if they need to do a cyclecount, if they're doing buy
online, pick up in storefulfillment, even if they need
to do a cycle count, if they'redoing buy online, pick up in
store fulfillment, even if theyneed to dock it and have it be
essentially their laptopreplacement, like we're seeing a
lot for managers with tablets,I think people are realizing
just the modularity of what youcan do with a mobile device.
(13:49):
I don't think we've seen theend of the executions of how
that can be deployed in thestore environment.
Speaker 2 (13:55):
Yeah, it's a good call.
I'll hop back into that in acouple of questions about our
demo in a second.
But the last theme, which istheme nine, we had was and I
know you and I spent quite a bitof time just talking to the
folks at the ELO booth.
So Target and ELO put togethera demo and I had posted on
LinkedIn about it booth.
So Target and Elo put togethera demo and I had posted on
(14:16):
LinkedIn about it.
But I think the thing thatimpressed me the most was
thinking about accessibility andmaking it affordable for
companies.
Do you want to like re-describewhat we saw and what the you
know what we took away from that, those discussions?
Speaker 3 (14:28):
Sure.
So, like Brett said, target andElo had a booth at NRF.
I believe it was the Elo boothand Target's display within it.
Target has reimagined theirpoint of sale so that it's
accessible to people that arevision impaired, hearing
impaired or mobility impairedfrom the perspective of maybe
(14:51):
being in a wheelchair.
So everything is heightadjusted, including even like a
touchscreen, for example.
So everything's below a certainline on the screen.
For anything you need tointeract with, there's the
ability to plug in headphones.
If you're hearing impaired,there's the ability to do
different button touches withBraille for if you're visually
(15:13):
impaired.
Just really interesting that,recognizing that it's not always
easy for everyone in day-to-daylife and, you know, even from a
Target experience perspective,it makes it easier for their
employees too if they know thateach shopper in the store is
empowered to, you know, sortcare of themselves, I guess, for
(15:34):
lack of a better way of puttingit.
But what was cool about it istarget and elo developed all
this standard for what a pointof sale terminal should and
could look like if you'reaccounting for accessibility,
and they open sourced it, um, soanyone can take what they did
and and uh, implement it andacross their stores it.
It was really cool.
Speaker 2 (15:54):
Yeah, I love it.
I call it my favoriteinnovation of NRF, even though
it didn't include AI or allthese other things, just like
really thinking aboutinteracting with the customers
and help people out.
On that note, I know we talkedabout the mobility for users and
a lot of things moving awayfrom workstations towards mobile
devices.
(16:14):
So do you want to talk aboutwhat we showed off at NRF?
Maybe the quick highlight ofwhat Bluefletch did there.
Speaker 3 (16:20):
Sure, so I touched on it a little bit earlier.
But Bluefletch was in thedirect source booth and what we
had was a retail applicationthat was on Zebra devices and
Honeywell devices that wereenabled with RFID.
So a user could come into thebooth or an associate come in as
(16:42):
the associate with the device.
Customer could come in,determine what hats were
available in stock using RFID,like I talked about earlier, and
then they could fulfill thatorder right there on the floor
by saying hey, here's your hatand your size and your color.
You can take it with you.
Right now we can transact thepayment right here on the device
(17:04):
with tap on glass, with PXPpayment, and I think you're
seeing a lot of that.
Some stores did it early on,but now I think it's going to
start getting much morewidespread so that you can just
basically check out where youare in the store as opposed to
having to walk to the front andjust increase that employee
interaction.
So what we did there wasshowcasing that particular
(17:29):
retail interaction but then alsokind of driving.
That is the NFC loginexperience on newer hardware.
So if I'm an associate, I comein at the beginning of my shift.
All I have to do to log into myapplications.
To do my job is tap my badgeand enter a four digit pin so we
show that aspect of it and then, once I'm in, I'm operational
and ready to help customers andcomplete transactions.
Speaker 2 (17:52):
Yeah, so aligned a lot of the themes we talked
about above.
So shifting gears to the next.
I'm going to call it like megaconference, but HIMSS was
something that it's, I guess.
Can you talk about what HIMSSis and who goes there?
What's shown there?
Speaker 3 (18:09):
Sure.
So HIMSS is?
It's a healthcare conferenceand HIMSS is a beefy acronym.
It stands for HealthcareInformation and Management
Systems Society.
It's another one of those giantinternational conferences.
I think there's around 30,000people there.
It was in Las Vegas.
It was the first week of March,so March 3rd through 6th,
(18:31):
richard Makerson and myselfattended.
Most of the people who attendare technologists within
hospital and healthcare systems.
So if you think about it likelet's take the clinical aspect
from a nursing point of view, sochief nursing officers, chief
nursing informatics officers,the IT departments and
operations departments withinhospitals, so basically making
(18:55):
sure that the hospitals have thebaseline technology and
infrastructure to ensure thebest patient care possible those
are the people that attend thisevent.
Speaker 2 (19:04):
Got it and the themes .
I know you and I jotted down acouple of themes just based on
the notes of what you guys saw.
First one also artificialintelligence.
So what did you see at HIMSSrelated to healthcare and
technology around AI.
Speaker 3 (19:19):
Yeah, it's interesting because Richard and
I were talking about it and itwas before the conference had
started and both of us weretrying to guess how AI was going
to be presented at theconference, because, again, it's
like AI umbrella and thenyou're like, all right, well,
how can that actually help meout?
So what we saw and both Richardand I were concerned with
(19:41):
feeding data into an artificialintelligence model, particularly
if it contains patient data howare we going to handle security
?
So that was something that wasinteresting to us.
Microsoft had a booth therethat they essentially are
presenting AI infrastructureplatform that allows you to
manage your data and do datacleanup and data security across
(20:04):
different systems.
So that was pretty interestingbecause the amount of
information that theseorganizations are taking in but
not necessarily synthesizingorganizations are taking in but
not necessarily synthesizingit's.
I saw something the other daywas kind of death by dashboard,
but they're not necessarilyanalyzing any of it or making
sure that it's being safelystored and used.
Microsoft has a wholeinfrastructure platform that
(20:25):
they're going with, which seemspretty interesting.
So really, what they're tryingto do is take existing data and
help out cleaning it up andgetting information out of it.
So when you're looking aroundlike planning services for
patients, patient outcomes, thatkind of thing, just
(20:46):
understanding all this datayou're collecting, how to get
those key metrics out of it.
Also, another thing that wastalked about quite a bit was
making sure you're coding andcharting correctly for clinical
interactions with patients.
So take, for example, a kneereplacement in the OR.
(21:06):
Probably if you had 10different nurses in there, you'd
chart it 10 different ways, andthat means you're going to be,
as a hospital, reimbursed byinsurance 10 different ways,
some of which may be less, muchless than what you should
actually be getting.
So leveraging AI to make surethat if you've got procedure A
with equipment B and outcome Cis what's supposed to happen.
(21:29):
Typically, these are thecharting actions that need to be
occurring, and then you canjust check off from there, as
opposed to just having it beingan open-ended question.
So, kind of, around the whole,like clinical decision support
system, is what we were lookingat from an AI perspective.
So it was pretty interesting.
Speaker 2 (21:46):
Yeah, it's definitely a.
It seems like a area that'sripe for leveraging that
technology If they can figureout the HIPAA and security
requirements, absolutely.
Next theme was around, you know, along the lines of HIPAA,
cybersecurity or security in thehealthcare space.
What were some of the keythings that resonated around
around that for you guys, as youtalk to folks?
Speaker 3 (22:09):
So privacy obviously is is the the overarching theme.
It's just a rule to live bywithin healthcare.
A lot of things that we sawaround zero trust,
infrastructure, biometrics, notonly for the healthcare workers
for login but also for patientsto validate that the care that's
(22:32):
being administered on thatpatient is the correct person
because that happens a lot morethan you might like to think.
And then also, just from youknow, making sure that the
pharmaceutical side of thingsprescriptions are being
dispensed to the correct person.
They know who checked thoseprescriptions out before they
(22:52):
administered the medications.
And a lot of just making theexperience on device for
clinical workers, for frontlineworkers, when they're logging
into healthcare devices.
Making single sign-on as secureas possible and particularly on
logout, if there's thingsaround EHRs and communications
(23:13):
with patient information, makingsure that data is completely
cleared off that device beforethe next person on the next
shift picks up that device.
Speaker 2 (23:21):
I know that's.
It's one of the things we'vebeen getting.
A lot of inquiries around is.
I know Improvod has been inthat space for a while,
especially as companies havestarted to move to Android.
We've we've gotten a lot ofinquiries, which is one of the
main drivers for us being atHIMSS was a lot of customers
want to talk to us about that.
Yeah, talked to us about that.
(23:42):
I can see that On that notesort of.
The next theme was mobiletechnology and the prevalence of
mobile technology moving intothe healthcare space.
What are some of the themes yousaw there?
Speaker 3 (23:49):
Yeah, I think mobile technology and healthcare
traditionally has been a bitfragmented a lot of times
because doctors are going tobring the devices to work that
they want to use and aren'tnecessarily going to be using
hospital issued tablets, forexample.
But at the frontline level,particularly on the floor with
clinical interactions, we'reseeing a desire to have because
(24:11):
of security and because ofpatient outcome being the focus
a much more unified deployment,with tablets and handhelds that
are going to have each personwho is interacting with a
patient use a standard set oftools to standardize patient
care as much as possible.
So you know, we're getting ridof the clipboard for patients,
(24:34):
even in terms of handing themtablets for intake at the
beginning of hospital visits.
We're even seeing tabletsreplacing bedside entertainment,
so they're going to hand you atablet when you're staying in
the hospital.
You can log into your ownNetflix instance, things like
that.
And Android started to show upin that space as well because,
as tablets and handhelds arebecoming more prevalent for
(24:57):
frontline workers and forpatients, you need a way to
easily manage those things, andhandhelds are becoming more
prevalent for frontline workersand for patients.
We need a way to easily managethose things, and Android is
definitely going to be theeasiest of the three platforms I
would say that are out therebetween that, ios and, to some
extent, windows tablets as well.
Speaker 2 (25:13):
And we've seen a lot of vendors moving that space too
.
I think Spectralink wasprobably the first one, and then
Zebra with their HC series ofdevices, and now Honeywell and
both Samsung have healthcarespecific SKUs.
So it's definitely the Android.
Companies are pushing a lotinto that space and I think
we're going to see a lot lessiOS there in the next couple of
(25:33):
years.
I agree, I think that the nexttheme you talked about it's sort
of grouped into a couple ofthings but virtual care,
telehealth, and then, I guess,remote or digital patient
engagement.
Speaker 3 (25:46):
Maybe talk a little bit about what you guys saw
around that as you talked todifferent vendors, sure, so I
feel like telehealth really it'sa lot more mature now than it
was prior to COVID, and COVIDwas obviously a huge driver of
that because people weren'tnecessarily able to go visit
their doctor or hospitalsweren't necessarily taking in
(26:06):
patients unless they had anemergent COVID related illness,
but people still had other, youknow, health needs that needed
to be taken care of.
So a lot of the initial visitsduring COVID got pushed to the
telehealth and mobility side ofthings.
So there's a lot of focus onthat there and looking at
extending that telehealth topeople that may not otherwise
(26:29):
have the ability to go see adoctor easily because of either
constraints on not being able todrive or being far from a
hospital.
It's just really looking attelehealth as another part of
the healthcare patientengagement ecosystem.
The other part we saw of thatwas actually technology in the
(26:50):
field, like literally a mobileclinic, like an A-class tour bus
size RV.
That was a mobile hospital thatcan be deployed for areas that
may not have hospitals, like arural area or even in disaster
areas where the normal healthcare facilities could be
disabled or not reachable, andbecause of that there's a lot of
(27:12):
centralized monitoring systemsthat need to be stood up so that
these people can give frontlinecare in the field but then have
that information go back to acentralized place in order to
focus on the overall patientoutcome.
So it was an interesting kindof full circle to see what was
developed during COVID reallyget rolled out into what is now
(27:32):
the norm for healthcare.
Speaker 2 (27:33):
Yeah, you can modernize the next two themes.
I think the last two themes aresort of together, but I think
the first one you articulatedwas just workforce challenges.
Speaker 3 (27:44):
You can talk a little bit about that, yeah well, you
know a number of the boosts wewent into, particularly like
Zebra, honeywell and Samsung,from a hardware perspective.
They were just saying like look,healthcare is a very, very
important field to work in.
The people who work there tendto be undervalued and overworked
, so we're here to make thosejobs as easy as possible,
(28:08):
because patient outcome is whatreally needs to be the focus.
So there's a lot of focus on,you know, there's clinical
shortages and so we're trying tomake the job easier, extend the
shortages or mitigate theshortages by making technology
as easy as possible to use.
So some of the things we sawwere companies trying to adjust
(28:30):
holes in communication wherethere's even wearables that are
being paired to mobile devicesnow that you can communicate
with without having to touchthem, so you can stay sterile
within the sterile field butstill communicate to someone at
the end of the hallway at acharge desk or something like
that.
People are really thinking of alot of the things that may be
operationally rolled out in, say, a retail or warehouse
(28:53):
environment.
They're looking at thoseincremental gains there and
looking at how they can shift tohealthcare as well, with,
obviously, the focus on makingsure the privacy is maintained
from a patient perspective.
Speaker 2 (29:04):
Yeah, it's a communication tools in the field
.
So that's HIMSS and the lastone.
I know we're almost at thebottom of the call so I'll go
through these.
But I think we went to a numberof partner sales kickoffs.
So we work with a lot ofdifferent resellers, oems, and
attended a lot of their saleskickoffs really as a partner to
(29:28):
try to support them and helpengage with their teams and I
think some of the themes there Ithink theme one we saw was
around there's still a lot ofcustomers that haven't moderized
.
So, to your point, around thehealthcare, a lot of people in
windows, ios and pen and paper.
So I think modernizationthere's still a lot of
opportunities around that forthe technology space.
(29:49):
I think the second one was I'mgoing to call this the android
gen 1 refreshes.
So I know companies like thehome depots and the lows and the
targets of the World startedrolling out Android devices
around 2013, 2014.
Those are all pretty long inthe tooth.
A lot of those companies havealready refreshed, but most of
the followers are on a four orfive year cycle for refresh.
(30:12):
There's a lot of folks that arestarting to refresh devices
this year to take advantage ofsome of the newer tools,
computes, technology.
Theme 3, which is consistentwith the other conferences we
went, a lot of the differentOEMs and resellers were focused
on AI, so really I'm going tocall it looking for problems to
(30:35):
solve with AI.
People are actually starting tolook at problems, then applying
AI to go solve those.
It's been pretty clever.
And then I think the thing wedidn't see was I know there's in
the past a lot of concernsabout supply chain, both on the
OEM manufacturer side and on thereseller side, and I feel like
that's really become quiet.
I don't think I've heardanybody complain about supply
(30:55):
chain in the last two years,have you?
Speaker 3 (31:00):
No, I have not.
Speaker 2 (31:00):
It definitely was a thing for a while where people
were behind on device rolloutsbecause they couldn't get them,
but I haven't heard anyonemention that, um, in a long time
yeah, and then I think the lastthing of note was just a lot of
interest around biometrics Iknow you mentioned that in the
um above around healthcare, butI thought that's with the
manufacturers and with OEMsthinking about the balance of
security, privacy, but alsowanting to have the iPhone,
(31:25):
android phone experience thatyou get on a consumer device.
Those are some of the keythemes.
Speaker 3 (31:30):
So figuring it out from a shared device perspective
, it's going to happen, though.
Speaker 2 (31:34):
Yeah.
So I guess, Lee, in closing, ifyou had to say one or two
things, what would be thebiggest themes you took away
from all these Q1 conferences wewent to and participated in?
Speaker 3 (31:59):
Sure.
So I think across everything wetalked about today, it's really
about operational efficiencyand how that can be applied to
really any industry.
So in retail, operationalefficiency is going to result in
lower labor costs, higher salesand better inventory
accountability.
From a healthcare perspective,it's going to result in number
one, most importantly, patientoutcome and quality of care.
And then number two, privacy.
(32:22):
And number three, justtrackability of what care is
being given to each patient andmaking sure that hospitals are
tracking that appropriately froma financial perspective as well
, in terms of how they'rereimbursed by insurance or
Medicare or Medicaid.
Speaker 2 (32:39):
Excellent, awesome, well, thank you for sharing this
with me today, as always.
If anyone has follow-upquestions, feel free to reach
out to us at info atbluefudgecom, and if you like
this podcast, feel free to shareit or like it or do a little
ding button on whatever side itis on YouTube.
But thank you very much andhave a good one, appreciate it.
Thanks y'all.
But thank you very much andhave a good one, appreciate it.
Thanks y'all.
Speaker 1 (32:59):
Take care.
Thank you for listening to theenterprise mobility roundup
podcast.
If you enjoyed the discussion,please take a few moments to
rate us.
If you'd like to listen tofuture episodes, please
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To learn more about mobilitytopics or submit any questions,
visit us at bluefletchcom.
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