iAnywhere, a subsidiary of Sybase, Inc.(NYSE: SY), announces that McDonalds Restaurants Limited has this week completed the roll out of a solution utilising its iAnywhere Afaria software on Microsoft Windows Mobile-based Pocket PCs, to provide Operations Consultants across the UK with personal information management, mobile reporting and monitoring tools.
The Operations Consultants goal is to encourage restaurant managers to reach McDonalds high standards of service and customer care, and the company chose the iAnywhere and Windows Mobile solution to support the implementation of over 200 Pocket PCs. Providing a familiar Windows experience, the solution allows the consultants, who each manage eight-to-twenty plus restaurants, to easily enter tick the box style inspection details directly into their Windows Mobile device as the inspections take place.
This eliminates time wasted from typing handwritten notes after the inspection round is finished, while also standardising each restaurants inspection criteria to allow comparison. The new solution cuts almost three hours from the two to three day process of inspecting restaurants ensuring that information is available and can be acted upon in near-real time. To enhance the use of the Pocket PC devices McDonalds also rolled out Microsoft Exchange 2003 providing remote mail access via the devices, something that has helped greatly in the user adoption of the technology.
Keith Frimley, UK IS Business Relationship Manager of McDonalds UK, commented: The implementation of the Windows Mobile Pocket PC in combination with iAnywhere's products provides McDonald's with an efficient, secure and reliable mobile solution. McDonald's operations consultants (our key internal customers) can now focus more of their time on helping restaurant managers and franchise holders improve standards across our estate as well as save significant time in capturing and reporting information via the mobile application.
Tim Carter, European Sales Director of iAnywhere, comments: McDonalds evaluated a large number of solutions but chose Afaria running on Microsoft software as it provided the consistent platform necessary to enable McDonalds to manage inventory and secure all of its frontline mobile devices. Key concerns were user provisioning, data management and the security of the devices, but with Afaria, if the Windows Mobile Pocket PC is lost or left in a taxi, Afaria can actually stop that device from being used by someone else.
Frimley further comments: What we sought was something rare when it comes to a lot of technology expenditure, a direct and tangible return but that's what we have achieved. All our consultants are now saving time, executing a process that they understand, in a way that was just the most obvious approach to take, using technology to move and manipulate data. The consultant handles the information once and then it is processed in many ways elsewhere in the business, enabling them to spend their energy on other value-added activities. We have already seen enormous benefits because of the records we now have stored centrally on the current and past operational standards of our restaurants. This also helps us to focus on Quality, Service and Cleanliness and therefore continually improve our customers' experience when they visit a Restaurant."
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