Enterprise Mobility and the Fog of War

Fog of War

The term of “Fog of War” means “The uncertainty in situation awareness experienced during operations.”  It is really hard to manage operations efficiently if you don’t know where your people and resources are located.  How can you implement your strategy or fulfill your mission without this knowledge?  Gaining situational awareness is the key to improving productivity in the field.

In the preliminary results of my mid-year enterprise mobility survey, the participants have identified “improved productivity” as the #1 ROI that companies are seeking from enterprise mobility.  This would suggest a need for GPS tracking of your workforce, assets and resources and improved situational awareness.

I recently read that 90% of the challenges that military commanders have are finding the enemy, and finding their own forces.  Knowing the location of your resources enables you to make all kinds of data driven decisions such as:

• Estimated arrival times
• Determining what resources are closest to a job site
• Optimizing routes
• Optimizing schedules
• Identifying the nearest location of materials, supplies and other resources
• etc.