With its field staff is primarily on the road, event execution ranges from large-scale mobile marketing experiences, to guerilla marketing demonstrations and on-the-spot promotions. Marketing Werks uses a direct approach, reaching out to consumers where they live, work and play, to get its clients’ products in the hands of consumers. Its clients wanted consumers to use laptops at events to visit websites, make purchases, flip through digital catalogs, enter in promotions, submit consumer data, capture and e-mail photos and more.

At first, Marketing Werks deployed standard, consumer-grade laptops for their campaigns. Matt Stadt, senior manager of technology at Marketing Werks notes, “With our initial batch of notebooks, we saw a failure rate of more than 50 percent. These laptops were a huge drain on us. Every time one failed, it meant hours of extra work for the IT department, and missed daily reports from our employees on the road. Plus, our customer support calls with the laptop manufacturer sometimes took up to 45 minutes just to reach a live person.”

Since Marketing Werks needed laptops that could withstand the wear and tear of the road-tour lifestyle and be a key element of a consumer engagement program, they decided they needed a wirelessly-enabled rugged laptop that could withstand a life on the road and being used by both consumers and the company’s employees who send daily event reports to the headquarters.

The company chose the Toughbook 52 laptop because of its robust feature set and overall design aesthetic. And while there was a cost difference between the rugged device and other laptops, Matt noted that the Toughbook laptop had “much less downtime built in,” so he expected a lower cost of ownership.

The Verizon Wireless 3G network has become a lifeline for Marketing Werks road crew employees. They use Mobile Broadband service to file multi-media reports and access proprietary networks.  They also stay in touch with friends and family by chatting on instant messenger, sending email and photos, and posting updates on social networks. Since these employees wake up in a new city almost every day, the ability to stay connected with a Toughbook computer is one very important way that they maintain a normal life on the road.

“We saw an instant improvement,” said Matt. “Our laptop failure rates dropped from more 50 percent with the standard laptops and data cards, to less than three percent using Toughbook 52 laptops with embedded wireless broadband.”

Marketing Werks’ IT staff now spends significantly less time solving device problems and repairs. They can now focus on implementing technology that can benefit the company’s bottom line and improve client satisfaction. As their business has continued growing over the past several years, Marketing Werks has purchased additional Toughbook 52 laptops. Now, with 135 Toughbook 52 laptops deployed in the field, Marketing Werks considers Panasonic and Verizon Wireless valued partners in its success.

The Panasonic and Verizon Wireless teams went out on the road and filmed a video case study with the Marketing Werks crew. Take a look at the below video to see how the Toughbook 52 with Verizon Wireless Mobile Broadband Built-In helps the company’s employees execute their campaigns and remain connected at all times.

Labatt Food Service can trace its roots to the early 20th century. The company is widely recognized in the food service distribution industry as an innovative, customer-focused and high-energy leader.

To maintain this reputation, Labatt has continually innovated to bring improved service to its customers. In 2008, the company realized that two issues needed to be addressed to maintain its competitive edge in the transportation arena: driver satisfaction and delivery efficiency.

Like many in the industry, Labatt’s drivers were using pen and paper to track arrivals, departures, returns and to update hours-of-service logs to comply with internal documentation needs and DOT regulations. By moving to a digital solution, Labatt could realize significant improvements in operational efficiency.

Labatt first looked at shrink-wrapped solutions available to the trucking market, but found these devices were too restrictive – not allowing for upgrades, modifications and customization. After exhaustive research, the company selected the Toughbook U1 for its durability, full Windows OS, daylight viewable touch screen, embedded mobile broadband and GPS.

“Because the U1 runs a full Windows operating system, we are able to develop solutions on our own laptops without some type of emulation software to mimic a handheld operating environment. We know if it works on our laptops it will work on the U1,” said Miguel Escobedo lead project architect, Labatt Food Service.

With wireless connectivity a critical component of the deployment, Labatt tested multiple providers to establish which offered the best mobile broadband service in its operating area – ultimately determining that mobile broadband service from AT&T was best suited to address its needs.

Since adopting the new Toughbook U1-based solution, the benefits have been clear. The new solution automatically logs route data and customer interactions, eliminating the time spent entering data by pen and reentering paperwork at the distribution center.

The Toughbook U1’s reliability has reduced the IT support issues typically found with mobile technology solutions, allowing Labatt to focus on strategic growth issues that can further improve the service it offers its customers.

“Since drivers played such an involved role in the system’s creation, they have really embraced it. And keeping drivers happy is important to our bottom line. Since the system’s implementation, we’ve seen driver turnover get cut in half. Although turnover reduction is not entirely attributable to the new system, its estimated worth is just under a million dollars a year,” said Blair Labatt III, project lead, Labatt Food Service.

Click on this link to read the full Labatt Food Service case study.

Frederick Memorial Hospital, one of the most comprehensive home health care systems in Maryland, knew that pairing the most reliable mobile computer with the best wireless broadband network would be a critical part of improving the quality of care offered by its home health clinicians.  The solution the hospital deployed was the Panasonic Toughbook T series laptop with embedded Verizon Wireless mobile broadband.

Recently, Frederick Memorial was placed in the top one percentile of hospitals nationwide for EMR adoption.  The hospital credits a large portion of this recognition to its Toughbook/Verizon Wireless solution, for its ability to easily collect and share standard information in the field.

Take a look at the video of Frederick Memorial’s mobility success story.

This is a modified version of the original post.

I strongly believe this is the year of embedded wireless devices, which makes for a very exciting time here at Panasonic.  Please take a few minutes to listen to this engaging conversation and watch the slides. Let us know your thoughts and we would love to answer any questions you may have, right here, on our blog.

Currently, all major U.S. wireless carriers offer 3G data access for mobile computers. Available using external PCMCIA cards, USB devices or as embedded (also called integrated) wireless modems, these offer very different experiences for both users and their IT managers.

The downside to external cards and USB-based modems is that they deliver reduced performance and reliability. First, users need to insert a device into their notebook—anytime a user is required to do something to their technology, a risk is introduced. Also, as an added on component, these cards are prone to loss, theft or damage; they become a drain on a device’s battery power; they don’t achieve the same rates of connection speed and throughput—all factors that reduce worker productivity and introduce cost-centers for IT.

While external modems are not optimized to work within a specific device, reducing their effectiveness in attaining and maintaining a network connection, embedded modules are engineered and tested to work as an integrated part of the notebook and designed to ensure optimal performance. This is especially important in fringe areas, which can be field-based or less obvious settings, such as meeting rooms or airport gates. It is also important to note that, as an integrated component, these modems are protected under the notebook warranty.

Recently, we partnered with Larstan Business Reports to develop a whitepaper that clearly outlines the benefits of embedded wireless broadband modems over external solutions. Take a minute and read through “The Business Case for Embedded Wireless Technologies in Mobile Enterprise Strategies.” In addition to outlining benefits of embedded modems, the whitepaper also includes in-depth, real-world usage scenarios that you might find beneficial.