Observations from the Meonske Professional Development Conference

On April 29, 2011, I co-presented with Denny Abbuhl, CFO of Howley Bread Group (a Panera franchisee that operates stores on the East Coast), at the 37th Annual Meonske Professional Development Conference. We presented our thoughts on using the iPad in a business environment. The audience consisted of over 300 accountants, which was a fantastic group for a late Friday afternoon presentation.

I explained, in pretty high level terms, the four areas where the business use opportunity exists - Content Managment/library, Information Portal (streamlining access to information in the "cloud"), News Content Management, and Business Intelligence. Any of these four are compelling enough to justify executive implementation and use of the iPad.
In addition, an overview was provided on the mobile technology shift that is underway and why this environment is so significant in considering the application or business use case for the iPad. Two documents I referred to, which are recommended reading for anyone looking to better understand the "bigger picture" of what is going on are listed below:
Kleiner Perkins - "Top Mobile Internet Trends"
http://www.slideshare.net/kleinerperkins/kpcb-top-10-mobile-trends-feb-2011

PWc Whitepaper - "Unleashing Enterprise Mobility"
http://www.pwc.com/us/en/technology-forecast/2011/issue1

Business Use Case Study
Denny wrapped up our presentation with a discussion of how his organization, Howley Bread Group, has implemented the iPad and are leveraging it to change how things are getting done. Denny touched on the following major areas around integrating the iPad:

• Executive Buy-In

• Challenges

• Progress

• Future Initiatives

Finally, our recommended steps to getting started with an iPad (or tablets, in general) in business were presented:

1. Identify and focus on “easy wins” to get momentum going
2. Don't chase perfection – just START
3. Commit to change!
4. Make it a group effort...It will be fun.

If there are any questions regarding this presentation, the presenters can be reached at:
Don Tomoff drtomoff@thornhillcpa.com
Denny Abbuhl Denny@howleybread.com