"We really don't need to push the iPads, people know the benefits and are clamoring for them," says Steve Chong, manager of messaging at Union Bank in San Francisco. The bank just introduced iPads to a limited number of staffers across a broad range of functions, a deployment it expects will expand in the coming year given the early popularity of the devices.
The bank is at the fore of what looks likely be a major embrace of iPads and other similar tablets, which are larger than smartphones, lighter than laptops and relatively inexpensive. The devices also provide an easy way to access time-sensitive documents, provide consumers with quick loan information at branches, and replace folders and paper worksheets at staff meetings with a nine inch screen that can distribute information and give executives the ability to take notes and input information in real time. "For some people it's replaced briefcases," Chong says. "There's also a 'green' benefit in that you can reduce a lot of paper."
iPads, and other competitive devices such as RIM's Playbook, are making fast friends with bank workers. Research from Good Technology, a corporate mobility firm, found that 36 percent of the iPad activations to date have come from financial institutions.
"A bank can really change the workflow, particularly in the branch," says Nicole Sturgill, a research director at TowerGroup, who says the devices make sales encounters between consumers and staff faster and more interactive-the iPads can literally be handed back and forth to review documents and transactions.
Dimitri Volkmann, vp of product management for Good Technology, says the ability of the iPad-which has been available for about a year-to "instantly" access applications makes them a good fit for staff use, as does the fact that they don't weigh much and sell for about $500 (though some retailers late in the year were charging about $400). That's about half of the price of most lighter laptop "notebooks" from firms like HP and Fujitsu, which are the predecessors that most closely resemble the iPad.
Volkmann says the devices are a compliment to smartphone. "They're not going to replace iPhones. But the phone will get the calls, while the tablet will get used for work," Volkmann says.
Like the iPhone, there's a fierce battle among manufacturers to win share of the tablet market, namely between Apple and Research in Motion in the early going. JPMorgan is extending iPads to its investment banking staff as part of a six month trial-enabling workers to access email, contacts, attachments and mark-up and annotate documents and make presentations via the tablets.
On the RIM side, Sun Life Financial and the Canadian unit of ING are testing the Playbook. At Sun Life Financial, Playbooks are being used by sales reps to simplify presentations to potential plan sponsors for the institution's retirement savings business. The old presentations, which included lots of documents on plans and forms to be filled out and handed in later, are being replace by real-time automated interactive sessions via the Playbooks.
"Our staff can monitor how quickly people are progressing through the presentation, and our staff can work with them," says Tom Reid, svp of group retirement services for Sun Life, who says the device's dual core processor enables speedy access to apps, a key attraction for staff as its current "soft launch" of the Playbook expands in early 2011. Sun Life is also examining other use cases connected to sales, marketing and service. "This will profoundly change the way in which we do education [of plans and products] across the entire business."
The devices aren't without shortcomings. Sturgill says connections that allow printing and other functional enabled by a USB port (early tablets don't have USB ports, though such ports will reportedly be part of future models). "You can do work up to a certain level, then you have to go back to the laptop," she says.
And while tablets have lots of potential as a means to download info and as a sales tool, they still aren't powerful enough to send PCs and laptops to the dumpster. "Microsoft Office has a stranglehold on the personal work station, and these devices aren't capable of running on that," says James Van Dyke, founder of Javelin Research.
