Diesel, the leading brand, took Salesforce to the next level and transformed their merchandising fields staff with a fully offline, fully custom mobile app. Learn the challenges they faced and how they moved to an app that delivered results today with lifecycle management tools to take advantage of the opportunities tomorrow.

1. CUSTOMER SUCCESS
DELIVERING DIGITAL BUSINESS
TRANSFORMATION WITH MOBILE APPS
Moving beyond Salesforce1 to realise the true value of mobile

2. 80%
Time efficiency gained by
field users
6 TABLE OF CONTENTS
1 Diesel
2 The Search for a Solution
4 Starting Out With Salesforce1
6 When the App Stops, so Does the
Business
7 A Product Built for App Success
9 Regaining Confidence in Enterprise
Mobility
11 A Business Transformed
12 Continuing the Mobile Journey
Active countries
8x
Increase in users
Despite its benefits, many businesses are still reluctant
to invest in enterprise mobility, and feel related
challenges make the realisation of success too good
to be true. But the results seen by our customer
Diesel speak for themselves, and are reinforced by
the feedback received from the end users within the
business. This case study will recap the journey Diesel
experienced trying to achieve business transformation
with mobility, and detail how MobileCaddy’s unique
capabilities were the right choice to do so.”
“
Justin Halfpenny, CEO, MobileCaddy
3
Upgrades in 6 months
6
Week project completion

3. DIESEL
REIMAGINING A GLOBAL BRAND
IN THE DIGITAL AGE
Diesel is a luxury fashion brand which
started out in 1978, and has since grown
to a company of €1.5 billion turnover, with
staff of 7,000, and international offices in
major cities around the globe.
Dean joined Diesel in September 2013,
tasked with reimagining the brand’s identity,
by bringing it back up to speed with modern
trends and intensifying consumer demands.
I was introduced to help relaunch the brand and improve the
route to market. During that time a large-scale commercial
restructuring of the organisation was occurring. Within that,
we were seeking a way to become more qualitative and
consistent in the measurement and execution of our key
workflows.
Having previous experience with Salesforce, I set out in
April 2014 to find a simple solution to achieve this on the
platform. This case study will outline the journey which
followed, exploring the challenges we faced along the way,
and detailing how we were able to positively transform our
business by finding the right solution with MobileCaddy.”
Dean Cooper, Director, Northern Europe
“
1

4. THE SEARCH FOR A
SOLUTION
Looking to restore a cutting edge to how Diesel
conducted its business, one of Dean’s priorities
was centred around instilling focused processes
within a highly distributed workforce of visual
merchandisers and sales executives.
Dean needed to find a way to make important
daily tasks such as calendar scheduling, data
entry, and reporting more methodical, which
would consequently make them easier for staff to
complete. Crucially, this would improve relationships
with stores, free up more time to explore new
business opportunities, and begin to raise the
brand’s image in the eyes of its end customers.
TURNING TO TECHNOLOGY
Having explored a number of options which would
help drive the workforce’s performance, a digital
technology solution emerged as the logical option
to streamline the way employees were able to
complete their work for their own benefit, as well as
the brand’s.
The idea of opening up a
discussion with Salesforce then,
just like a digital strategy should
be, was not technology-led, but
people-led.
2

5. GETTING INTO THE MOBILE MINDSET
Dean was introduced to the idea of using a mobile application from Salesforce to replace paper-based processes and add a new
dimension of accuracy to his employees’ work in the field. When evaluating the various technologies available, it became apparent
that a mobile app would provide significant improvements in the areas Dean was looking to address.
Therefore, investing in an app for the workforce represented the best way for Diesel to correct all of its inconsistencies, and
provided an opportunity to improve the running of the organisation, giving employees more time to do their jobs effectively.
DESIRED OUTCOMES OF THE INITIAL
APP FOR THE DIESEL EMPLOYEES
Personalised calendar scheduling
In-store report completion
Photo capture for validation
Automated creation of actions
3

6. STARTING OUT WITH
SALESFORCE1
The Salesforce1 mobile app was chosen as
the vehicle to initiate this change within
the business, due to a desire for simplicity
and convenience for the workforce on a
large scale. The first version of this was
launched in October 2014, as Salesforce
offered a quick and easy way to mobilise
Diesel’s existing infrastructure.
The app did initially provide some
of the advantages mobility offers in
the workplace, and the strategic idea
behind its deployment was justified by
the convenience of how an app could
theoretically perform for the use cases
Dean had outlined.
However, challenges quickly emerged
within certain workflows once the app had
been deployed, while some of the features
were not being delivered as required by
the employees.
Enabled the testing
of initial ideas
Revealed the need for
additional features
Gathered valuable
user feedback
4

7. No Offline Logic
The Salesforce1 app
was intended to boost
productivity, allow
real-time completion
of various duties in
the field, and improve
the accuracy of the
employees’ work overall.
However, the app itself
was, in many ways,
contradictory to those
desired outcomes, and
began to demonstrate
several limitations which
were giving users a
negative experience.
LIMITATIONS AND FRUSTRATIONS
Loss of Critical Data
Clunky, Ineffective
Interface
Slow & Frustrating
Experience
5

8. It became apparent that the employees had become entirely dependent on the app, but were obstructed by an
inability to use it when any Internet connection was lost, among other common failings. A lack of offline functionality
was becoming an inherent problem, though, because the department stores which are visited on a daily basis by
many of the employees using the app have extremely poor connectivity.
In this scenario, the app was rendered virtually useless, the employees were forced to revert back to working
manually, and the efficiencies which had been gained were immediately being lost again.
WHEN THE APP STOPS, SO DOES THE BUSINESS
APP FAILURE IS NOT ACCEPTABLE
A realisation occurred that having the
app, but not being able to use it, was the
most damaging possible situation for the
business to be put in, because it had become
absolutely critical to the employees’ ability to
do their jobs.
6

9. A PRODUCT BUILT FOR APP
SUCCESS
BUILD
TEST
DEPLOY
MONITOR
ANALYSE
VERSION
Dean was forced to find a new solution capable of helping
him overcome this unexpected challenge. This would need
to let him create an app that would simply work within their
critical processes, and keep working, in the ways his employees
required it to.
“This is when we were introduced to Justin and the
MobileCaddy team in February 2015. We were very nearly
ready to give up on the Salesforce mobile app project,
because the lack of full offline use had become completely
counterproductive for our guys in the field,” explained Dean.
“When we started working with MobileCaddy to understand
how we could build a new app, get it connected, and what those
processes looked like, everybody was totally engaged with
making it happen, and there was commitment from every side.”
In MobileCaddy, Dean found a product which could deliver on
those requirements, while remaining affordable and reliable.
MobileCaddy offered Diesel the tools to build an enterprise-
grade app which would be simple to change or update, with
careful management of its entire lifecycle, to remove the failures
of Salesforce1.
An end-to-end
solution designed to
ensure businesses
succeed with their
investments in
technology
DESIGN
MANAGE
7

10. By going back to the drawing board with MobileCaddy it became clear where mistakes had been made previously. By adopting
MobileCaddy’s unique, comprehensive approach to the mobile app project, as demonstrated below, the right measures and criteria
were put in place to ensure the app would perform as necessary.
Through MobileCaddy, Diesel was given a fresh start, and by understanding the importance of these four key elements, Dean was
able to produce an app capable of achieving exactly what the business needed.
Business Value
The outset of any mobile app
project requires a disciplined
approach to define and record
the desired business value.
This will be used to inform the
design, measure overall success,
and provide the checks and
balances during subsequent
project stages.
App Performance
App performance demands an
enterprise-grade specification
as the foundation of success.
A robust approach to platform
uptime, data connectivity, and
fault handling with production
monitoring and alerts will
provide the confidence to
mobilise any business
process.
UX Design
Every aspect of the app’s design
must be suited to the mobile
form factor, and to the process
at hand. This means
understanding the user and
logic flows, and ensuring the
final design matches the user’s
experience to the required
business outcomes.
App Agility
Adapting to new challenges and
opportunities is vital. Upgrading
and maintaining a robust,
offline-first mobile app must
be quick and cost-effective, to
maximise the available effort on
new app requirements. Version
deployment processes should
be carefully managed to
streamline releases.
8

11. REGAINING
CONFIDENCE IN
ENTERPRISE MOBILITY
When dealing with more complex use cases,
intricate business processes, and critical
workflows, businesses must be aware that
solutions such as Salesforce1 can only
stretch so far, and will always come with a
high risk of failure if asked to do so.
When MobileCaddy’s emphasis on app
success was added to Diesel’s equation, the
problem was easily solved. The app then
became a way to enhance the existing
output of the employees, offering a new
way of working which could save time,
reduce mistakes, lower costs, and increase
revenue.
By working with MobileCaddy across the
entire lifecycle of their app, Dean was given
absolute confidence in the solution’s ability
to achieve his original goal of driving the
transformation of the brand.
9

12. “We also worked closely with MobileCaddy on reimagining the UI and the UX of the Salesforce1 app, which was very
important in that next stage with our new app working offline,” Dean continued. “Once we had it connected, we made sure
we improved how the users would work with it, so we got a lot of our people involved to help us perfect that. When we
eventually landed on our customised UI, we knew we had something very powerful.”
The visual
representation
of each store’s
performance gives
the user instant
information without
having to navigate a
clunky interface.
The ability to
schedule their
next store visit
with a single tap,
immediately after
completing one, gives
the users speed and
consistency.
Offline-first design
means the user
continues to
work, unaffected,
even without
connectivity. Sync
status is constantly
communicated to
the user.
Simple, fast
scrolling keeps the
user focused on
the task at hand,
and keeps them
informed of their
schedule.
A built-in feedback system helps to inform
improvements for future versions of the app.
The design means the user is only
shown information relevant to
their current task.
The overall interface was designed through a series
of user workshops, meaning data input is as efficient
as possible. The app doesn’t impede relationship
management.
10

13. A BUSINESS TRANSFORMED
When the new app with MobileCaddy was deployed, the
technology choices Dean had made in his search for mobile
success began to pay dividends once it was applied to the
critical processes his employees were working to.
Adoption among the workforce was far more positive than with
the previous Salesforce1 app, because MobileCaddy had been
able to solve all the challenges employees were facing as a
direct result of Salesforce’s limitations.
“
Stephanie Lennox, Visual Merchandiser, Diesel
The MobileCaddy app was easier to use
in comparison to the Salesforce1 app.
With the old app there was a lot more
information to input, and you just felt like
you were constantly trying to navigate
your way around. My job is all about having
time, because I do a lot of travelling. So
because the MobileCaddy app was so much
quicker, I had a lot more time to complete
important jobs that I really needed to get
done. I instantly felt much happier using the
MobileCaddy app, because the input of all
the information was really simple, really easy,
and I had no problems using it at all.”
11

14. BENEFITS AND ADVANTAGES
Among the immediate commercial returns was an increase in product orders from leading department stores, and improved
relationships between employees and store owners or customers, driven by the intuitive features that were being utilised
within the app.
It became clear that the MobileCaddy app not only introduced a more effective operational status quo for the business, but
also contributed to better management of client relationships, far greater organisation across the entire workforce, and also
delivered cost reductions to solidify the return on investment.
The time spent in the field focusing on important tasks by the merchandising teams saw close to a 100% increase
due to the efficiencies gained. This led to a significant rise in reporting and daily task completion.
12

15. Because of its success, Diesel is now in the process of
rolling out the app across the rest of Europe, going from
just 44 users to 170 in total.
CONTINUING THE MOBILE
JOURNEY
Transition into different
languages and cultures
Personalisation of various
features for each region
Translating the app from a
tablet computer into the
context of a smartphone
MobileCaddy’s unique versioning capabilities will
allow strategic upgrades to be made quickly, and
deployed seamlessly, maintaining the app’s value
to its users without disruption.
“The versioning aspect is built into MobileCaddy
from the ground up as part of its core DNA.
Because Diesel’s app is completely versionable,
it gives them the ability to react to the small
superficial changes, as well as the larger business-
oriented changes, to alleviate all the pain points
they encountered with Salesforce1. Beyond that,
they can now start to look at adding even more
value across the wider business with the next
version.
It seems that versionable architecture is one of
the things Diesel values the most about working
with MobileCaddy, because it got them to the
point where strategic business decisions were not
bound by technology. That then allowed them to
focus on building an app that was the best solution
for the business and its employees, because the
technology could, did, and will continue to respond
very quickly to satisfy their needs.”
Justin Halfpenny, CEO, MobileCaddy
13

16. MOBILE APPS OFFER THE
OPPORTUNITY FOR SUCCESS
Many analysts and experts will be quick to tell you that enterprise
mobility is a concept still in its infancy, but it appears to be growing up
fast. When approached strategically, mobile apps can become far more
than tools for convenient remote working; they can fundamentally
transform the running of a business by offering significant operational,
financial, and competitive advantages.
As we begin to move towards that new frontier, technology solutions
which can provide those advantages will need to be readily available.
This is why MobileCaddy exists today.
With MobileCaddy, businesses such as Diesel are able to create
apps purpose-built to support their most important processes
and workflows, regardless of size, industry, or location. By taking
responsibility for the entire lifecycle of those apps, MobileCaddy is able
to meet the demands of the enterprise, sustain the required levels of
performance, adapt to the rapid pace of market change, and deliver
true digital business transformation.
14

17. The information provided in this eBook is strictly for the convenience of our customers and is for general informational purposes only. Publication
by MobileCaddy does not constitute an endorsement. MobileCaddy does not warrant the accuracy or completeness of any information, text,
graphics, links or other items contained within this eBook. MobileCaddy does not guarantee you will achieve any specific results if you follow
any advice in the eBook. It may be advisable for you to consult with a professional such as a lawyer, accountant, architect, business advisor or
professional engineer to get specific advice that applies to your specific situation.
Talk to a member of
the solution team!
 + 44 (0) 800 368 9280
 info@mobilecaddy.net
© 2016 MobileCaddy Ltd, All rights reserved.
Time to start your journey...
Contact us today to explore the possibilities
available to your business when the
limitations of Salesforce1 are stripped
away.
Our mission is to help businesses overcome
their challenges and create mobile apps
which will restore their confidence in
enterprise mobility.
LEARN MORE