Become an Empowered Mobile Business
As more consumers than ever are using mobile devices for everyday tasks, more businesses today are also utilising the power of mobile technologies to increase the efficiency of their staff members and the business as a whole.
Every business today should be asking themselves the following questions about how best to incorporate mobile technologies into the organisation’s formal technology platform.
- How can my employees be more productive outside the office?
- How can staff stay productive across a range of mobile devices?
- How can we enable staff to work together across different locations?
- How can we ensure our data remains safe and secure as it travels outside the walls of the business?
The first question concerns access. Many businesses understandably opt to store company emails, files and calendars centrally at the office location where they can easily be accessed, modified, backed-up and always kept secure. When not in the office however, how do your staff access these work items today? Can staff make changes and updates to work files remotely which then update the “master” item held at headoffice?
Allowing mobile access to company resources really only makes sense – from an efficiency point of view – if those items can also be modified remotely and kept up-to-date where they are centrally stored. Otherwise the organisation risks losing track of business resources which can leave the company at risk.
The second question concerns consistency. Do your company documents, emails, calendars, etc. look the same regardless of whether they are accessed from a mobile phone, tablet or laptop? Ideally, the experience of the user should be highly consistent when accessing company resources across a broad range of devices.
Due to limitations imposed by screen size, items accessed by mobile phones may indeed have certain differences, similar to those experienced when one accesses a website from a mobile phone. But ultimately, the user should be able to update and modify documents, emails, etc. just as easily and with roughly the same interface regardless of the device.
The third question concerns collaboration. As more and more employees are working productively away from the office, the question becomes how well can staff collaborate with each other and clients regardless of their physical locations? Does your business enable online video conferencing, secure instant messaging and group meetings?
Finally, an increased risk for businesses engaged in today’s highly mobile business environment is their ability to ensure that company documents and resources remain the exclusive property of the organisation. Too many businesses lack control of their highly valuable resources once they leave the office premises. Information can be copied onto personal devices, forwarded to people outside the organisation and taken away with the person when they leave the company.
How does your organisation control this element of risk today?
Regardless of where your business currently sits on the mobile spectrum, there are numerous straightforward, cost-effective solutions that any company can use to dramatically increase efficiency, reduce the inherent risk and become a fully empowered mobile business.