Why Mobility is Critical to many Enterprises

By Dani Magestro
Updated: August 31, 2012

Mobility is becoming more and more critical to many enterprises.  One of the key reasons mobility is critical is productivity.  With more emphasis being placed on building relationships and being out in the field, the employees that work remotely need the availability of a mobile solution. The ability to access information anywhere in the world can give you a competitive edge.  Being mobile means you can inform and educate your prospective client on your services and make a sale within minutes. New, lightweight mobile devices eliminate past employee difficulties with weight, power requirements and physical constraints that used to be there even with laptops. If you’ve got a custom app that connects to your system your employee can pull up pricing and build out the quote in seconds. The key is having this end result, the quote, in the client’s hands faster than the competition.

Are there any other reasons why mobility is critical to many enterprises other than sales? Absolutely. Not only can your company benefit from increased sales productivity they can also benefit in saving time. Need to access your calendar and rearrange your schedule to meet with a client, great, your mobile solution can do just that. It provides real time calendar access that will save the borage of emails that can go back and forth when trying to schedule a meeting. In fact the basis of enterprise mobility is to ensure that your business stays connected. Saving time through these connections is a big cost benefit for your company as well increasing productivity.

If an employee has to drive to an internet connection to get on WiFi and then connect via VPN, this all takes time. If the information they need it at their fingertips they can quickly move on and continue working. Another scenario would be if a key employee needed to be home for the day they could also manage to keep the work flowing and stay connected. While some people argue this is bad for business, allowing your employees much needed moments to breathe while being able to still do their job is beneficial. All of this results in better employee performance as well as higher productivity.

With many businesses starting to provide around the clock service, being connected becomes even more critical. If you offer after hour support for your service or product in the field, staying connected will help make your job easier. If you go offsite to speak and need to access the company’s intranet because you forgot a key document for your presentation, gone are the days of trying to find an employee still in the office. Mobile solutions can make you feel as though you are right there in the office sitting at your computer. The accessibility is overabundant and you can almost always bet that the informational will be available.

Another clear reason why mobility is critical for many enterprises is growth. In order for their employees to feel they are still part of the group you must be in communication with them about company changes and updates. Email is a fantastic way to do this but even faster alternatives like SMS and IM are being used by employees. You are probably beginning to see that mobility being successful revolves around the end user or employee.  This is true, with technology landing in everyone’s hands outside of work; employees begin to question their productivity without it.

Our brains are starting to learn how multi-tasking in the work place is a necessary talent but having the data you need at your fingertips will actually bring back more of an analytical thought process. This is contrary to what most people think since they feel that readily available anything causes an attention issue. When rolling out a mobility plan enterprises can cut the time they spend fiddling with technology so they get everyone back to doing the jobs they love. Salesmen can focus on building relationships and figuring out what customers need. Marketing staff can remotely access the information they need so they can get back to marketing the business. HR staff can hold meetings and stay connected to remote staff via mobile video conferencing and they’ll never miss a beat.

That is the key element in all this. No more excuses for missing out on a business prospect. No more wasting time driving back and forth to complete your task. There is an improved balance between work and data - it all revolves around being mobile. There is no longer anything holding you back from doing business anywhere in the world and the opportunities are endless.