By William Buller, Mobility Consultant at Telefónica UK.
Whether you’re a field based sales person on a train preparing for a client meeting, a facilities manager reviewing a residential site or even a police officer checking and collecting incident data on the roadside. Enterprise mobility is a business transformation strategy that improves productivity, reduces costs and speeds up business agility. It is relevant to all organisations in all sectors and all job profiles within those sectors. And it’s something we’ve long waxed lyrical about at O2 – we call it Smarter Working.
There are four main elements to a Smarter Working strategy – connectivity, devices, management and applications. IT managers have (or should have) got to grips with all four elements however, I think the benefits of Applications in the workplace are underestimated by many.
It is applications that really bring smarter working to life. Many businesses are already providing mobile email and document sharing and this has undoubtedly been of great benefit. But believe me it’s just the tip of the iceberg.
Only when all business applications can be accessed anytime anywhere with ease and security will the true value of Smarter Working be realised:
Field based sales people that are able to search and update their CRM system on a mobile device can provide customers with immediate answers. They can better prepare for the meeting and do not need to go back to the office to update the system saving both time and emissions.
Rail Engineers that can use a tablet to report damage and faults more accurately with photographic evidence. This information can be geo tagged, meaning responders can be directed straight to the point of issue. Once fixed they can log the job as completed in their app and move onto the next job. Faster reporting and response results in quicker and cheaper repairs and happier customers.
The sales assistant who from their tablet can check on stock availability or use a video playback application to engage shoppers whilst serving on the shop floor. IDC predict that by 2017 100% of line of business applications will be available in customer facing roles as a mobile application. Is your business working towards this?
O2 offers a full range of mobile applications services covering high level business needs, through simple mobile forms development and detailed applications needs analysis, design and build to a fully flexible application development and management platform.
So if you want to unlock the hidden value in your organisation that is currently tied up by a lack of mobility you need to mobilise your business applications. Without this you will not be able to achieve true Smarter Working and really deliver the change you desire.
For more information on how O2 can support your organisation through applications visit our website.
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