For both your employees and customers, mobile devices, smartphones, and tablets have all changed the way organisations work. What used to be carried out on computers or with a trusty pen and paper can be done with just a few taps of a screen.
All of which means that organisations are rethinking the technology and techniques they can use to make themselves more mobile-friendly in today’s digitally focused age. Not doing so is no longer an option. Rather, it’s how you can best leverage the opportunities that enterprise mobility can offer to you – and your customers.
Over the course of this guide, we’ll take a look at why mobile matters so much right now, as well as the benefits it can bring you. We’ll also provide some insights on choosing a mobility solution that best suits your business.
Even without figures and stats, mobility’s importance feels as if it almost goes without saying. After all, how much time do we spend on our phones throughout the day? Using mobile devices is so completely ingrained within our daily lives, it feels almost impossible to go a full 24 hours without using them – whether we’re at work or at home.
Nevertheless, hard facts make decision-making a lot easier, and there’s no shortage of them when it comes to emphasising just how important business mobility is right now. How much does mobility matter? Take a look at these stats below…
So, just why is mobility proving so popular for businesses right now? The following benefits certainly make it clear…
When business matters are in the palm of your hands, there’s a huge amount of freedom for employees at all levels. For instance, senior management can stay up to date on daily performance, letting them contend with any issues without having to be physically present in the office.
How about your sales reps? With a mobile device, they no longer have to phone the office just to access information concerning customers, products or deliveries. As for your delivery team, they’ll be able to view delivery lists around the clock, and post real-time updates back to your system while they’re on the road.
Improved business processes and improved productivity are two huge benefits of enterprise mobility, and it’s easy to see why. When access to the data and information your customer-facing team is at the touch of a button, you’ll reduce calls back to the office. This has the added benefit of improving your customer service too, since your team can now respond to queries almost instantaneously.
This helps your delivery teams too. By providing real-time updates and signatory details back to your system, it makes for faster, more seamless transactions with your customers across the board.
Enterprise mobility is a surprisingly low-cost solution, especially when you factor in just how effective it can be for your business. You’ll also have the added advantage of high user adoption too. Put simply, most people these days know their way around a mobile phone and the apps contained within.
That means no long-term training spent getting to grips with unfamiliar technology. There’s a pick-up-and-play aspect to enterprise mobility that makes it a very user-friendly investment.
The mobile devices your sales team uses allow them to place orders, upsell to customers and negotiate better deals more intuitively. Improving these processes means you’ll be greatly improving your competitive advantage compared to others within your industry.
With so many enterprise mobility solutions out there, it can be difficult to know which one is right for you. Without taking the time to properly weigh up your options, you might end up with something that certainly looks impressive but won’t actually benefit your business in any meaningful way.
So, what can you do? Before you make your decision, it’s worth considering the following to ensure you find a solution to suit your needs…
Although you can bet that even your most idiosyncratic requirements will be catered for, these will of course come at a price. And since you won’t have an endless budget, you should separate your ‘must haves’ from your ‘nice to haves’ and ask for these to be costed separately.
This gives you the chance to more accurately compare alternatives and manage your costs so that your budgets create a healthy return on investment.
Your business’s ERP functionality is capable of all sorts. But if you’re looking to replicate such complexities on a handheld device, then you should also expect limited usage and adoption as a result. And anyway, a mobile app is not capable of providing full ERP functionality (yet!), but it can support various departments with key features that ensures great efficiency.
Mobile users want simple, intuitive and well-performing apps. Therefore, your solution should look and work like the apps your employees are used to using. Not only will this keep training to a minimum, but you’ll be ensuring greater adoption throughout your organisation.
With so many impressive solutions available, it’s easy to get carried away with the possibilities. But these kinds of added extras might add little in the way of value to your business. To create the optimal experience, be sensible and include your employees at this crucial specification stage.
Evaluating work processes, and identifying how and where mobility will work best, ensures your mobility solution creates value that’s unique to your business. It’s also a good idea to segment your users so you can understand what functionalities certain employees need. After all, your delivery team’s requirements are going to be drastically different from those of your sales team.
There really is no “best provider” out there. There are simply too many changing market factors and too many unique user requirements to create a one-size-fits-all answer.
Nevertheless, it’s worth talking to your current business system provider to see, firstly, if they already have an integrated mobile solution to suit your needs. Or secondly, if they don’t have what you are looking for, suggestions as to what may suit best. Moreover, any mobile solution you choose to implement must already integrate with your current system or can be integrated via a REST API to give you one source of the truth.
Keeping your enterprise mobility safe and secure is going to be your biggest challenge. While the familiarity and productivity that comes with mobile devices are undoubtedly positives, it’s also vital that your employees remain secure when interacting with corporate networks and data.
Here’s where enterprise mobility management comes in handy. By controlling device behaviour from one central location in the network, you can ensure everything remains safeguarded from those looking to exploit your most sensitive data.
Designed to drive efficiency, boost productivity and enhance customer service, Intact iQ helps future-proof your business so you can deal with an ever-changing industry. For more information, visit our product page or get in touch with us today.