5 Tips for Making Mobile Work for Your Business...
Mobile technology quickly is
becoming the heart of modern businesses, enabling anywhere-anytime
communications that are necessary to compete. Making mobile work is not a
cakewalk, even so. This article provides tips for how to get the most from a
mobile business environment.
Business in the modern era
demands that workers not be confined to offices-to collaborate and push sales,
they must be able to communicate anywhere, anytime. The need for mobile devices
in the corporate environment, therefore, has never been higher. To incorporate
mobile technologies into your company without headaches or an exorbitant bill,
keep these tips at the forefront of your game plan.
In some businesses, it makes
perfect sense to issue a specific Android or Apple device to employees, based
on what the objectives and needs of the companies are. In many cases, however,
a Bring-Your-Own-Device (BYOD) approach is much more cost effective, as it
eliminates the need for businesses to pay for hardware. In addition, workers
often have increased user satisfaction if they can use a device they're
familiar with and that is suited to their ergonomic needs. The caveat, of
course, is that BYOD requires very clear, killer IT security and privacy plans,
as there is much more complexity involved given the number of different devices
and difficulty in monitoring or-controlling user activity. Your policies should
be both enforceable and simple.
There are two reasons to look for
applications that work on both Android and Apple devices when setting up a
mobile plan for your business. First, cross-platform apps enable you to
implement a BYOD infrastructure, as you know the apps will work regardless of
the OS your employees prefer. Secondly, even if you don't adopt BYOD,
cross-platform applications allow you to think long term and upgrade with ease.
For instance, if you're using an Apple device but find an Android one that
better fits what your workers need, you can swap devices without having to find
different software that your employees would have to spend time learning.
If your employees constantly are
having to copy and paste from one application to another, they're wasting time
and costing you money. Try to find software that syncs together well with
automatic updates or importing/exporting to eliminate this problem.
If you're going to embrace mobile
technology, then really, truly embrace it and make sure that everyone who needs
workers' mobile numbers has them. The idea here isn't to extend work hours with
anytime calls, but rather to make sure that employees can come and go as they
need to during their shifts without a loss of communication.
Most mobile devices are dinosaurs
by the time they're just two years old. Subsequently, mobile isn't going to be
a one-time or leave it and forget it business investment. Rather; even as you
try to find devices that will provide a good return for the time they're in
use, you must accept that mobile will have a high turnover. Pay attention to
upcoming device releases and see which products seem to align best with the way
you foresee your employees working. As you explore your options, remember that
holding on to a specific series your workers like (for instance, iPhones) might
hold you back if your company is going in a new direction that requires
different apps or features. If you pick something new, lessen the pain of the
transition with good training for your employees, and give them a little time
to adjust before you start harping on their efficiency or productivity levels.
With the bulk of consumers using
mobile to interact with businesses, and with the competitive market demanding
that workers continue to communicate through the workday regardless of where
they are, companies have to embrace mobile if they want to survive. These tips
can't guarantee a perfect mobile ride, but they can smooth it out and head off
potential problems if you apply them well.
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