Enterprise Mobility: 1 key to Business Success?
Businesses are becoming more tech-savvy today than at any time in their history. The recession of 2008 and subsequent development of mobile technology has brought with it greater workplace mobility. The corporation of 2017 is unlike those who entered the new millennium.
Information Technology for most businesses has evolved. Web and smart-phone apps have taken off across the globe. Even sales assistants are using smart-phone apps to check stock levels or place new orders. For industries such as transport, logistics, shipping, airlines, and emergency services this means being more connected, tracing shipments etc. Everyone is now connected and traceable 24 * 7. Companies have know where their deliveries are and when shipment are expected to arrive.
Each industry is making demands about cost effectiveness. It starts at keeping in touch with staff, is enhanced with the capability of optimising routes to save on fuel costs. This is only part of business becoming better informed. Businesses run on both data and information. At the end of the day what business leaders do with the information at hand helps provide better service quality to customers and impacts profit margins.
Any industry involved in moving product will have been impacted by rising fuel costs, yet many are unable to rise its own charges due to market demands.
Mobility also encompasses the need for sales-forces to be 'connected' when visiting the customer. The ability to remotely manage systems (a service that may be outsourced). Demands to work-from-home, etc. have all coming into play across the corporation. Traditional office-based workers are also spending time working from home, to fit their work around the demands of their busy lives.
Recently I worked while waiting for the dentist, who was unusually delayed. Her delay meant I could use the time to help complete a project I had been working on.
Will we ever be able to manage all of our business from a single mobile device? Unlikely. But, there is an increasing amount we can do and many of the technology components already exist. Software developers are creating Android, iPhone and other smart-phone applications for corporate software.
Today tablet devices and smart phones are as important as the computer used at the office workstation. For example the tablet device can be in the warehouse worker's hand when they perform a stock check, or alternatively it can be used to scan bar codes to record stock at each location, including a precise geographic position.
Mobile convergence, and its ability to reduce office borders, will breathe new life into mobility. The addition of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and extensions to Business Intelligence (BI) will mean that background systems will in turn become smarter.
Eventually every computer system we use will have some form of AI support, even if this is to offer predictions of the likelihood of a prospect becoming a customer.
Remember though mobility isn't just about the salesman and executive any more. A larger number of people deemed as "not needing to travel" as a core part of their job are also part of the enterprise mobility revolution. It is not just the new-mum that is given equipment in order to work from home, but others who can identify a business case to change their working conditions.
I work at home all the time today only going into client's offices occasionally. Even meetings can be held successfully through remote hookups, reducing the cost to travel. My annual mileage is less that 5,000 every year. 10 years ago this was in excess of 25,000.
There are limits to our mobility, for example having connectivity in remote farmlands in northern Manitoba may be problematic, but thankfully most people are not that remote.
Peter Giblett also produces a blog called GobbledeGoox.
Information Technology for most businesses has evolved. Web and smart-phone apps have taken off across the globe. Even sales assistants are using smart-phone apps to check stock levels or place new orders. For industries such as transport, logistics, shipping, airlines, and emergency services this means being more connected, tracing shipments etc. Everyone is now connected and traceable 24 * 7. Companies have know where their deliveries are and when shipment are expected to arrive.
Each industry is making demands about cost effectiveness. It starts at keeping in touch with staff, is enhanced with the capability of optimising routes to save on fuel costs. This is only part of business becoming better informed. Businesses run on both data and information. At the end of the day what business leaders do with the information at hand helps provide better service quality to customers and impacts profit margins.
Any industry involved in moving product will have been impacted by rising fuel costs, yet many are unable to rise its own charges due to market demands.
Mobility also encompasses the need for sales-forces to be 'connected' when visiting the customer. The ability to remotely manage systems (a service that may be outsourced). Demands to work-from-home, etc. have all coming into play across the corporation. Traditional office-based workers are also spending time working from home, to fit their work around the demands of their busy lives.
Recently I worked while waiting for the dentist, who was unusually delayed. Her delay meant I could use the time to help complete a project I had been working on.
Will we ever be able to manage all of our business from a single mobile device? Unlikely. But, there is an increasing amount we can do and many of the technology components already exist. Software developers are creating Android, iPhone and other smart-phone applications for corporate software.
Today tablet devices and smart phones are as important as the computer used at the office workstation. For example the tablet device can be in the warehouse worker's hand when they perform a stock check, or alternatively it can be used to scan bar codes to record stock at each location, including a precise geographic position.
Mobile convergence, and its ability to reduce office borders, will breathe new life into mobility. The addition of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and extensions to Business Intelligence (BI) will mean that background systems will in turn become smarter.
Eventually every computer system we use will have some form of AI support, even if this is to offer predictions of the likelihood of a prospect becoming a customer.
Remember though mobility isn't just about the salesman and executive any more. A larger number of people deemed as "not needing to travel" as a core part of their job are also part of the enterprise mobility revolution. It is not just the new-mum that is given equipment in order to work from home, but others who can identify a business case to change their working conditions.
I work at home all the time today only going into client's offices occasionally. Even meetings can be held successfully through remote hookups, reducing the cost to travel. My annual mileage is less that 5,000 every year. 10 years ago this was in excess of 25,000.
There are limits to our mobility, for example having connectivity in remote farmlands in northern Manitoba may be problematic, but thankfully most people are not that remote.
Peter Giblett also produces a blog called GobbledeGoox.
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