Mobile transformation is being felt in all aspects of business, this goes further than accessing your emails on the go but rather, mobility changes the way your employees and customers interact and carry out their business. Staying on top of business productivity, staff empowerment and performance no matter the location is vital to all members of an organisation. Forrester states that approximately eight in ten employees spend part of their time working out of the office. A third of employees are presently considered to be completely mobile “anytime, anywhere information workers” who use three or more devices, work from multiple locations, and use many apps. Mobile technology has become an extension of the employee as much as it is for the consumer. Enterprise applications must keep up.
Let’s look at how mobility is affecting the different aspects of the business…
Mobility for sales and service maintenance engineers
Staying connected and up-to-date with your sales pipeline is vital for sales professionals to assess their performance (see our previous blog). Communication with customers is key, applications such as Skype for business enable communication with customers no matter where they are located, from a desktop, tablet or mobile phone. It is also vital that sales have access to data and resources when they are “on-site” whether that is checking a particular item is in stock or referring back to customer data or entering their expenses and timesheets without having to go into the office.
Applications such as Mobility Suite from Prodware assists field service operatives in scheduling and rescheduling appointments and allows them to input maintenance data directly into the business ERP system whether on or offline. Again, this supports business productivity and efficiency objectives within the organisation.
Marketing and mobility
We have discussed this in length in previous blog, but it is worth reinforcing that mobility has enabled marketers to communicate with customers in new ways, expanding their reach and customer base. It also means all customer facing communications must be mobile friendly, whether this is a responsive website or a downloadable application, marketers must take into account the information they put out will most likely be viewed on a mobile device.
Mobility for finance
Whilst all employees can benefit from the ability to work remotely the real benefit for finance and the business as a whole is that with data being inputted directly in real time whilst sales people are on site, you have the peace of mind the all your financial data is kept up-to-date. This enables effective and informed decision making from the finance and wider management team.
Mobility for customer service
We have discussed in a previous blog how customers are utilising social media to air their grievances and communicate with the companies they do business with. With customers having this capability businesses need to be notified when they are being discussed and respond within a reasonable amount of time in order for the complaint not to escalate. The single most important factor for consumers is how quickly and effectively a business responded to them.
The ability to access historic customer data whilst on site is imperative to customer service, there is nothing more frustrating than having to repeat your grievances over and over to different customer service representatives. A CRM system such as Microsoft Dynamics CRM, allows customer engagement on the go, accessible from mobile devices, customer service teams can benefit from having customer data at their fingertips wherever they are.
Mobility has enabled greater collaboration between teams, more up-to-date data and increased customer contact points. The use of mobile technology is predicted to increase with Forbes reporting that “mobile ERP platforms are expected to take centre stage in the future, with business processes being conducted on smartphone and tablet devices rather than on personal computers.” Make sure your business is ready for a mobile driven workforce, find out how Prodware can help drive your business with mobile technology across different functional teams.
Leave a reply