Enterprise Mobility: Make The Commitment

I empathize with small to midsize businesses. There are never enough resources — time, money, labor — to accomplish all that you have in mind. The regional service company, for instance, is often too busy running the day-today operations and can’t spare the resources to evaluate and implement new technology. Ultimately, that technology will free up more resources, but it’s hard to make that up-front investment in time, money, and labor — no matter how great the payoff.

Does Personal Tech Outpace Your Enterprise Tech?
When we step out of work, however, we often free up those very same resources to evaluate and implement new technology that will make our lives more efficient. In many cases, some slight variant of that personal technology would benefit our businesses as well.

Armed with just about any new smartphone, personal users employ technologies that would make many small service companies jealous. Accessing a personal Word or PDF document is no different from accessing a customer contract, invoice, or product data. Scanning bar codes (1-D and 2-D) for retail savings or loyalty programs is no different from scanning bar codes on field inventory or installed parts. Watching a video snippet of a television show on YouTube is no different from watching a short instruction video or training tip. Receiving turn-by-turn directions to the mall is no different from using GPS technology to better route your field employees to customer sites.

The parallels could go on (e.g. text messaging, scheduling, appointment reminders, payment transactions), but the message seems pretty clear: We find the resources to put personal technologies in place, but we don’t always find the resources to put enterprise technologies in place. Well, if you’re a small to midsize company with field employees, the time to deploy enterprise mobility solutions is clear. It’s now.

You can’t imagine your personal life without always-on connectivity and real-time access to data and information. Wireless solutions can be the lifeblood of your enterprise as well. After all, providing better customer service and increasing overall employee productivity has to be more important than finding the best route to a restaurant or sending a text message during a movie. It’s time to find the resources.