There are many ways of improving the productivity of your workforce. We talk about how you can achieve increased productivity through Linking mobiles with desk phones. Ensuring that your remote users have all the information they require to do their job when out of the office, will also improve productivity, giving your company a competitive edge.
Mobile email and calendar access
Most companies now have either, a strategy in place or planned, to give their mobile users the ability to send and receive email when they are out of the office. Most companies have seen an increase in staff productivity after deploying a mobile email solution. Iposis Reid completed a study that showed on average BlackBerry users save an hour a day. The ROI is normally compelling when considering the hourly rate of the average BlackBerry user.
There are a number of ways to deliver email to your work force. Three technologies are emerging as the preferred methods.
BlackBerry
- Consists of software, BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES) that connects to your corporate mail server and a handset. All the encryption replication and compression is taken care of within the BES
- When set up correctly BlackBerry is a very reliable and low maintenance method of getting email to your mobile users
- Scalable - Once you have the BES, adding new users is easily done over the air without the handset needing to come into the IT department
- Cost control - The monthly line rental is typically an all you can eat data tariff
- Back up all data on device
Microsoft
- If you have an Exchange server 2003 or above getting started is simple. All you need to do is buy a Windows Mobile 5, or above, device
- Full attachment viewing - If needed you can view attachments in their native format
- No need for additional client licences
- If roaming a lot you will need to consider an international data tariff
- No over the air device configuration
VPN back to the office
As the 3G networks improve and the data transfer speed increases it has become possible to connect to your company LAN remotely and have a user experience similar to when you are in the office.
Many of the cards are ‘plug and play’ requiring no IT resource in setting up the laptop. This means that you can easily give the data card to who ever requires it, saving you costs by pooling the cards among groups of users.
There are a number of inclusive megabyte tariffs which included national and international usage making this a very cost effective method of connecting back to the LAN.
Applications
Once you have decided on the best platform for you, company applications can easily be deployed. There are number of ‘off-the-self’ types including satellite navigation, which are device side applications, and can be deployed in a matter of minutes.
More bespoke applications which suite the way you companies works can also be built. Job dispatch, forms, business continuity and CRM can all be deployed to a mobile device.
We have a number of clients benefiting from increased productivity through the use of mobile applications.
For more information please contact your Client Manager or Sales Person.
