Taking It To The Streets
The small business workforce spends almost 25 percent of its time on the road. Unfortunately, studies indicate that many businesses don’t have the infrastructure or business processes to support on-the-go workers. With the right mobility solution in place, you can increase productivity, reduce operating costs and boost the bottom-line.
Today, work is no longer limited to a specific place. Your employees are out in the field, telecommuting, or just constantly on the move. But without access to your company network, colleagues and customers, time away from the office is often unproductive or even wasted. By connecting mobile workers to your network and to other online tools, you can enable them to sustain a seamless work-flow on the road or from home, making their jobs easier and more effective.
Think about the implications for productivity and for your bottom-line. Additionally, a wealth of specially designed mobility tools which integrate with customer relationship management (CRM) solutions and business management software have emerged for specific industries and professions such as real estate professionals and field service technicians where being on the road is the rule. With more affordable options and simplified technology, small organizations worldwide are now using mobility solutions. Tools such as remote access, online collaboration and broadband wireless offer access to critical information and data anywhere, anytime, and empower customers and employees to stay connected.
Mobile technology acts as an extension of your hard-wired infrastructure to allow your employees, customers or suppliers real-time access to applications, data and devices from outside of your physical local area network (LAN). Mobile solutions take that technology and put it to use for specific purposes and to solve particular problems. For example, real estate professionals can benefit from a notebook and wireless broadband connection so that constantly changing MLS listings can be accessed from the road. Add to this, software that integrates with the MLS to produce flyers and presentations instantly. Not only is downtime reduced, but the chances of closing transactions more quickly are increased. Field service technicians equipped with PDAs can process tickets, update inventory and respond to service requests in real-time, meaning more service calls, less office time and happier customers. Organizations with extended support hours can allow home-based workers full access to the network and even take-home VoIP phones for use with their own broadband connection.
At-a-Glance Mobility Primer
With more affordable options and simplified technology, small businesses have access to an abundance of mobility enhancing solutions. Don’t know a Blackberry from a blueberry? Here’s a quick reference for hardware, software and online collaboration tools.
Mobile E-Mail Access
Easy e-mail access outside the office tops the list of small business mobility requests. Traditional POP e-mail (domain e-mail without exchange server) does not allow employees to easily manage their e-mail outside the office because mail retrieved from the server to the office PC is not easily accessible remotely. E-mail that is centrally accessible simplifies management, enhances security and makes remote productivity much easier. Solutions for centralized mobile e-mail management range from basic to advanced and include web-based e-mail access, Microsoft Exchange server, and wireless e-mail access via a PDA, smartphone or Blackberry.
Remote e-mail access offers numerous benefits:
- Enable clear communication with up-to-date e-mail, contact, and scheduling information.
- Reduce the time and expenses incurred when managing employee time and communication.
- Reduce hardware and support costs when compared to a solution using laptop computers.
- Provide a platform that is supported by common line-of-business (LOB) applications used by small businesses.
- Provide a platform for custom applications used for managing customer information and relationships.
