This year an estimated 200 million 'mobile' workers will use mobile business apps. Whilst many of these apps will be aggregated into enterprise mobile app stores, for a large number of businesses bespoke apps are proving to be more effective at helping organisations to reduce processes and be more efficient saving both time and money. Whilst custom apps won't be suitable for all companies, when looking at organisations with field staff or employees who are regularly mobile, the ability to create a tool for specific job roles is helping to improve efficiency, profitability and productivity.Some of the best examples of these have focused on the ability for maintenance and support staff to be able to do their jobs with greater efficiency and reduce the dependency on paper.
One example includes an app for one of the UK's largest student housing firms with over 40,000 tenants in 120 properties. Rather than having to go to get their static, paper job sheets from regional offices, employees now know exactly where they need to go thanks to an app that can react in real-time.
The app, which integrates with the firms Maintenance Management System, has helped increase their productivity and efficiency so much so that each maintenance employee is now working the equivalent of an extra day per week. The head office can now view real-time information relating to each job, as well as add jobs and details in real-time for the maintenance workers to view. Instead of relying on paper to log problems, employees can now create and send invoices complete with photographic evidence directly from their phones. Where invoicing used to require relying on hurried notes at the end of the week, they are now instant and real-time.
Field workers are the ones to benefit most from innovations with enterprise mobility. When the iPad was first released, it was sales departments that started to benefit most from the portable, interactive nature of tablets. To help its sales team easily present approved and compiled fund information, asset management firm Schroders created an app that integrates with SharePoint and other services to provide a powerful field sales tool. The app can also be used by Schroders' marketing team to ensure that they can access marketing materials wherever they are.
Aside from the portability of mobile, it's important to remember that they do so much more than just help us to communicate with one another. Smartphone owners have access to a scanner, a notebook, calendar, presentation tool and remote, dictator, personal assistant, positioning tracker, performance monitor, health monitor, HD video recorder and camera, video editor and so much more. By thinking about how the technologies built into mobile devices can help to achieve a business process, organisations are able to turn devices into work tools that go beyond communication and calendar management.
Mark Mason is founder and chief executive of Mubaloo.
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