"Let ‘Em Loose": The Case for a Mobile Workforce

Interneer, who I mentioned earlier, also has some warning flares that need to be put in the road. (I should mention that Peter Hargittay, who leads market development at Interneer, gets credit for these observations): “While business leaders believe in the promise of technology to bring transformative change, they are frustrated with how hard it is to realize the benefits.” (Citing an MIT Sloan Management Review and Capgemini survey) “While 78% of respondents said achieving digital transformation will become critical to their organizations within the next two years, a full 63% said the pace of technology change in their organizations is too slow.”

That’s a lot of reluctance. Still, it’s not all gloom and doom. As Appian points out, “Information security specialists may be getting nervous, wondering what these survey statistics mean for workplace data security. They can breathe easy. Application development technology is getting to the point where businesses simply shouldn’t have to worry about mobile security issues. Technology vendors have assumed that burden, embedding features such as secure network communication and authentication, secure (and minimized) local data storage, malware protection, remote disablement and more. These advances have freed IT teams to shift focus to driving new business value from mobile channels.”

To me, it seems like a matter of glass half-empty versus glass half-full. But there are still those who see a bright future for mobile, even thought there’s a great amount of work to do. As KANA puts it in their article: “With a cohesive mobile employee strategy as part of your overall mobile strategy, employees can be more productive by performing a variety of actions while out of the office. Users can easily access their assigned cases and browse relevant high-level information on their cases. Users can open a case and see a list of possible case actions relevant to the type of case. Field workers can view existing notes and photos, add notes and photos, reassign the case to another queue or close the case. They can also plot their cases on a map, and determine how far they are located from current case locations.

“Field employees can get real-time updates, and check their cases upon arrival at the service location to see if the case or work order is still in effect. If the case was closed while the employee was in transit, the employee can move on to his next assignment or the user can browse a list of available cases and choose to take an unassigned case.

All of this expected growth means that companies must to prepare for this new mobile reality.”

Appian has a similar, cautious approach. “With the enterprise mobility phenomenon already in full swing, the question cannot be how to stem the flow of information in a mobile world. That’s as futile as the Dutch boy with his finger in the dike. Instead, the question needs to be ‘how an organization can derive the most business value from mobile data?’ There is so much more to the digital business environment than instant messages and email. Consequently, more IT departments are starting to think about how they can help the business uncover new digital revenue streams, increase front-line customer engagement and drive better collaboration within the enterprise to accelerate the decision cycle of “awareness-knowledge-action.”

And finally, we can go back to Interneer for the punctuation at the end of the sentence: “Mobile apps are radically changing the business landscape, dramatically improving the productivity and efficiency of employees in the field, as well as customers, partners, suppliers and others who need access to vital enterprise data and processes on the go. The sheer velocity and the invasive nature of digital disruption can seem overwhelming, but now is the time to act. You can take control of your mobile app destiny and empower your business with rapid, cost effective and agile enterprise mobile apps.”

So, the lessons learned are that there are (1.) great opportunities; (2.) great risks; and (3.) probably a thousand ways to mess it up. But that shouldn’t stop anyone from discovering the power and flexibility that a mobile workforce can bring to the table.

Please read on to learn more about how mobile applications are changing the way we work and live.