One of the biggest enterprise trends is creating enterprise mobile workplaces. Businesses of all sizes, including many Fortune 500 companies, are finding that moving to mobile workplaces makes them more agile, productive, and saves money. Below are ten reasons why your company needs to create enterprise mobile workplaces.
1. Harness Power of Portability
The days of work only happening in an office between the hours of nine to five are long over. In this fast paced, competitive global economy work happens in many different locations and it happens around the clock. Mobile workplaces allow your employees to work closer to your customers. Increased portability of work makes sure work gets handled faster and it gives your team the freedom to work in the ways that make the most sense for them and the customers.
2. Increased Productivity
Creating a mobile workplace greatly increases productivity. This happens for several reasons. One, employees have the freedom to work at the pace they are most comfortable with. This includes working non-traditional hours and working from remote locations. Two, it allows employees to make site visits to customers without losing productive time. Three, mobile workplaces give employers the ability to reach employees outside of standard hours to deal with emergencies.
Increased productivity is one of the best ways to increase revenues. Mobile workspaces represent one of the few investments that pay for themselves almost immediately just in terms of increased productivity.
3. Higher Employee Satisfaction
Employees are happier when they have the freedom to work remotely. As technology has improved and more and more employees have been allowed to work remotely two things have become clear. Employees are more productive when they work remotely and what employees really want is the ability to work remotely or at the office.
Having a mobile workplace gives employees the freedom to come in and work at the office and conduct in person meetings as needed, but also gives them the ability to work form someplace else most of the time. When employees are given access to powerful mobile tools like Office 365, they are even happier about having a mobile workplace.
When your employees are happy you have less turnover, less absenteeism, and you have fewer interpersonal conflicts.
4. Better Customer Service
Perhaps the strongest reason to adopt enterprise mobile workplaces is that it greatly increases customer service. When a customer is having an issue, they can get it resolved immediately because their contact will always have access to the tools needed to fix the problem. In many industries, mobile workspaces allow employees to visit customers while carrying a virtual office in their pocket. Customers love this level of attention and are willing to pay extra for it.
Companies reap a windfall because they get to charge extra for something that costs them less over the long term.
5. Stronger Data Capture
Data is your companies most valuable, unrealized asset. Most companies generate far more data than they know. Most of that data is wasted because it is not properly captured. Enterprise mobile workplaces allow employees to capture huge amounts of data. Each employee’s mobile device has a camera and a GPS chip. Just with those two functions employees can passively collect a large amount of data about workflow, processes, and customer needs.
All of that captured data can be used by the company to streamline everything from intake to shipping. Technology is to the point that data analysis will no longer be the bottleneck to innovation, data collection will. Enterprise mobile workspaces help eliminate that bottleneck.
6. Increased Workforce Flexibility
Agile is more than just a buzzword. It is essential to survival in the marketplace. Technology and markets are changing fast. Enterprise mobile workplaces have a huge advantage over other businesses. Companies can easily pivot and redeploy resources without incurring significant cost.
Making a change in an assignment can take place immediately when your employees are mobile. In a more traditional setting, it can take three or four times as long to make a critical personnel switch or task change than it does with a mobile workforce.
Flexibility can be your secret weapon, catapulting your firm into the top of your industry.
7. Large Cost Savings
Some organizations balk at the price tag of investing in an enterprise mobile workplace. But, companies like IBM who have pioneered this strategy, have shown that the cost savings are huge. It simply is less expensive to employ a mobile workforce.
The savings occur in hundreds of big and small ways. Things as simple as less paper and lower utility costs add up over time. But, companies are also able to save on bigger expenses such as office space. Cost savings coupled with productivity gains makes creating an enterprise mobile workplace imperative.
8. Attract Stronger Talent
There has been a lot of hand-wringing over millennials in the workplace. While younger workers do tend to favor flexible work arrangements, the truth is mobile workplaces help firms attract top talent at all stages of their careers. Almost everyone enjoys the freedom and lifestyle benefits that mobile workplaces provide.
This can give your company the edge it needs to attract the best talent for entry level positions, middle management, and even c-suite level positions.
9. Streamline Workflow
There are a lot of inefficiencies built-in to the traditional office environment. Workflows are often clunky, duplicative, and wasteful. Enterprise mobile workplaces helps organizations streamline those workflows.
With mobile communication and cloud based apps, work can be done faster and more efficiently than ever before. There is less need to long, boring in person meetings. Often a short message can sort out any misunderstandings.
10. Increase Innovation
If a company wants to thrive, it is not enough to just increase productivity and reduce costs. The organization has to innovate. The company depends on its team to constantly be solving problems in new ways and developing new products and market approaches.
Enterprise mobile workplaces are much more innovative than traditional workplaces. The ability to have full access to your office at any time of day from anywhere on the planet allows employees to be more creative and to capture their ideas when they occur.