Enterprise mobility is much more than carrying your smartphone to work and checking your corporate email from your mobile device. It’s a strategy of processes and applications for mobile use so that work is simplified and accessible anywhere, anytime.
Mobility provides flexibility that let’s businesses develop new opportunities, create new distribution channels and enhance their processes in a whole new way.
Along with the use of mobile devices, the interlinked infrastructure and services with which with business processes are utilized must be made available.
As mentioned in our previous post, businesses have several goals they would like to achieve. From increasing revenues to streamlining processes, a mobile strategy needs to address several objectives in order to have substantial success.
Once you have built an overall strategic roadmap, you need to identify key business drivers and evaluate stakeholders and customer needs. Conduct a concept workshop which would allow you to dig into the needs of your stakeholders and turn them into detailed requirements.
As you generate ideas for stakeholders, you can map them against the key business drivers in a scenario matrix:
This would help you assess the viability of the ideas and prioritize them based on the value they provide for your business.
Enterprise mobility can be enabled in a variety of industries. From insurance to retail to real estate, the implementations of mobility are relevant and real for numerous sectors.
Let’s examine how streamlining a certain process would look like with an actual, real-life execution of mobility in an enterprise.
Field Force Operations (BHG Housing Group)
BroadLand Housing Group is one of the largest housing associations in England. BHG provides over 4500 affordable homes across Norfolk and Suffolk. BHG conducted regularly conducted property stock condition surveys, however, the manual pen-and-paper method was not only outdated but a complete hassle to get done.
50+ surveyors of BHG used to perform 10 lengthy surveys per day followed by 100+ data entry technicians manually adding the data into the system. Due to the manual approach, there were chances of misreporting, delays in data collection and chances of data loss. With costs shooting up and recurrent inefficiencies in the process, it was imperative for BHG to give up on traditional survey methods and make use of modern tech capabilities.
BHG needed to transform its field force operations to increase work force productivity and reduce overall cost.
Through transformation, BHG sought to automate the entire survey process; from scheduling assignments to execution of work done manually on paper. The program not only meant to automate but was also aimed at increasing field force productivity and improve effectiveness by integrating it directly with the back-end property management software.
TkXel handled an end-to-end design, configuration, deployment and integration of the field force property management and CRM platform which let the surveyors conduct valuable surveys and decrease time spent on gathering data.
The final product included multiple features that made it stand out from any other survey app on the market:
1. Digital data collection
Surveyors now conduct surveys using their personal mobile devices instead of carrying a pile of documents and painstakingly filling them out for each property.
2. Automated work scheduling
The automatic work scheduling and data collection feature helped optimize overall costs.
3. Performance appraisal and analysis
Offered support in giving feedback on performance and areas that surveyors could improve upon.
4. Tenant complaint system
The solution facilitated tenants to file complaints about their property which enabled the BHG team to handle them in a quick, efficient manner.
5. Automated integration to existing systems
Eliminated the chances of data loss since the app integrated effortlessly with modern technology solutions.
Hours and hours of paperwork and data entry are saved with this new solution. The process is now more transparent with eradicating the chance of data loss and delays in gathering the information.
Of course, these features resulted in a massive streamlining of processes – leading to an ROI in several facets:
Substantial increase in productivity
Data collection is now done with the touch of a finger – leading to more productivity as collecting the information takes a matter of seconds.
Greater employee satisfaction
The reduced workload from manually entering data naturally led to increased employee satisfaction.
Decreased cost
The app saved tons in printing paper and transportation costs.
Rapid Data Entry
The solution facilitated speedy data entry and real time transfer back to main systems as soon as data is gathered.
Enabled compliance to law
The automated surveys ensured the company’s compliance to the law in the UK.
Improved Data Accuracy
With data transfer happening simultaneously with the app, it eliminated the chances of data loss, and ensured data integrity.
Increased performance tracking
Transparency in tracking individual performances has proved very beneficial to BHG.
With a field force solution, BHG has seen an unprecedented ROI in a variety of aspects. From performance tracking to rapid data entry, the application was a one-stop-shop answer to the organization’s day-to-day work tasks.
Mobile solutions are the answer for companies to respond quickly and overcome business obstacles in order to attain a level of freedom and adaptability to do tasks from anywhere at any time. Streamlining processes is just one of the many benefits enabling mobility in your organization can offer.
Workers are now able to stay up-to-date, connected with coworkers, customers and use mobile applications as well as cloud services to collaborate and get things done. Of course, multiple devices can lead to greater security risks, however, with today’s tech advancements, the IT department is well-equipped to handle such challenges.
Organizations need to assess which business goals matter the most and find ways where enablement of mobility can help achieve those goals. This post showed how going mobile not only provided efficiency but reduced costs in so many ways.