4 steps your business should take to build a more mobile-friendly workplace
Many organizations treat mobility as a separate IT silo, considering it a second banana to the more traditional desktop-centric approach to day-to-day business operations. But today, an increasing number of CIOs and their IT teams are looking at mobile applications as the key to improving communications and collaboration in their business. In fact, a Forrester report says that 82% of respondents believe mobile is the face of digital transformation, promoting it to the level of first banana…if such a term exists. (Or is it top banana?)
With more companies depending on mobility to increase employee productivity and efficiency while lowering operational costs, it’s time to look at what your business is doing to put an enterprise mobility strategy into place. Here are four steps you can take to start the journey.
1. Use the cloud as a platform
Digital transformation doesn’t happen without using digital technologies, and the cloud is a key tool to helping your employees work smarter and more effectively. By embracing the cloud, you can update your IT infrastructure, free up space in your data center and offer your employees the flexibility to work from any device while maintaining remote access to business systems and files.
2. Move to Hosted Voice communications systems
A Broadsoft survey reveals we spend 69% of our workday on communications-based activities. The amount of time we’re away from the office (coupled with the growth of remote employees in the workplace) has made traditional PBX-based telephone systems nearly obsolete. Switching to a hosted phone system allows your employees to make and receive calls anywhere that has a broadband connection. By giving them the same feature-rich unified communications they would experience on-site, you ensure that your team doesn’t have to miss a call, a message or a meeting just because they’re not at their desk.
3. Find a secure mobile communications platform
There are several mobile communications apps out there that offer a variety of features designed to help remote workers stay connected. However, it’s important to keep in mind that your employees are human and, as humans, are prone to make mistakes. They may forget passwords. They may not know if the right term is “first banana” or “top banana.” And they may put confidential company data at risk if they’re using your platform incorrectly. The type of application you use is key to keeping your data secure. Make sure your platform offers sophisticated security mechanisms and advanced end-to-end encryption technologies.
4. Set up personal and professional identities for BYOD users
Bring Your Own Device workplaces are becoming more popular and for good reason; they offer major convenience to employees and significant savings to businesses on hardware and maintenance. But it also means that your workers’ personal and professional lives coexist on one device. Make sure that your mobile apps support multiple identities for BYOD users so they can split their device into two separate platforms for personal and corporate information. This will not only help protect your employees’ privacy, it will allow you to remotely wipe your organization’s data if their device is lost or stolen or should they leave the company.
With the right mobile applications, strategies and services, your business will be well on its way to digital transformation success. And when it comes to your company’s communications needs, we can help, offering high speed internet and cloud-based voice solutions to keep you and your mobile workers connected anytime, anywhere.
