True Mobility goes Beyond Email

By Scott Cooper, Vice President of Mobility Solutions, Enterprise Solutions at Nokia

As businesses deal with ever-increasing levels of globalization, competitive pressures and regulatory mandates, providing timely, actionable information to an increasingly untethered and nomadic workforce is fast-becoming a critical component of the corporate infrastructure. Whether it is using mobile e-mail to respond to a salesperson’s request for clarification on a major deal, or using instant messaging from a smartphone to confirm a product specification in the middle of a customer discussion, we are all becoming used to forms of communication and collaboration that are as fluid and mobile as the businesses we operate. And more importantly, these forms of communication and collaboration are able to provide business benefits in the form of increased worker productivity, enhanced customer service, improved operational efficiency and higher revenues.

These forms are most visible to us as mobile e-mail and mobile voice – they are two of the most essential business tools for today’s mobile workers, who have come to rely on them for greater productivity on the go.

But true mobility means more than just being able to access e-mail, contacts and calendars. A wide range of data and voice applications are increasingly available through the latest smartphones and other mobile devices, providing workers with access to the types of information they need to make informed business decisions and ultimately improve an organization’s performance.

A new breed of enterprise voice solutions is enabling organizations to optimize their investment in existing telephony infrastructure by extending those networks to integrate and interoperate with mobile devices. The benefits of a sound fixed/mobile convergence strategy are many. Organizations can slash telecommunications costs by routing mobile calls over the IP network (VoIP) while delivering full desk phone functionality to workers who are either away from their desks or away from the office.

We’re also witnessing a growth trend in the mobilization of advanced business applications, enabled by the evolution of converged devices and faster mobile data networks that are now capable of delivering critical business data to employees’ mobile devices, whenever and wherever they need it. Having this information at their fingertips can make a world of difference when dealing with customers, suppliers and partners or when connecting with other employees.

Whether it is a salesman updating opportunities in a salesforce automation (SFA) application from a mobile device, or delivering work orders in real-time to a field technician’s handheld, or a clinical staffer using a handheld to record patient vital signs on his daily rounds – these applications extend the reach of, and leverage the investments in, enterprise infrastructure that business have made over the years. They enable workers to get access to updated information like proposals, pricelists, customer presentations, inventory reports, etc. – these can be automatically and transparently pushed out to mobile devices so employees always have access to the latest information.

Increasingly sophisticated functionality allows these workers to operate in an ‘offline’ or ‘occasionally connected’ environment and still provide them with the latest information from vital corporate information sources like CRM, ERP and SCM systems. This technology efficiently manages application data exchange between mobile devices and enterprise data sources when a connection is possible, and ensures offline access to enterprise information even when a network connection is unavailable. Data synchronization makes it easy to mobilize applications for competitive advantage and minimizes administrative effort, as well as communication costs for remote application access.

As mobile applications proliferate within an organization, it is important to manage them effectively. A highly scalable device management solution will allow an IT department to continuously service and manage mobile phones over the lifecycle of those devices from a central administration console, without burdening employees. An IT administrator can push new software, updates and security policies out to mobile devices. And in the event a mobile device is lost or stolen, an IT administrator can wipe the device, clear the data or completely lock it down, preventing critical corporate data from falling into the wrong hands.

As companies look ahead at their future mobility needs, it is important to look beyond the traditional mobile worker. The Nokia State of Workforce Mobility study finds that most employees spend one-third or more of their time away from their desks in the course of doing business. And those same employees typically spend one-third of their time outside of the office, suggesting that workers from all walks of a business can benefit from the convenience of mobility. With more and more endpoints touching the corporate infrastructure, the greater the importance for controlling costs, access to data, managing data distribution and ensuring the security of the entire mobile enterprise.