Business in the age of BYOD

Between increasing operational cost, staff turnover, budget constraints and pressure to deliver products and services faster, today’s field service managers need to act on opportunities quickly.

It’s no secret businesses need to regularly reinvent themselves to remain competitive and manage their profitability. So how can you increase the bottom line with limited funding to invest? What can you do to increase productivity or reduce operational costs? A simple and cost-effective approach is to rethink business processes regarding data collection and paperwork, as real-time operational updates mean better management and improved productivity and profitability.

The business challenge

Traditional business processes in many industries still rely on paper-based forms for scheduling work, assigning jobs and inventory control, and ultimately to deliver products or services. A good deal of work is required to generate this information, manage it and distribute it.

The time to perform the operations, get signatures (where required) and key the completed information into the business system is costly and unnecessary, given the available and affordable technologies.

Old practices include:

• Manual processes for paperwork
• Time to complete billing, information updates, etc
• Timing of information to initiate billing
• Time correcting inventory levels
• Dispatching jobs to a mobile workforce

There are other costs:

• Paper-based client files, lookup and handling time
• Courier and postage costs
• Rekeying data in some cases
• Costs of forms and paper

Whether it is field service, shop floor or warehouse, the process of filling out paperwork and delivering that paperwork to be keyed into a business system has become an unnecessary and time-costing step.Why not drive the data directly from the end point where the work is being conducted directly into your business system? Why not push the new or revised data back out to staff working on the coal face? Why wait?

Paper-based process vs mobile automation.

The standard practice of starting jobs and the paper-based flow and the delays related to distributing paper-based work orders, filling them out, returning the completed versions and realising that ultimately they have to be keyed into a business system means time wasted.

A simple and cost-effective approach

Let’s be clear, you can’t just replace legacy systems. Continued support may be costly; however, the capital costs and time to replace them can be even greater. There are cost-effective approaches to improving your business processes that can be realised quickly and integrated with your existing legacy systems. The cost of doing nothing is likely to be more and a step backwards relative to your competitors and your ever-rising operational costs.

An IBM study determined that a select group of mobile-savvy enterprises are prioritising mobile technology and making it a strategic IT imperative.

What’s more, the study finds that these ‘mobile first’ organisations are:

• Two times more likely than other organisation to grow revenue by 10% or more a year.
• Four times more likely than others to benefit from increased customer interactions.
• Enjoying higher rates of employee responsiveness and productivity.
• Gaining strong returns on their mobility investments.
• Dramatically improving both customer service and customer satisfaction.

Since it is common practice for organisations to allow employees to use their smartphones to access their corporate email, why wouldn’t they allow these same employees to provide job or activity data on that same device? Employees are generally keen to use their own devices and if it makes their work easier, it becomes a welcome bonus to them.

Employee productivity

Effectively, real-time information from your mobile staff provides you with exact, up-to-the-minute information on what the business is doing. Providing real-time updates helps them from having to go to a computer to look it up or to stop at the office to retrieve the necessary paperwork. There is a real time-savings here as well as the business processing of their work.

Employee satisfaction

Implementing a bring your own device (BYOD) approach has many benefits for employees:

• They are not carrying a second device.
• They are familiar with its use and will not need training.
• They are likely to be happy with their device.
• The up-front capital costs to implement your mobile business plan are effectively eliminated.
• It is convenient for them to integrate their personal and work lives.
• You can implement solutions today.

Security

If BYOD is implemented it can be challenging to secure the end point (devices) themselves given the number of types you may encounter. You must secure gateways and access points. Encryption is essential as is control over remote wiping of any corporate business data in the event of loss or theft. Any world-class mobile solution will support these functions. Lastly, consider implementing a mobile device management system (MDM) as part of your mobility strategy.

Costs

There are many approaches to implementing mobile solutions. There are specialty apps that cater for SAP, Oracle and other enterprise ERP systems which are typically expensive and require a good deal of planning to implement. That could mean you have to wait until next fiscal year to budget for these solutions.

Most organisations don’t have excess IT budget to implement new solutions in their current budget year. Consider a solution that is offered as a service rather than a licence. Consider starting small and expanding only when the solution is proven. You don’t have to create a big bang implementation trying to solve all problems. A savvier approach would be to implement a simple solution for one of your processes and evaluate its effectiveness. Focus on a team of individuals who are keen to prove the changes. Learn from the process and grow the solutions to incorporate additional processes.

Let’s face it, the mobile era is here, whether its BYOD or employer-provided devices. Business process improvements can be implemented securely and with minimum cost and effort.

Image credit: © Serg Nvns/Dollar Photo Club