For workers on the go, enterprise-grade mobile apps offer great potential for improving productivity and collaboration. With the right mobile tools, there’s no need for tasks to pile up until you get back to your office. But not all mobile solutions are created equal. Organizations still need to make strategic choices to drive mobile productivity.
A great example of enterprise collaboration tools that work well on mobile devices is Microsoft Lync. With apps for Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android platform, Lync user now are able to make phone calls, use instant messaging and chat, share documents and present content from most mobile devices. These capabilities, once available only on a desktop system, now work admirably on a smartphone.
Here are five tips for driving enterprise collaboration and productivity through mobile technology.
- Don’t overwhelm users with new functionality: Pushing a lot of new tools and functionality on to employees’ mobile devices is likely to overwhelm people and backfire. If you try to push a full corporate intranet on mobile users, the experience is not going to be pleasant.
- Augment existing tools: Start by focusing on how employees currently use mobile devices for work, and look for ways to augment these tools. Most people use mobile devices to access work email, for example, and some may use Yammer for social business interactions. Depending on where your organization is in the mobile technology lifecycle, you may want to simply augment email with mobile access to documents via a SharePoint portal.
- Meet a need: Before prescribing mobile solutions or creating costly customizations, ask users what they need or want from the technology. It’s common sense, but companies tend to forget that effective mobile solutions must meet a need. It’s also a good idea to build ongoing feedback into your mobile strategy, so that you are able to evolve as users’ needs and experiences suggest different solutions.
- Avoid a one-size-fits-all mobile strategy: Marketing and sales teams may have very different mobile needs than your finance department. All may be using email on their mobile phones, but after that, the specific needs of user groups might vary widely.
- Guide users toward specific apps: To avoid users downloading mobile apps that could potentially jeopardize your data security, look for ways to guide them to approved apps. Organizations using Office 365, for example, have the option to direct users to the Office app store, where they are able to download applications that serve very specific purposes. Most of these apps are free, so it’s an easy and cost-effective way to guide users to mobile tools designed specifically for Office 365.
With the right mobile strategy, there’s no need for tasks to pile up while you’re away from the office. For sales reps, for example, mobile solutions offer ways to stay on top of communications and tasks while on the road. These five tips should help your organization make strong strategic choices about mobile technology.
