By Mahesh Alayil, COO and Co-Founder, Goavega Software
With the Covid-19 pandemic and the emerging popularity of work from home (WFH) trend has given a boost and added new dimensions to the application of Enterprise mobility solutions. With increased dependency on remote working desktops and mobile apps, the increased risk of data breaches and transmission of confidential or sensitive data through non secure internet connection, among other factors, have forced organizations to take note and adopt new age enterprise mobility solutions (EMS).
While Enterprise mobility has already been in use for a few years now, its application has been mostly restricted to select set of employees who required to be travelling most of the time and thus needed a secure platform to work remotely. Further, the pandemic and the major switch to the WFH culture, coupled by the increasing rates of cyber-crimes and data breaches, have all increased the demand and need for innovation in Enterprise mobility platforms. However, there is a lot to adopting Enterprise mobility then just secure data exchange and safe remote working. The solution offers significant operational efficiency and can plays a vital role in boosting productivity and performance, through:
1. Efficient and cost-effective operations: By creating an integrated and streamlined, single window operational platform, enterprise mobility helps employees to have easy access to official data that can be obtained faster and through safer interchange of information. It also improves the efficiency of the system due to on-the-go updates and work processes. It cuts down on the time as it lets the employees access vital data and cuts costs as storing and retrieval of the data becomes synced with total access control of the whole system. The speed and the efficacy further help reduce the strain on resources, making the entire process cost-effective.
2. Enhanced customer experience: Speed, agility, and customization are some of the key features of EMS and these go a long way in ensuring customer delight and loyalty. With prompt response to customer queries and providing seamless user experience on a variety of mobile devices, EMS also allows effective Order management, product tracking and delivery, swift payment confirmations, ,and on the go assistance, all of which helps in enhancing end consumer experience.
3. Improved Data Security: One of the key aspects of EMS is the secure data transfer – one of the vital needs of the digitally enabled businesses. From Mobile Device Management (MDM), identity and access management (IAM) to mobile application management (MAM), EMS offers business necessary data security and risk management layers, needed to provide enterprise-grade security solutions. Apart from keeping a check on unauthorized access by known or unknown devices EMS system also helps devices and networks to steer clear of any malware applications.
4. Improved data collection and analytics: In an ear where data is the new currency, enabling secure data collection and analytics platform is of vital importance for every business to succeed. Well designed and modern EMS systems leverage the best of emerging technology like AI, IoT and ML, to build and integrated ecosystem to collect, store and analyse data. Information like consumer spending patterns, brand loyalty, preferred choices and various other insights can be obtained through consumer facing (App based) EMS, which can be helpful in creating consumer engagement campaigns, while information regarding employee performance, log in time and productivity hours etc., can help an organisation to understand and draft effective internal policies and HR driven engagement.
5. Improves productivity and teamwork/ collaboration: A customized EMS system can help design a seamless, integrated, and unified virtual work ecosystem that allows for easy interaction between employees across the various sections of a company, while helping maintain security and accelerated information exchange. It also facilitates accurate, timely and transparent reporting from employees, which helps is smart data collection and analytics, which can further help accelerate performance and productivity. From emails and access to intranet, to updates on company policies, HR related announcements, daily login’s /attendance, productivity updates, announcements on departmental changes and also a single dashboard for team performances and updates, EMS can offer a transparent and responsive platform that enhances team performances, irrespective of the physical location of team members. And all of this, accessible on a single click!
6. Customer Operation Speed: With easy access to teamwork and virtual collaborations, the time spent on physical internal meetings, approvals and presentation etc., is reduced drastically, helping speed up the operational process required to service a customer. With online approvals, presentations and discussions/ feedback, there is not time wasted on actual transit and long boardroom meetings that are generally interrupted or have several distractions. Apart from being able to deliver effective and timely service, EMS also helps build customer delight through seamless and smart service execution, thus creating a long term association.
7. Flexibility/ Agility: This is one of the most valuable aspect of EMS and also a decisive factor for a brand’s success in a competitive market environment. In the current situation of volatility and uncertainty, it is vital for businesses to be able to quickly adopt and alter so as to be able to cater to the changing needs of the consumers. And agility is the key to be able to do that. EMS offers speed, efficiency and the opportunity for businesses to customize and diversify at the same time, with a flexible approach to business processes and resource allocations, project delegation and execution, all of which can be aptly managed and achieved through a well-designed EMS. ,
With Enterprise mobility giving businesses a chance to widen its reach and customers, while creating a well-connected organisation that can work in tandem from different locations across the world, it is time that modern businesses realize the value of EMS and its role in ensuring quality assurance, growth, retention of employees and happy customers, during a crucial economic crisis. With more and more employees working from home or remotely, organisations need to prioritize developing EMS.