Today, mobility determines our life in many ways. As far as the business world is concerned, mobility helps businesses increase their productivity and flexibility. Those who have not yet made mobility part of their business strategy risk ignoring serious advantages in competition with other market players. The idea is far from being new. In 2006, Orange Business Services (OBS) company carried out a poll among 650 CTOs. According to the poll results, 94% of the respondents make use of the company: intranet remotely. 79% of the make use of business applications remotely. E-mail services, for example with BlackBerry, and mobile collaboration “Instant Messaging, Softphone” are used respectively by 80% and 40% of the respondents. The present-day world becomes even more mobile. More than a quarter of companies’ employees either work from home or work at least part-time away from the office. One more fact, 79% of white-collar workers in Germany are open to possibilities to work abroad for the same company: this is 8% more than three years ago. They strive for mobility increases every year.
The use of mobile technologies in business helps to:
1) make informed decisions. You get access to all necessary information for project management from various sources and in any place.
2) make faster decisions. While talking to a client you can make a decision of what to offer him or her after having looked in your databases regardless of where you are.
3) shorten business processes. You can shorten sales cycles by signing contracts out of your office.
Today, there are many possibilities to equip your offices with mobile solutions. These are just a few of them:
– laptops and smartphones
– remote access software
– web conference software
As far as mobile gadgets are concerned, the leading positions are occupied by mobile phones and smartphones. More and more mobile applications get developed for businesses. American research company Gartner predicts up to $6.2 billion growth of mobile applications market for businesses in 2010 and up to $29.5 billion in 2013.
There is an incredible number of all sorts of mobile applications. To see for ourselves the benefits of mobile applications, let’s have a closer look at two of them. You might have already heard about Business Card Reader application for Apple iPhone. It allows transferring information from business cards right into the address book of your smartphone. It is convenient for business people to have all the necessary information at hand. Another application is aimed at those business people who travel a lot and unexpectedly: Qype Radar. It recommends restaurants, stores, hotels, and clubs that are in close vicinity and shows the way to them on your Google Maps. This mobile application is available for both Apple iPhone and Android mobile platforms.
