With the growing importance and proliferation of smartphones and tablet apps (including ours like Mobile Employee Connect, Mobile Manager Connect, Operations Connect), the benefit and value of two-way messaging can’t be overlooked, particularly for workforce automation and management.
Streamlined communication
Sending out details of an open shift with SMS or an emergency alert via IVR is a powerful, affordable, quick and easy-to-deploy method of communication. In today's day, there is simply no reason not to be capitalizing on the incredible impact of mobile.
If you aren't yet streamlining your shift-filling and alert communications with mobile, you are missing out.
Here are 5 reasons why:
-
By using mobile, your deployment can be completed in days not weeks or months like most enterprise system roll outs; organizational data can be leveraged for contact info and everyone, at a minimum, has a phone to receive a call.
-
There is no financial barrier to entry; it is easy to access this resource without requiring smartphones – SMS (txt messaging) and IVR (automated phone calling) can be deployed without a major investment.
-
Mobile empowers you to reach employees instantly and with a complete audit trail to mitigate any prospective corporate or labor violations. No need to worry about questions like: Did the right people get contacted for that shift in the right order, was everyone on the emergency task for contacted within 5 minutes of an incident?
-
Your company will enjoy a dramatic time savings and can reallocate resources from time consuming tasks like calling lists of staff to more meaningful strategic planning activities. In fact, one Vortex Connect client recently remarked that she "used to worry about the next 12 hours, but now [she] can plan for the next 2 months!”
-
Mobile allows you to gather responses in real-time, so you can track who wants to work, who is safe, who has successfully pulled the product from the shelves, who is able to respond to a need, or simply who has read/agreed with the news irrespective of how significant it might be. This builds in an incredible amount of accountability.
Don't miss out
When it comes to filling shifts and sending alerts, you shouldn't overlook the impact of mobile solutions like those provided by Vortex Connect. For more information visit our Mobile Shift Connect or Operations Connect pages.
Vortex Connect is excited to be launching our Customer Connections Webinar Series. Starting this March we will be hosting our clients on webinars as an opportunity to talk with the rest of our community about how they are succeeding and strategizing around mobility in workforce management.
Our first Customer Connections Webinar Series topic will be Using Mobility to Enhance Scheduling as we will be hosting The Children's Center Hospital. A pediatric hospital in Oklahoma. Sign up for this webinar or to be an Insider (private invitations to all webinars and all case studies emailed directly to your inbox as soon as they are published).
We look forward to this and future webinars.
Most mobile business solutions make use of some type of alerting tool – it’s a fairly standard practice designed to enhance communications and streamline internal processes.
But too often these communications solutions miss the mark and provide only limited functionality; companies across industries are losing out as a result.
Unless your communications software is able to leverage data from HR and Workforce Management systems in away that extends its impact and usefulness, it’s simply doing sub standard work.
Push the envelope with your Communications Solution
To stay ahead of the curve, companies should be seeking more agile solutions and add-ons that enhance efficiencies, reduce error, speed up processes and position them more strategically to manage their communications.
Alerting tools like Vortex Connect’s Operations Connect provide value-added support for your communications solution through 2-way SMS, IVR (automated phone) and email channels. This ramped up tool is able to:
- Pull address books directly from HRMS, WFM, ERP etc.
- Use Jobs, Cost Centers, and Schedule data as filters
- And most importantly - access data in real time!
Put it to the test in real life
So, in the event of a major accident, employees scheduled to start within 4 hours can rather head in immediately.
Or, if a tornado hits, companies can instantly access every field technician who has punched in, and alert all of those in the storm’s path to take cover, and be in touch with 2-way communication.
Imagine if there was a major recall on a product and you can identify all employees who have punched in and then seamlessly message them to stop selling and pull the product from the shelves.
If a major airport is faced with a snowstorm, they could instantly notify all employees who are ‘available’ according to their scheduling solution, and alert them to assist in snow removal and support.
In all of these examples, the cost savings would be dramatic; internal processes would be streamlined and efficiently managed, and catastrophe could be averted.
If companies are not considering the game-changing impact of a Communications Solution enhancement like Operations Connect, they are missing opportunities for business growth and cost savings.
For more information about Operations Connect, contact Vortex Connect.
In just 8 weeks Vortex Connect will be launching the 3rd generation of our mobile workforce management suite.
With a focus on greater usability, enhanced integration and rich next generation features we are confident that this will be like nothing anyone has seen before... and like with all of our products to date it will be available across iOS, Droid, BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, Web, IVR and SMS.
Also, our existing 50+ clients across healthcare, retail, manufacturing, field services, public sector and other industries will be upgraded with ease as part of their standard service.
Over the next 8 weeks we will be previewing 8 of the most exciting new features of the suite.
Stay tuned for the first preview post coming later this week.
While few stores or retail locations are mobilized today (many rely on POS terminals, PCs, etc. for store communications), the obstacles for doing so are becoming increasingly surmountable. In fact, those stores that fail to make the leap to mobile are sure to miss out on significant opportunity to streamline their business and drive results.
Here’s why.
The Tide is Turning…Fast
If you are not on board now, you may be left in the dust. The impact of mobile will be dramatic, as a recent study by the IHL Group confirms. According to the study, by 2015, more than 2.7 million tablet devices will be shipped for use in North American retail and hospitality, which is an increase of 450% over current rates.
450%! That is staggering growth. And these figures don’t even take into account the handheld devices that retailers are scrambling to roll out in mobile POS deployments.
What this means for retailers is that there will be a veritable storm of tablets and smartphones in stores in the next few years, along with dramatic changes in how retail does business - from the physical layout of stores to the way that information is communicated to the manner in which consumers interact with associates.
Mobility Changes the Game
Store Communications and Task Management solutions may have eliminated the tedious and costly process of transferring binder-bound monthly data to a store, but these solutions didn’t offer a genuinely optimized alternative. Even with a Store Communications or Task Management solution, a manager is still required in the back room to check the instructions and print them out.
But mobile has catapulted the process to the next level of employee efficiency. By providing information on a mobile device, the manager, associate and merchandiser all have access; they can leverage multi-media (video, pictures, etc.), interact in real-time with other team members and head office personnel and capture completed data in real-time.
The Competition has Already Jumped on the Band Wagon
Chances are, your competition has already gone mobile.
In fact, it’s only a matter of time before all stores can easily and affordably support the accommodation of tablets or smartphones for Managers and Assistant Managers. Vortex Connect recently rolled out to a client with 300 iPhones and it cost them absolutely nothing for the hardware (they deployed to the iPhone 3GS and while it isn’t the most current device available, it did the trick).
More retailers are recognizing that by becoming mobile, they save money. If associates and managers use mobility for POS, customer information and product information:
- processes become streamlined
- errors are reduced
- communication is faster and more strategic.
The return on the investment has become obvious.
Because mobile devices can enhance the retail experience – for both the customer and the store employees – it is an obvious next step for business growth. Mobility can ensure an improved retail experience, real-time access to information, and enhanced communication. Considering the barriers to entry are far less significant today, retailers have no excuse but to put mobility front and center as the foundation of their task management solution.
Posted by
Paul Malin on Thu, Feb 02, 2012 @ 02:23 PM
In the recent article posted on Workforce, Mobile Apps Help Executives Manage Daily Business Andrea Siedsma discusses the power of mobile apps for executives. In the spirit of piling on, I wanted to extend this discussion. Vortex Connect is a mobile enterprise software company focused on Business-to-Employee (B2E) communications. We build software products to solve business problems resulting from poor information flow and deliver these products directly or through channel partners.
In order to extend mobile to non-executives we began by looking at the existing software impacting non-executives, Workforce Management (Time & Attendance, Scheduling, and Payroll etc.). Our belief was that mobile could add value to this experience, not just through smartphone applications, but also by leveraging what we refer to as mobile specific technology which includes things like location based services, media capture, device management, 2-way multi-channel messaging and more. For example, in the world of scheduling you might want to know when your employee is going to work and of course our smartphone applications can help display this. But if you want to ask an employee to come in and cover a shift, we can allow you to reach out to employees by launching an automated calling solution from within your chosen scheduling solution.
Ultimately this is a view of mobility that is similar to business analytics. Mobile becomes a layer that sits on top of existing software and provides access and added functionality. Looking at the evolution of the commercial use of mobile we can begin to understand how game changing this new layer is. Think of the reaction you had the first time you actually took in an iPhone and grasped what it could do. Think about the rapid adoption of mobile and the sheer volume of application use, you have to allow that mobile is something entirely different. And it is this wow factor of mobile that is moving us forward.
The next phase of mobile
While it can be fun to think about the next next generation of mobile technology like wearable computing, near field communication, or voice activation APIs, there’s so much that can already be done with the existing set of mobile technology. Task management, mobile learning, employee rewards, enterprise social networking, and so much more can all be amplified by mobile. And what’s more, with all this potential a business doesn’t even need to rush out and provide a smartphone or tablet to their non-executive employees. Device penetration and mobile usage are growing more rapidly than any technology in human history and along with it there is a growing ROI that can be achieved by taking advantage of the existing hardware each of your employees owns. Now if an employee happens to not have a smartphone, Vortex’ IVR can provide backward compatibility, but just as we no longer support smoke signals, this need will pass. The next phase of mobile is coming soon. The next phase of mobile is 100% penetration of smartphones amongst your employees.
Making the most of it
So if an organization wants to take advantage of all this free and revolutionary hardware shouldn’t it first develop a mobile policy? Shouldn’t it deploy expensive device management software? With respect to executives you would assume that most businesses would worry about the idea of letting their employees loose in the app store to choose their top 6 apps to use for business purposes, but fortunately this just cannot be stopped. People will use the best technology available to them to compete, and to Andrea Siedsma’s point, this should be encouraged. And fortunately, device management goes a long way to help mitigate the risks. Device management can remotely lock a missing device, wipe a lost device, manage email, turn-off the camera, provision applications and much much more.
But with your non-executives, device management combined with an overly strict mobile policy can actually be a real problem. We recently met with one of the largest retailers in the world and one of their non-executive employees proudly announced that they would not be accessing any of the company email or applications on their smartphone because the company’s mobile policy specifically stated that any device accessing email would have to install device management that enabled it to be wiped. The employee continued saying, “this is my device, my whole life is on this, and I can’t risk that my whole life gets wiped.” Fortunately we are going to help this retailer take this passion for mobile and use it as an advantage.
The advantage of your mobile solution
Vortex Connect specializes in business to employee communication, on the
movement of data, punches, schedules, tasks, forms, GPS location, media, and on, and on. Surprisingly movement is the important idea here. No device or mobile technology need present a risk to an organization, because the device or the technology is nothing without the data moving through it. Vortex applications are password protected, data is not cached or stored on the device, and application provisioning is managed from secure middleware. When the app is not in use it is simply an empty shell.Once the employee enters their password, the app springs to life. Vortex unlocks the mobile opportunity by allowing data to flow. Data tailored to the situation of the specific employee, before they work, while they are at work, and after they work.
Coming out of NRF one theme was key... mobility!
No matter where you looked, workforce management (of course), POS, merchandising, supply chain and even signage mobility was everywhere.
Near Field Communication was at the forefront of the discussion. Beyond NFC, which we believe is incredible and valuable and you will see more and more from us on the topic, we continued to see that fragmentation of devices and bring your own device policies increase our value for the enterprises we serve and make partners like Air-Watch incredibly valueable for the organization.
The other hot item we saw had little to do with mobility but was definetely worth the price of admission and worth mentioning. The Intel booth was displaying digital signage innovations - it was a truly incredible booth and the buzz of the show floor.
Thanks to all the clients who came by to talk, demo and discuss mobility. Also thank you to the Axsium Group team for hosting us in your booth this year.
There was a time when the enterprise led consumers in technology adoption. Chances are your parents had a computer at the office before they had a computer at home. Smartphones were once synonymous with Blackberries issued only to executives. Those days - at least when it comes to the adoption of communication - are behind us. The great democratization of information technology led by household names like Apple, Google, and Facebook has now pushed the frontier of innovation out of the office and into the mall.
When you read headlines like Salesforce.com's recent acquisition of Rypple, it's tempting to think: "wow, what a validation of the concept of the social enterprise." However, we should probably be thinking: "well it's about time." The same is true of mobility and the enterprise. I've been in the business of selling mobile software to enterprises for the past 6 years, and have had the great privilege of dealing with objections such as:
- This is too complicated for my employees,
- Where will we find time to train everyone,
- Is my HR policy ready to deal with employees using their personal phones to do work?
The truth is that employees are using mobility to be more efficient and collaborative in their personal lives, they are just chomping at the bit to be able to do the same in their professional lives. And the good news for employers is that for the most part they are willing to provide the hardware if you facilitate a BYOD approach to enterprise mobility.
So the challenge we put out to you in 2012 is: how would I run my business if I had the ability to communicate with my employees in real-time wherever they are? And yes, I should also be thinking about allowing my employees to communicate with each other in real-time wherever and whenever they want. It is after all what they do when they aren't on the job.
2011 has been an incredible year for the Vortex Connect team. We have more than doubled in size, launched a 4th product to market with incredible success and cemented our position as mobile workforce management leaders by delivering quality mobile communication products to over 50 clients, many of which are tier one brands and Fortune 500 companies.
Our success is primarily due to 2 important factors - our incredible clients who trust us with their mobile business to employee communication on a daily basis and our equally incredible staff who day in and day out create magic for our clients and partners!
Thank you all and we look forward to an equally great 2012!
The Vortex Connect team
As a long time Blackberry user, shareholder, and someone who has built two mobile companies which for years had Blackberry at the top of the development priority list, this is a painful blog post to write. And it’s not simply out of loyalty to another Canadian tech company. I have recently swapped my BB 9900 for an iPhone 4S and my platform development allegiances are not far behind.
Although RIM’s once iconic Blackberry devices have bled market share in the US – falling from 24% of the smartphone market to 9% in a single year – Blackberry devices still enjoy massive penetration in the enterprise, and particularly in the Public Sector. For a company focused on enterprise mobility, we’re far from being able to ignore the Blackberry OS the way B2C companies such as Rovio and Zynga are wont to do. The issue is this: the Blackberry Java SDK is at the end of its life. The next round of Blackberry 10 devices, now projected to launch in the second half of 2012, will no longer support these Java apps. Whereas by all counts we will be happy to begin developing native Blackberry apps in Webworks rather than J2ME, the quandary is: what is the justification for mobile product company to invest in its BB OS 7 apps between now and then? Or worse, as an enterprise IT department, would you invest in building (or licensing) BB apps that run on OS 7 or less?
I’ll leave that question as rhetorical, but what you’re likely to see is a massive de-investment in Blackberry application development. No point putting resources into the old platform. Wait and see how sales go before developing for the new platform.
This spells disaster for RIM, since nowadays mobile companies are only as strong as their ecosystems. Let’s hope RIM’s co-CEOs have a rabbit up their sleeves or the OS 10 cross-over will turn into a final justification for enterprises to move onto Android or iOS devices.