OK, mobile workforce for our execs, but what about everyone else?

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.