Mobile Collaboration—Who Needs It in Your Company?

Mobile workers are no longer the “road warriors” of yesterday—salespeople and executives who spend more time on the road than not. These days, all kinds of iWorkers (as the consulting firm Forrester calls many of us) are constantly blurring the lines between being on duty and off.

Because mobile, unified communications is going to be a significant focus for investment, you want to make sure you are allocating your spend in the right places.

Yes, everyone in your business can benefit from mobile communications and collaboration. But different kinds of workers will find themselves working in different situations more often than others.

Forrester recommends spending time to make a full assessment of the types of tasks that mobile and remote workers are performing. This will define the required capabilities.

Typically, you will focus on solutions that enable mobile workers can use to resolve issues and answer questions more rapidly.

Don’t expect immediate results.  To drive effective adoption of mobility use early adopters—executives, sales team, and field forces—to be evangelists for the rest of the firm. And remember to back up your efforts with training and communications support.

To help you in your efforts, Avaya has developed a guide to Getting Mobile Collaboration Right. http://bit.ly/MLJ3CZ

It recommends that you factor in the needs of employees that fit one or more of the profiles below.  Each has its own unique requirements, but they can all benefit from the improvements delivered by mobile communications and collaboration.

Power Users: These employees often work on a laptop computer and are as comfortable working in the office as they are out of it — from their home or car, at the airport, or in a coffee shop. They need to be accessible no matter where they are.  In their eyes, mobility is mission critical.

Highly Mobile Employees: These workers may not have a laptop, but they are frequently out of the office — either meeting with clients or roaming around your facility. Typical examples of this user include sales reps, accountants, attorneys, real estate brokers, manufacturing workers and healthcare workers.

Full time Teleworkers: These employees don’t have an office in the traditional sense; they work from home exclusively. They need communications tools that make them just as accessible and responsive as employees who work in the office.

Office Workers:   People who primarily work in the office were the prototypical deskphone user. In today’s high energy work environments they can also benefit from communications and collaboration tools to ensure they work faster and smarter, and are as productive as possible wherever they happen to be—whether in their office, in a conference room or waiting for a train or bus on the commute home.