As a rule of thumb, the smaller your company, the more likely it
is to be equipped with mobile technology.
While this may seem counter-intuitive to many, the benefits
provided by devices as commonplace as mobile phones are convenience
and productivity and this is particularly useful to very small
businesses trying to manage not only their daily workload but also
trying to pull in new business.
By the same token, however, the larger your organisation, the
more expensive start-up, running and support costs are likely to
be. This is due to the larger number of mobile users and range of
applications they need; for example, sales staff require access to
office-based systems, the ability to send and receive emails and
access to company applications and databases, all of which adds to
the complexity of the solution.
Leif-Olof Wallin, an analyst at Meta Group, explains: "The
smaller [your] organisation is, the quicker it is to adopt mobile
technology. It's in the mid-sized organisations that you see the
most push-back. This is due to cost, and because they often don't
have the skills in-house to support it."
Nonetheless, says Celia Hyde, Commercial Director at IT services
and consultancy firm Small Business Computing, mobile technology
and the necessary network and security infrastructure related to it
are now much more affordable than they were even a couple of years
ago.
"The main inhibitors to mobile adoption are a fear of the costs
involved. Many companies assume they're very high and so don't
investigate further. But today the technology is relatively cheap
and as bandwidth continues to improve in terms of pricing and
availability, working away from the office is becoming much more of
a possibility," she says.
However, it is important to consider the ongoing costs of
providing remote access to your company's network.
"With a computer at home connected via a DSL [broadband]
connection, this is not an issue because it is a fixed annual cost.
Accessing email, the network or the internet while on the road,
however, means using GPRS or a WiFi hotspot, both of which incur
charges on per usage basis and are typically charged depending on
the volume of data being sent or received," Hyde says.
To minimise these costs it is advisable to shop around before
you set up the system, in the same way that you would when
selecting tariffs before purchasing a mobile phone.
As your organisation grows, however, it may also be advisable to
put policies and procedures in place to provide staff with
guidelines on appropriate behaviour, says Kevin McCarthy, account
manager at Online Computing, which provides systems and services to
London-based companies such as yours.
Performance bottleneck
Upfront training on how to use systems effectively and securely
is also advisable - the more knowledge users can get in the
beginning, the better.
In terms of infrastructure needed to support mobile working, a
bare minimum is a suitably-sized connectivity pipe such as DSL
broadband or even a leased line. This will ensure that downloading
or uploading data does not become so slow as to be unusable,
according to Clive Longbottom, Service Director at analyst house
Quocirica.
It may also be necessary to reconfigure and clean up your
existing internal network, which includes organising workgroups
effectively, to ensure it can cope with the increased load and does
not become a performance bottleneck.
Secure remote access also has to be provided by deploying such
offerings as virtual private networks (VPNs) or thin client
software, while other security technology such as anti-virus
software and personal firewalls on laptops will help safeguard the
network against viruses being imported accidentally.
Applications-wise, email and collaboration software such as
instant messaging or an intranet are crucial for communication
purposes, while access aggregator services such as those provided
by iPass and GoRemote are useful to provide your organisation with
a single bill, no matter how or where staff have accessed the
internal network, while making it quicker and easier for them to do
so.
A key factor to bear in mind when going down the mobile route,
however, is to plan for it rather than let it creep in via the
backdoor, Longbottom warns. "Mobility is big for most SMBs, but in
many cases it happens unplanned. It creeps up on people, but if you
ask them what their mobile strategy is, they'll say they don't have
one because they're not doing it - even though their sales people
are using the technology out in the field," he says.
This can cause problems ranging from little or no security being
in place, even though mobile devices are generally the weakest link
in any security chain, to the creation of myriad support issues.
The latter problem often happens because of a lack of
standardisation - staff may end up buying a raft of incompatible
equipment on expenses.
Hyde explains: "Just because two items of hardware are wireless,
for example, doesn't mean that they're able to communicate with one
another - one may be based on Bluetooth and the other on WiFi.
There are also three versions of WiFi on the market, so older
devices may not be compatible with newer equipment."
As a result, Wallin says, it is inadvisable to go part of the
way when evaluating mobile technology. "A half-baked solution
creates frustration because it cannot be supported properly, and
the organisation can waste money without getting any benefits," he
warns.
Implementing a mobile strategy, on the other hand, enables you
to introduce the technology in a controlled and cost-effective
manner based on its business benefits.
Optimisation
Concomitant to this is the need to optimise your current IP
infrastructure in line with what your company requires from the
system and the business processes it will support.
Such optimisation may include the need to re-purpose
applications to ensure that they can be viewed easily by mobile
device users or it may require the centralisation of the database
underlying your sales force automation or contact management
packages.
Longbottom explains: "A sales force needs to be able to operate
against live data, which they can't do if they have to synchronise
to get hold of it. Also, if they only have the inventory
information held on their own devices, different people may end up
selling the same thing several times, whereas by keeping the data
central, it works on a first-come, first-served basis."
Nonetheless, he warns that organisations should be wary of the
hype in the mobile technology market and be careful not to simply
buy new and trendy gadgets that are likely to be forgotten in a
matter of months.
"Start from what the business needs and then look at what will
be needed from a mobile technology point-of-view to facilitate
those business processes. That's the recipe for success,"
Longbottom concludes.
Case study: Ableflame
"Mobile technology is the way forward. The costs are not
overwhelming and the benefits are substantial. When we looked at
how much time it would save our engineers and how much we'd save in
administration, travel and fuel bills, it was clear that the
advantages greatly outweighed the costs," says Steve Rose, Managing
Director of Ableflame.
Ableflame is an engineering firm based in Redditch,
Worcestershire, which repairs and maintains central heating systems
in social housing belonging to local authorities and housing
associations. It employs 23 staff, some 17 of whom are engineers in
the field. Each was provided with O2 XDA II personal digital
assistants in March.
As well as running the ubiquitous Microsoft Windows Mobile 2003
Pocket PC Phone Edition-based packages, the devices also include a
bespoke gas maintenance application developed by ESB New Technology
in conjunction with Ableflame and O2.
Moreover, because they have always-on GRPS internet connections,
they can be set up to receive and send data at pre-set time
intervals so the engineers don't have to do it manually. Multiple
choice job reports that automatically fill in relevant fields also
ensure that documentation is completed and sent to the
organisation's server, which is hosted at a secure location in
Kent, in timely fashion.
Customer data is further protected by securing the devices with
passwords and PIN numbers, while costs are kept down by banning
overseas calls, monitoring itemised phone bills to ensure no abuse
is taking place and by having service operator O2 restrict access
to websites not deemed appropriate. But, says Rose, the fact that
engineers no longer have to continually phone the office to find
out the location and nature of new tasks has also helped cut costs,
while the fact that documentation is now always up-to-date means
that Ableflame is "24 hours ahead of where we used to be".
"We've made time savings of about 30% across the board, which
has freed up some of my and my partners' time to go and look for
other business and concentrate on forthcoming tenders and
contracts," says Rose. But he also feels that the move has
increased the company's competitive advantage over its rivals.
"Many local authorities are looking at best value propositions, and
with this type of technology improving each week we can move
forward and, hopefully, offer more for a lower price than our
competitors," he says.