Technology has become the great equaliser, allowing
small and medium-sized enterprises to work alongside the largest of
businesses. This is nowhere more apparent than in the use of mobile
technology.
Today it is entirely feasible for a smaller company to issue its
sales force with instant mobile e-mail, using a Blackberry PDA or
Microsoft smartphone. It is almost a no-brainer. Imagine how
mobility can boost flexible working. Simply providing mobile
e-mail access can make a big difference to how people work.
Thanks to the popularity of hosted applications such as
Salesforce.com and other enterprise systems that offer a
web-front-end, it is possible to give remote workers access to
enterprise applications.
The availability of 3G next generation mobile networks has
increased the speed of mobile internet connectivity. This means
end-users can run browser-based applications directly from a
handheld device or laptop using a web browser, without requiring
any modification in the software.
But there are a few caveats here. First, the connection speed is
about as good as an old-fashioned dial-up modem, certainly not the
100mbps bandwidth desktop users have available when running the
same applications.
Clearly, this will make the application sluggish. What can be
more frustrating than telling the customer, “Just wait while the
next page of the application downloads…”? Certainly this does not
leave the client with the impression that the company is a slick
operation able to make the most of cutting-edge mobile
technology.
So the application needs to be engineered to make best use of
the capabilities of the device used to access it and the available
bandwidth.
The second area SMEs should be wary of is IT integration for
mobile users. It is great to offer users remote and mobile access
to specific systems, but taking this a step further may require a
lot more effort, according to Nigel Montgomery, director at analyst
company AMR Research.
It is all very well offering mobile users seamless access to a
customer database but, in Montgomery’s experience, SMEs generally
run IT systems that are not linked together. What this means is
that although it may be possible to provide users with mobile
access to a single application, a strategy to give staff a single
view of the customer may not be realistic.
In some ways, this can limit the effectiveness of mobility,
since a customer is not concerned about whether the company rep can
only access a single system – they may wish to query an invoice,
change contact details or place an order. So it is vital to invest
in mobile application development and IT integration so that staff
can gain integrated mobile access to line of business
applications.
In spite of these problem areas, mobility can still be a winning
strategy for smaller businesses. With less users to deal with than
larger companies, roll-outs of new mobile applications should be
simpler.