There is huge potential for companies of all sizes to truly mobilise their sales, services, support and other field forces to improve their efficiency and success ratios.
By removing paper-based business processes, streamlining automatic data collection, eliminating double data entry and optimising and automating the backend data administration into back office systems, companies can achieve significant business benefits.
Errol Wills, managing director of Logic Group, a provider of solutions and support services to businesses in southern Africa, says traditionally, higher levels of processing power, memory and storage capacity have been required for business application functionality.
"As a result, applications such as ERP and CRM systems have been confined to the four walls of the business. Cellphones and PDAs (personal digital assistants) largely addressed this operational deficiency by providing portable devices with integrated communications and instant-on capabilities away from the office."
While these technologies dramatically improved the mobile worker`s ability to rapidly capture or access data at critical decision points, Wills says the performance limitations inherent in these devices often severely curtailed the application functionality.
"To enable mobile workers to perform business tasks effectively from any location, a balance is needed between these two systems," adds Wills. "Mobile workers need portability and instant-on functionality inherent in devices such as PDAs, the rich application functionality available in their desktop systems and the ability to connect to core business data sources on demand, in order to submit captured data or to obtain up-to-date and accurate information."
This balance is what Logic Group focuses on delivering, empowering true business mobility by supplying and implementing the required mobile application tools. According to Wills, business mobility is about extending business application functionality outside the four walls of the business onto cellphones or PDAs, enabling mobile workers to be connected to business information systems as required in order to efficiently perform business tasks from any location.
Business mobility offers:
* Automated manual processes
* On-demand data access from any location
* Reduced administration and operational costs
* Ensured accountability
* Heightened market awareness
* Reduced errors
* Managed business tasks from the field
* Simultaneous connection to multiple data sources
* Greater productivity from mobile workers
* Reduced communication costs
* Competitive advantage
* Data integrity to and from mobile devices
Business mobility can be used to develop solutions for any mobile work force, such as:
* Sales teams
* Service technicians
* Remote asset management
* Health - outpatient care
* Inspection - regulatory, OH&S, insurance, etc
* Logistics and delivery
"Among the real strengths of business mobility is its ability to apply in any situation where data is being collected in the field that needs to be sent back to a central location," says Wills. "It can also be used to eliminate paper forms and data re-entry, and allows businesses to move their data more efficiently.
"There is huge potential in this area as it holds immense benefits for business all round and hence Logic Group is placing focus on extending ERP solutions to also provide true business mobility."
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