The Mobile Workforce: Breaking Down the Walls of Communication

Over the past several decades, companies were founded within large fixed facilities that, inside the concrete, glass and steel walls, contained all necessary business functions and employees for standard operations. Communicating outside of these compounds wasn’t easy because the technology wasn’t available or it came at a high cost.  Employees made their way into the office, complete a day’s work, and headed home at night after a productive eight hours. But now, this centralized model is barely recognizable to most of us as it has been rendered useless with new advances in communication technology. As methods, speed, and options for communication blossomed and grew, businesses and their workforces evolved and adapted to newfound opportunities. Thus, the “mobile workforce” has emerged – a workforce so empowered by personal technology like phones and laptops, wireless internet and real-time data sharing. The growth of this new breed of worker was largely made possible with the following communication achievements:

• Broadband data speeds have reached 90 percent of business establishments
• Wireless broadband is available in all major metropolitan areas
• Mobile voice services have saturated all industries
• Mobile and wireline prices have dropped rapidly with the elimination of usage charges and ubiquitous “unlimited” plans
• There has been wide adoption of subscription-based services such as voice over internet protocol (VoIP)

The surfacing of the mobile workforce has changed the way many brick-and-mortar companies conduct business. No longer do the walls of the company indicate the boundaries of communication.  For example, companies often strategically place key personnel in remote locations to provide a personal touch to customers.  The ability to reach-out to a company’s customer base first-hand, while seamlessly communicating with corporate headquarters, extends customer interaction beyond company walls.  Companies also frequently permit telecommuting, allowing employees to be virtually present yet physically remote. The result is a truly mobile workforce that makes getting work done faster and more efficient thanks to technology.

According to Insight Research Corporation, the mobile workforce would not have been possible without these essential certain elements converging and becoming available:

1. Mobile Services: Both wireless and broadband services
2. Devices: Cell phones, PDAs, notebooks, and wireless cards
3. Service Control: Management of wireline, wireless, office/remote access in a seamless service offering
4. Enterprise Applications: The business processes that are automated through mobile access
5. Business Application Platforms: The foundations and interfaces for building enterprise applications over a converged wireless and wireline network

With extensive advances in business communication infrastructure and mobile technology, companies are now promoting the expansion of their mobile workforce.  Cited in a study by the Telework Coalition:

• 89 of the top 100 U.S. companies offer telecommuting
• 58 percent of companies consider themselves a virtual workplace
• Only nine percent of employees work at headquarters
• 67 percent of all workers use mobile and wireless computing

This data shows that the mobile workforce has quickly become more than just a buzzword, but actually is now a reality for a majority of employees.

Additionally, the definition of a “mobile employee” continues to broaden with rapidly changing technology and services. A mobile worker used to be just the business traveler, sent on planes and trains to conduct business before the weekend approached. But today, every employee has the potential to be mobile. Empowered by devices like the iPhone™, iPad™, and Android™, these mobile tools offer huge productivity benefits with real-time information exchange and increased efficiency for every employee.  According to a study by Pew Internet, employees at businesses using mobile technology are seeing a major improvement in work efficiency:

• 80 percent say that mobile technologies have improved their ability to do their job
• 73 percent say these technologies improve their ability to share ideas with co-workers
• 58 percent say these tools have allowed them more flexibility in hours spent at work

These improvements in work efficiency have suddenly released a paralyzing kink that has limited the free flow of information in the communication pipeline. However, despite the vast improvements that have been made, companies and employees are realizing that the mobile workforce isn’t nearly as empowered as it may appear on the surface. The reason? Critical business applications used every day were never developed for remote or mobile access, making them void of a mobile layer or interface. They are completely inaccessible to the mobile workforce, only available to those back behind the confines of corporate headquarters. Employees working at home, from a hotel, at a client location, or even on an airplane are unable to access valuable information from ERP, CRM and accounting software, for example (cloud-computing applications excluded, of course). Now, despite tremendous infrastructure improvements, the flow of critical information from these behind the firewall systems to the mobile workforce is kinked, causing delays and inefficiency. These business applications are inherently missing a layer that untangles the knots and lets information flow freely. It’s the one disadvantage of being a mobile employee – you’re left in the dark without access to the information needed.

Or are you? There is a solution to this challenge of information flow – Activity Streams. Activity Streams provide an otherwise non-existent layer of visibility on top of these critical business applications, surfacing relevant information to mobile workers in a mobile-friendly interface. Activity Stream software aggregates important information from these tools and make their data visible to mobile infrastructure in real time. Instead of requiring costly and often impossible upgrades to ancient databases or tools, Activity Stream software sits on top of these systems and floats relevant information to each individual user that needs it. It is a social layer that plays “middleman” between the mobile worker and the company system, passing information back and forth with ease. The result is a mobile workforce that can tap into crucial business systems with security and simplicity, further increasing productivity and efficiency. Now, it’s time for the next step – as companies increasingly promote and embrace a mobile workforce, layering on Activity Streams will become a crucial step to empowering these employees.

Sources: Gartner, Nielsen Wire, Pew Internet, WSJ, Insight Research Corporation