Mobile ECM: Well Within Your Grasp
Put mobile ECM into your employees’ pockets
The concerns people have about ‘The Future of Work,’ with regard to mobile technologies, was top of mind for Vice President and Principal Analyst Ted Schadler. Schadler was speaking to Fortune 2000 organizations at Forrester’s Content and Collaboration Forum. Questions came pouring in:
- How are professionals using mobile devices?
- What about bring your own (BYO) versus corporate provisioning?
- What kinds of applications are available? Are they task-specific? Role-specific?
- How do I know which vendors are spending time on security and efficiency around development?
- How do I manage licensing?
- What about security?
To my surprise, some organizations anticipate it will take five years to get comfortable with mobile devices and all that goes into managing them. And while mobile will mature over the next few years, you shouldn’t stand still and try to catch up later.
It’s time for organizations to take small steps, and move out from under the blanket of consumer mobile enablement. It’s time to empower the worker. They have valuable needs that can be addressed today.
Enable your workforce
It is all about enablement – not just about devices or applications, but rather overall empowerment. Sure there are lots to things to consider – security and licensing, for example – but you don’t have to eat the whole apple. Just bite off what you can chew.
Start with roles or departments, like human resources or managers, rather than the diverse enterprise. Baby steps! Consider your goals and which employees would benefit most.
Maybe you are thinking you have much bigger fish to fry and that mobile business solutions are low on your priority list. I would argue that bringing your mobile devices into play with even your most basic business processes will reap immediate rewards and have a dramatic impact on your business.
How about an example
So, let’s imagine you are a human resources manager hiring new employees. Let’s also imagine you are on vacation in Hawaii. Your company is competitive and needs to act quickly to get offer letters and other documentation to your soon-to-be colleagues. But you are hanging out by the ocean and won’t be back for a week. Those irreplaceable new hires now take the offer of your competitor. Think of the now wasted time spent interviewing, completing reference checks and all.
Now, imagine you are in Hawaii and getting ready for the day, checking the weather on your smartphone and you notice that you also have notifications from your mobile enterprise content management (ECM) application to approve. Through your mobile device, you can push these offer letters through workflow. With a few taps, you’re done.
It’s time to look beyond mobile’s soft consumer side and empower the devices to make your organization more efficient and more competitive. Are you ready?
