Today's Mobile Enterprise

Wireless applications and devices entered the consumer market and quickly became an effective way to organize and manage personal information and schedules. Using these devices in conjunction with desktop computers allowed users to easily input data for retrieval when they were away from their desks. In the last three years, though, the availability of wireless solutions has expanded the use of these devices from electronic organizers to mobile data gateways. Users now have access to data that’s not stored locally on their devices, opening the doorway to mobile network computing. By 2004, there will be more than 50 million mobile and remote workers in the United States, an increase of 40 percent from three years ago. The demand for anywhere, anytime information will increase exponentially as these devices, the applications that run on them, and the networks they communicate over continue to improve.

In the recent past, fast, reliable network connectivity was confined to the four walls of “the office.” Mobile sales professionals would go for days without being able to access business-critical data or update the office on their external activities. At best, they might hope to check e-mail and retrieve or upload files (slowly) in their hotel rooms at the end of the day. But today’s mobile sales professionals have better connectivity, an array of affordable technology devices to select from, and more power to close new business.

Speed is key. In an increasingly competitive marketplace, companies rely on their sales teams to close business, and salespeople rely more heavily than ever before on in-depth and up-to-date information on their customers, prospects, and competitors. Availability of information is essential to today’s sales rep; every lead that comes into the pipeline must be pursued quickly. For every meeting a rep participates in, he or she must be armed with the latest information to maximize the chances of closing the deal. Delays in upload and retrieval of data put them at a distinct disadvantage. A matter of minutes can cause a major setback with a sales opportunity, even jeopardizing a close. Sales professionals can’t afford to wait until they return to the office to look up information, answer a question, or send a follow-up e-mail.

CRM in the virtual office

Today’s wireless Customer Relationship Management (CRM) applications provide a solution—the ability to access customer information anytime, anywhere—ensuring that a sale is never delayed because of limited access to critical data. By making CRM applications available via wireless devices, sales teams have been able to realize improved time efficiency and improve business processes that contribute to the success of the organization. The heightened response rate that results from having these applications at the fingertips of the sales team allows them to respond immediately to customers and to other business-related inquiries on the go.

Wireless extends the functionality of CRM beyond the desktop to places where it is not convenient or in some cases not possible for sales people to be connected to a network. When they’re away from their desks and not near a phone jack, CRM is of little value to them without a wireless component. For this reason, companies considering CRM solutions view wireless as an indispensable feature. Now, the car, the meeting room, the airport, and the restaurant are all examples of the virtual office—places where salespeople are turning their down-time into productive time, which translates into improved effectiveness and increased profits. 

If a customer asks for pricing during a meeting, the sales person can retrieve pricing information and e-mail it so it’s in the customer’s inbox before he even gets back to his desk. If the client is ready for a proposal, the rep can set the proposal-generation process in motion immediately to get it in front of the customer before a competitor has a chance to. And, by the nature of today’s corporate culture, it’s often critical that executives have up-to-the-minute access to accurate sales pipeline and forecasting data.