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Chapter 3: Mobile-first UCaaS Bolsters the Agile Enterprise
Flexible Work Requires Mobile Capabilities
Mobility is critical to organizational agility, flexibility, and responsiveness. The recent massive shift to remote work highlighted for enterprises the importance of providing employees with mobile access to productivity and communication tools to maintain business operations; at the same time, for many employees, mobile devices have become their preferred business communication tool. Most business and IT/telecom leaders today acknowledge that mobile capabilities must become an integral part of business continuity programs going forward.
Mobile-first communications and collaboration tools are right-fit for modern, distributed organizations. Flexible work policies that provide employees with a choice of working remotely, on-site, or in a hybrid mode are key tenets of talent recruitment and retention strategies. Corporate environmental sustainability initiatives that help reduce emissions and power usage also favor flexible, hybrid work styles and position an organization as an attractive workplace for environmentally conscious workers.
Geographically dispersed employees require collaboration tools to help them effectively manage communications at home, on-site, or at any other work location. With on-site locations being repurposed as collaboration hubs where employees meet to bond and reinforce their commitment to common goals, much of the actual work will be accomplished remotely. To remain connected, employees need to access communications, collaboration, and CX tools from mobile or desktop phones, computers, or any other connected device. A consistent user experience across devices, networks, and physical locations is critical for employee productivity and job satisfaction.
Empowered Frontliners Drive Business Success
Mobile-first communications and collaboration tools address unique frontline worker requirements. Today, business leaders are acutely aware of the challenges many frontline workers face as well as the dire need to better equip them with digital tools that enhance their safety, productivity, and ability to deliver greater customer value. Frost & Sullivan data reveal the importance organizations place on empowering frontline workers to succeed.
Surveyed organizations employ frontline workers.
Workforce demographic is not digitally well-equipped to succeed.
Technology investments are needed to enable frontliners to work more collaboratively with teammates and interact more efficiently with customers.
Frontliner workflows and technology needs vary significantly by industry. However, the majority of frontline workers are mobile—either campus roamers or field workers. As a result, communications, collaboration, and productivity tools designed for tethered and desk-bound workers are often a poor fit for the frontliners in the same organization. In 72% of surveyed organizations, frontliners use mobile phones; another 24% plan to equip frontliners with mobile phones in the next two years. Presently, 55% of organizations provide their frontline workers with tablets, and 33% plan to invest in tablets for frontliners in the next two years. A robust 78% of IT/telecom decision-makers consider mobile business calling apps important enablers of frontliner productivity.
To optimize operations and improve service quality, organizations must ensure that frontliners can communicate effectively with internal and external stakeholders. Mobile-first cloud meeting, messaging, and calling services (i.e., mobile UCaaS solutions) can leverage frontliners’ mobile device usage to facilitate synchronous and asynchronous collaboration.
Mobile-first Solutions Future-proof Communications Investments
Mobility is essential to digital transformation, especially for frontline employees. Expanding mobile connectivity, including the roll out of 5G services, creates abundant opportunities for organizations to enhance worker productivity and power new business models.
Organizations are using 5G mobile devices today.
Plan to introduce such devices in the next two years.
The top benefit of adopting 5G connectivity is to improve the performance of real-time communications solutions.
Technology advancements have considerably improved the mobile user experience in recent years, and for many employees, mobility is the preferred communication mode as it is often the most reliable way to contact others. UCaaS solutions provide robust capabilities to power the mobile enterprise. Organizations can choose to provide employees mobile access to UCaaS capabilities via three routes:
- Feature-rich mobile applications downloaded onto a mobile device
- Web browser/WebRTC access to cloud communications solutions
- Native mobile dialers on devices connected to business calling services
Most UCaaS solutions offer mobile capabilities via an app that is installed on a mobile device; but because the mobile app typically does not integrate with the device’s native dialer, often workers have a fragmented communication experience where they must juggle between multiple applications. Mobile-first UCaaS solutions resolve these issues by providing native mobile access to communications and collaboration applications to create a seamless mobile collaboration experience.
Leading-edge organizations are reducing costs and addressing evolving employee preferences by replacing legacy wireline communications with more flexible mobile solutions. In 25% of surveyed organizations, more than one-half of employees are using mobile software clients only. Among all organizations, 53% expect usage of mobile software clients to increase; 38% expect it to stay the same in the future.
Going forward, mobile-first cloud communications services will enable many types of workers across a range of industries to perform their tasks from the location and time that works best for them. To boost the longevity and ROI of new communications investments, highly distributed organizations must adopt solutions that empower employees with mobile access to appropriate communications modalities.