What is the real promise of mobility in the enterprise? Is it the ability to read and respond to e-mails on the road? To dial into a conference call? To work from home?
These are all productivity enhancements, to be sure. But a key facet of the longer-term business value – the transformative potential – of enterprise mobility is the ability to enable better, faster decision making at the edges of the enterprise; to empower people on the front lines with the responsibility of translating information into action.
The benefits are undeniable, and we have seen many examples of how providing secure access to critical data, regardless of the recipient’s location, can drive growth, productivity and an improved customer experience.
For example, Generali China Life Insurance equips its agents with secure tablets that can access complete customer records and expedite the application process. The result? A drastic reduction in the amount of time to complete a sale – from a week to 30 minutes. This has enabled reps to see more customers each day, resulting in sales growth.
But perhaps more importantly, the customer experience has greatly improved. Ben Tian, the GM of IT for Generali, said: “Our agents … can give clients a much better level of service. They can access client records via a secure portal, and answer queries immediately.”
You’ll notice that Tian mentions a “secure portal.” This is important, because pushing sensitive data out to the edges of the enterprise can be disconcerting. And pursuing a data-centric mobility strategy requires the trust that the data on the edges of your enterprise is as secure as it is at the office.
There are approaches, both technological and behavioral, that address these concerns. One is securing the data itself, rather than the server or device it lives on. Another is fostering a culture of security, where each employee clearly understands the role he or she plays in protecting the organization’s information assets.
We are seeing many customers combine these approaches and successfully transform their business by securely moving data and insights to the edges of their organizations. They are laying a groundwork for the future, clearing a path for effective, data-driven decision making that drives measurable business results. This creates the best of both worlds: a future-ready enterprise that knows no boundaries. We think that many companies could implement the same approaches and achieve similar efficiencies and success.
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