Flipping the Equation: The Mobile Enterprise in 2020Flipping the Equation: The Mobile Enterprise in 2020

In this sponsored post, Mitel discusses the need for enterprises to start designing from the experience outside the office going back in, rather than the traditional vice versa.

The concept of work is no longer limited to a single physical location. New mobile technology has allowed companies to reinvent how they do business, bringing teams together from across the world. However, this new tech presents a unique challenge for enterprise businesses -- how they can provide the simplicity of personal devices with the full capabilities of a professional system.

We talked to several mobility influencers about this technology evolution and brought these insights to our CMO Wes Durow for additional analysis. Durow himself comes from over 18 years in the telecom business, and is convinced that the mobile enterprise idea is rapidly changing the workplace dynamic.

Business must now "flip the equation, and start designing from the experience outside of the office going back in," Durow said.

Why Mobility Flips the Equation
The mobile enterprise concept changes how businesses must make internal and external decisions. The context behind the decisions can be derived from the speed and simplicity of mobile devices, combined with advanced analytics.

Angela Russell-Rekika, a Global Telco Solution executive at IBM, notes that this new context should drive all business decisions.

"Whether the goal is to obtain an asset, use a service, or find a buyer, geographic and other contextual attributes play a huge role in the speed, cost, and quality of the response," Russell-Rekika said.

How Mobility Flips the Equation
Businesses must model their internal mobility applications and tools alongside the external experience. At Mitel, the focus is on speed and simplicity. Durow notes that "great technology is only great if it's easy to use, simple to manage, and affordable to deploy."

By switching focus to the outside experience, businesses can ensure a better experience across the entire equation and secure data more effectively.

Tsahi Levent-Levi, founder of BlogGeek.me, notes that this new equation has a dramatic effect on the relationships businesses have with their customers.

"Mobile has huge implications on how businesses can increase the relationship they have with their customers, personalize and make it more intimate and close," Levent-Levi says.

How Businesses Can Start Flipping the Equation
Durow notes that whoever can effectively bring speed and simplicity to their customers will win in this mobile enterprise challenge.

"Build a seamless, intuitive world where tools and applications become as one -- everything from presence, click-to-connect for video and voice, to file collaboration," Durow adds.

Durow continues, "They should be in your application and environment of choice in a way that's intuitive, easy to manage, and easy to deploy.

Finally, Durow also notes the mobility can serve to broaden the talent pool beyond the organization's physical location.

"I think talent can be found anywhere," Durow says. "Talent trumps location every single day. With that as a premise, the ability to leverage cloud and mobile technologies as the world's communication flattens will allow you to have employees spread across the planet."

If you’d like to learn more about mobile-enabling your enterprise, join us Wednesday, Oct. 28, at 2:00 p.m. ET, for our webinar, "Mobile-Enable Your Workforce and Unleash Your Business," featuring Zeus Kerravala, Principal Analyst with ZK Research; Terry McCabe, CTO, Mitel Mobile Division; and Martin Bitzinger, General Manager, Mitel Enterprise. Register now, and tune in this Wednesday!