What’s More Important: Mobility or Collaboration?

It’s a trick question—A business needs both to be successful. Businesses without mobility are truly in the dark ages in terms of collaboration, productivity and integrated processes. And without collaboration, a business isn’t firing on all cylinders, which is why implementing effective mobility and collaboration to the organization should be top priorities. Here’s why:

  1. Employees are now expecting mobility at work, as nearly two-thirds of companies permit personal devices to connect to the corporate network. Having mobility in the enterprise is good for both employees and the business. Those organizations that embrace mobility and Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) are not only realizing cost savings, their employees gain an average of nine hours of productivity per week due to BYOD and having mobile access while out of the office.
  2. Mobility has been with us for almost a decade and it’s making a big impact in businesses, especially in sales where it’s critical to be available at all times from any location. Sales teams with mobile CRM experience have achieved significant results:
    • 25% increase in sales
    • 35% increase in prospect visits
    • 15% decrease in sales costs
    • 30% reduction in billing lag time
  3. Mobility is a win for IT and employees, with both groups saying mobile devices make the organization and the individuals more efficient. Mobility has an added bonus of making companies feel like they have an upper hand against their competition.

Collaboration is equally important, especially with a workforce that is distributed and has remote workers. In smaller companies collaboration is easier because sharing information across fewer people takes less time and resources. Big companies often stumble when it comes to collaboration because of large staffs, remote offices, hierarchical management models, and a lack of tools that break through these barriers. Giving employees tools that make collaboration easy can bring big rewards to businesses.

  1. Presence and audio/web conferencing are efficient, cost saving communication options. Presence ensures that calls don’t land in voicemail. Audio and web conferencing eliminates conference service bills and reduces toll costs. Companies that have 100 audio conferences and 50 web conferences can save more than $20,000 per year by adding collaboration resources.
  2. An organization’s highest revenue-generating programs rarely have a single contributor. Group projects generate the highest revenue, and their success relies on the team’s ability to work together effectively. Collaboration platforms make this possible, allowing faster completion rates and eliminating delays as much as 25 percent.
  3. Social media has made good customer service and fast responses more important than ever before, as one poor interaction posted on Facebook or Twitter can damage a company’s credibility for a lifetime. Organizations can avoid being called out by a disgruntled customer by relying on collaboration tools that help them respond more quickly to customers and route customers to the experts who can best answer their questions.

Learn how ShoreTel’s solutions for mobility and collaboration can drive business productivity.