A smartphone is more like a second brain in the pocket —making life simpler, quicker and more planned. The question is: How can Indian businesses actually duplicate the wonderful smartphone experience in the office environment — offering task resolution in a familiar tap or swipe of a screen?
If you’re reading this on your smartphone, the answer lies in your hand.
Workplace assistance
Smartphone-style apps have the potential to revolutionise how work-related tasks are accomplished, either fully automating them or cutting out unnecessary steps to free up employee time for more meaningful work.
Emerging office-based apps act as a workplace assistant and enhance productivity.
While employees have been quick to embrace this style of working, businesses still have a long way to go.
It is imperative for businesses to catch up with this new way of working, enabling employees to make the best of the opportunity.
Reimagining work
One, before providing a mobile work environment, an organisation should take time to identify daily, repetitive tasks that slow the flow of work and find out if apps can help to streamline these tasks and improve productivity. Once businesses start to examine processes, they will be surprised at the number of simple tweaks that could dramatically streamline business workflows.
Two, it has to set targets, make its case for mobile work, and change user behaviours over time. It is very important for an organisation to identify an individual’s propensity for mobile work on the basis of psychometric assessment tools which would include their personality traits.
With a new wave of tech-savvy employees in the workforce, it’s never been more important for businesses to be adaptable.
The sooner a business is ready to embrace the world of apps, the sooner its employees will be able to focus their time and effort on what really matters – delivering high-quality work and satisfying customers.
(Balaji Rajagopalan is Executive Director - Technology, Channels & International Distributor Operations at Xerox India)
