Go mobile: Working on the road

In business, time is money. And whenever you’re on a train, or driving, you’re spending time without earning cash. Worse still, if you’re the only person who can make responsible decisions, business is at a standstill until you return.

With mobile technologies, you can:

•	Use that dead time more productively
•	Continue to manage your business affairs away from the office
•	Still look after customers when you’re not physically available
•	Perform useful functions outside the office as well as in it

Telecommunications engineering company Hartwood Services is one company that has seen productivity increase with mobile technology. “It used to take us seven days to complete each customer audit from start to finish, but because of the improved communications and data transfers that Wi-Fi hotspots provide we can now complete these tasks significantly faster” says Arran Landregan, Operations Manager. “Overall, we estimate that we are now over 35% more efficient as a result.”

Tip: One of the constant complaints of small companies is the burden of dreaded admin work. Time in transit is ideal for doing mindless and annoying tasks like sorting out expenses or writing to-do lists. There’s software for all these jobs, both for your laptop or mobile phone, so why not get these jobs done on the move?

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Your mobile technology primer

The first priority is to familiarise yourself with a few key mobile technologies. There are two main ways to get a laptop hooked up to the internet.

•	A 3G card. This gives your laptop near-broadband connection speeds across the mobile phone network. Today’s 3G cards are very efficient, and offer go-anywhere internet access. 3G can be painful to set up, but is extremely effective
•	Easiest to use, but not ubiquitously available, is Wi-Fi. Most new laptops are Wi-Fi enabled. When you hook up in a WiFi hotspot (and there are lots of them now, in public areas like train stations and coffee bars) you’re connected to the Internet at broadband speeds: to your customer you might as well be in the office.

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Hand-held hardware

Sometimes lugging a laptop round the country isn’t practical. Instead, there’s plenty of power- and lots of programs you’re familiar with - in your smartphone. A Windows Mobile powered phone synchronises easily with your desktop computer. This means:

•	All of your diary dates and contacts are synchronised
•	You can carry spreadsheets and presentations around with you, plus checking and sending your emails is a doddle.

If all you need on the road is one-click access to your most recent contacts, diary, and email, a smartphone will do the job nicely.

What does it cost?

The great thing about mobile technology is that in most cases, once you’ve bought the kit, you only pay when you connect. With the arrival of flat rate data tariffs from most networks, you can stay in full control of costs; but beware of mobile data costs if you are paying per megabyte of data transferred. Currently, on a flat rate tariff, it’s possible to buy unlimited data for less than £10 per month when added to any voice plan. That’s good news: you can check your email without worrying about incremental fees.

Mobile Security

There are concerns about security over wireless connections, and some of these are serious (equally, some are talked up by the media). Security on laptops and phones is largely a matter of common sense. All antivirus and other related programs should be active at all times, and all the rules about not opening attachments from people you don’t know apply as much in the mobile market as they do in the standard desktop arena.

In addition:

•	Switch on your Windows firewall.
•	Once your phone and PC are paired together, switch your Bluetooth to “not discoverable”
•	If your company has the skills to build a virtual private network (VPN) for remote workers to ‘tunnel in’ to your internal network, so much the better.
•	Enable a simple pin code on your mobile device in case it gets lost or stolen.

Microsoft has a few more new surprises for the security conscious. Laptops running top versions of Windows Vista have Bitlocker drive encryption, meaning that if your laptop falls into the wrong hands, nothing will be legible. Windows Mobile 6 phones can similarly encrypt removable storage cards, and even be wiped remotely, so if yours does get stolen, there won’t be data on it for long. This message will self-destruct in 5 seconds…! Rest assured, the benefits are worth the effort - which is why research from IDC shows that 57% of organisations now support workers on mobile devices.

Will I really be more efficient with all this technology?

According to the experts, yes. Research from YouGov for T-Mobile recently said:

•	83 per cent of small businesses were able to respond to customer queries more quickly once they had deployed mobile technology
•	58 per cent processed orders faster
•	70 per cent of small businesses could process orders faster when using Wi-Fi hotspots, the fastest form of mobile internet.

This is all set to continue, as more desktop functionality finds its way into mobile phones. From tube maps to sat-nav, presentations to office admin (oh, and plenty of games too), mobile devices are catching up with their desktop cousins.

The costs of starting to use these technologies on the road are minimal and the benefits, as evidenced by these figures, are substantial. Indeed, smaller companies have most to gain from milking business value from every spare travelling moment.