Recently I was visiting with a friend who is a doctor. During our catch-up session, her phone suddenly went off – it was the hospital. I asked her if she needed to leave to go save someone’s life and she just said, “nah I can do it from my phone.” With a few swipes on her iPhone she was able to access the hospital’s network through an app, look at a few images of a patient, and send back her response. It was amazing to watch how quickly it was all resolved. Then it got me thinking…when organizations talk about “going digital” in their customer engagement strategy, it’s often focused on the consumer. Businesses focus on what digital channel is the consumer using but are forgetting one key area of its business – the worker.
As prolific as mobility has become among consumers, the same can be said of workers in the enterprise. In a June 2015 press release, IDC stated that by 2020 the mobile worker will account for 72% off the entire US workforce or 105.4 million individuals. This is a staggering figure especially when considering the state of mobile workers today – highly under-enabled and taking matters into their own hands.
Looking at mobility from the perspective of a business user it is important to realize they too are a consumer. Outside of their office life, workers are participating and taking advantage of all the conveniences of mobile communications. Workers want to take consumer capabilities to their work. The challenge is that many businesses are not prepared for workers to be mobile. As a result, those workers whose jobs would be made easier by mobile enablement are frustrated, siloed, and tempted to use unsanctioned mobile connectors.
The risk is real for many enterprises as seen in a 2016 study by the Ponemon Institute. Out of 588 US IT specialists surveyed, 67% believed that a data breach was sparked by employees using unsanctioned tools to access company information. Unsecured mobile solutions in the customer engagement workflow is especially concerning. From addresses to government ID numbers, the idea that this information could be sitting on a worker’s unsecured mobile device is highly concerning.
GMC Software has seen firsthand the struggle for mobile enablement when it comes to customer engagement stakeholders. With GMC Inspire Mobile Approval, stakeholders can preview customer communications, approve content, and comment to other stakeholders from their mobile device. More importantly, Mobile Approval is a tool that works within the Inspire Product portfolio, so IT knows it allows for secure access to company information.
Customer engagement is by nature a “mobile” transformation. If enterprises expect their customer engagement teams to innovate and engage on new channels, change in how employees work has to happen too. Driving transformation is an inside job, and when workers have the tools, they are enabled to innovate.
