Why You Should Take Your Company Mobile

Why You Should Take Your Company Mobile
By Jennifer Moline



Interested in starting up a business but concerned about infrastructure costs? Cut those down significantly with a mobile company. In this recession, it's more cost effective to invest in some laptops and smartphones rather than shell out a bunch of cash for a brick-and-mortar office.






As the economy continues to tank, companies are looking at ways to reduce their overhead. Rental costs can be huge -- add to that the energy bills affiliated with keeping the company going, and you have some pretty hefty expenses. That's why, if you're just starting a company or find that people aren't in the office all that much, you might consider cutting the cord and going entirely mobile.

Many experts agree that a mobile organization works best when the company is small -- say, fewer than 10 employees. But that doesn't mean that larger businesses can't adopt at least some of the habits of a mobile company. As you read on, consider what you could implement -- perhaps swapping out desktop computers for laptops, renting a smaller office and having employees work on alternating days while sharing desks, and encouraging telecommuting.

Why Go Mobile?

Certainly, not every company needs a storefront or an office. The most obvious type of business that could go mobile is a sales-oriented one. "A good salesperson should be out pounding the pavement, shaking hands," said Mark Tauschek, a senior research analyst for Info-Tech Research Group. "For a lot of sales-focused organizations, you're not in the office anyway -- you're out trying to sell." Consultants, resellers, and real estate agents could also go increasingly mobile. "I used to run a small VAR, and that's essentially what we did," Tauschek said. "We had a toll-free dial service that forwarded calls to appropriate cell phones. We all had laptops. We were always on the road selling or doing implementations."

Therefore, by going mobile you can eliminate the cost of a brick-and-mortar office space and the infrastructure needed to keep it going by having employees work out of their homes and/or on the road. Imagine: no lease, no furniture, no PBX, no network, no coffee, no electricity bills ...




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And then there are your employees' morale and productivity to consider. A lot of workers report they work more efficiently when they're not in an office. And an unexpected benefit of not having an office is less absenteeism -- an employee with a cold who would normally call in sick to work might still be perfectly capable of working from home. Finally, an employee whom you trust enough not to hover over is likely going to be a happier, calmer one. You're showing the person that you're confident he or she will get a project done without immediate supervision.

"A distributed workforce allows employees to better and more promptly serve customers," said Steve Hilton, VP of enterprise and SMB research for Yankee Group. "And the availability of employees is increased since tools like PDAs encourage work after hours."


thanks for resource to
Jennifer Moline
Infotech research group