Information mobility: Why your business can’t be without it

Back some 25 years ago, the concept of mobility was very different. Collaboration, efficiency and productivity were just as important then as now, and to their credit, businesses made use of the day’s technologies as best they could. You could jump on a red-eye flight cross-country to meet a client in person. Or you could send a document via fax machine when mail was just too slow. Workstyle innovations that helped to revolutionize the way we work, yes. But these businesses didn’t have anything close to true information mobility.

After all, companies were still storing their records on paper. Printers were slow and costly. Fax machines were even slower. And the phone was the only way to collaborate in real time with a colleague, whether they were a room away or in another country.

Today, we finally have the technology for businesses to enjoy full information mobility. Such as video conferencing that lets you talk to someone face-to-face in real time. Or digital records management that’s revolutionizing the way doctors treat patients, giving them immediate access to a patient’s medical history and helping to save lives. Or multifunction devices that can print tens of thousands of documents in the blink of an eye. And of course, mobile devices like smartphones and tablets.

We are still in the mobile industry’s infancy, and yet, we have already seen just how they have changed the way we work. Business apps have given us the ability to automate processes that used to take hours, giving workers more time to concentrate on projects that directly affect a business’ bottom line. Tablets have become de rigueur for everything from email to notetaking. And people now have anytime, anywhere access to their work. 

But information mobility is more than just using technology to accomplish business goals. It’s also understanding the impact that these tools are having on workers. Maintaining work-life balance has become a significant challenge. Many are struggling in an increasingly technical world that they feel has passed them by. And a changing workforce is driving trends that have created some rifts between generations, as so-called millennials enter the job market and become the colleagues of older, established workers. The results have been tumultuous, to say the least. One needs only to look at the much-parodied Time magazine cover profiling millennials to see that.

It’s not just generational differences, either. Even among workers in the same age group, differences in workstyle can create significant challenges. From the tech-savvy to the technophile, from the person who prefers to write everything down to the person who takes their iPad wherever they go, these differences abound in the workplace. Knowing how to understand them – and make them coexist together in a way that’s mutually beneficial? That’s a challenge.

Because the mistake that far too many companies make is that they don’t consider the human element of their work. They talk of enterprise mobility and technology driving innovation, but they forget that, in the midst of all the corporate jargon and paying lip service to the trends driving their industry, people are still at the heart of every business. And before you can take advantage of all the shiny new gizmos, you need a workforce that can communicate and work together. A workforce that is content in the challenge and reward their job provides. A workforce that approaches projects with efficiency and speed. A workforce that, well, works.

Because without the people you need, you can’t have information mobility.

Having the technology you need? Good. Understanding that actual human beings drive your business? Wonderful. Now, how do you make information work for you?

Because when you think about it, information is at the heart of everything we do. Every business, no matter how big or small, is driven by information and how we access, use and share it in this new information economy. It’s the basis of every project we attempt, every business venture, every innovation. Information is at the root of it all. But not just data. Information. Useful data. Wading through the hayfield to find that one needle that could change everything for your business.

Effectively managing your information – finding what’s important and being able to quickly act on that information – is what separates successful businesses from failing ones. And having information mobility is always being one step ahead.