Mobile Workforces– Welcoming the Era of the Digital Office

*This is in partnership with BloombergQuint Brand Studio

Thanks to a young, tech-savvy base of employees, the use of digital technologies is booming in India. A recent survey by McKinsey & Co revealed that an average cell phone user in India consumed more than 8 GB of data every month, which is higher than the average consumption in countries like China and South Korea. Just a year ago, India’s data consumption was 50 percent of China’s and just 15 percent of South Korea’s average.

To top that, India has the second largest number of internet users in the world and is now the world’s second largest smartphone market after China. There are a staggering 550 million Internet users in India and this number is expected to cross the 800-million mark by 2023. The number of smartphones is estimated to grow to 700 million by 2023.

The changing office-scape

It is no wonder then that digital technology applications will create an estimated 65 million new jobs as a direct impact of productivity-boosting apps. “Digital applications have the potential to create significant economic value for India but will require new skills and labour redeployment. Firms in India that innovate and digitize rapidly will be better placed to tap into a large connected market of up to 700 million smartphones by 2023,” the McKinsey report reveals.

As the workplace becomes mobile, the demographics of the workplace are also changing and work tools are becoming flexible and secure enough to move with it. Businesses are seeking solutions to increase productivity and improve customer experiences.

And that is already happening – many of us use apps to approve a team member’s leave request from an airport before taking a flight, or check the latest status of a customer account before getting into a meeting with them. And communication applications like email and IM are among the most heavily used.

A business app for every function

Mobile applications have changed the very way we work, improving productivity on the go without lugging even a laptop around. With the introduction of a whole host of productivity apps, companies are now seeing value in allowing employees to work remotely.

These apps are affordable and user friendly, and help in getting the job done, anytime, anywhere, making the transition easy for businesses. “It (Zoho) has saved me time and travelling costs associated with my business. I have tried other software but being a small business, the cost made me look for a more affordable alternative,” said Lisa Roy of Geek Girl Media, an SME that uses the Zoho Assist software.

A large number of developers offer an array of business development apps which promise to keep your data secure, help save time and resources, are cost-efficient and even offer follow-up services to troubleshoot in case of problems.

Some of the popular functions being replaced or augmented by mobile apps include Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tools to track leads, prospects and close information queries remotely from your smartphones. Another widely-used application area is virtual meetings, which allows you to be in two places at one time, increasing productivity.

Document sharing apps that enable safe and fast document transfer across teams, communications tools for organisations to create their own groups to discuss targets and daily tasks, are some of the other ones that are gaining popularity.

Making the switch

A large number of companies are changing their business models and making the transition to custom apps to manage their business needs, leaving them with more time for other tasks which were earlier getting ignored due to paucity of time.

“We needed to find a more efficient solution to manage a security company. It was way too frustrating and very expensive to use software that was always breaking down and having issues,” said Anastasakis Spiros, CEO of Canada-based Interactive Security. They found their solution in Zoho Creator, which they found to be user friendly and well-suited to their industry’s needs. “One of the best features is that it gives a security guard the opportunity to be able to view his schedule from wherever he is. He doesn’t need to access a computer. He could just log in to his phone from anywhere and see it,” Spiros explained.

“It is a one-stop shop app. It gives me much more free time to deal with other aspects of my company,” he said.

Zoho is a pioneer in cloud software solutions. It’s simple and affordable apps, are trusted by more than 50 million users globally. Its solutions cover multiple disciplines of business - from sales and marketing to business process automation to finance to human resource management and e-mail & collaboration. Its flagship solution Zoho One, an all-in-one suite of business applications that can run your entire business. It is available at a disruptive pricing that is attractive to small and large businesses alike.