In a recent piece written by Brant Clark, Product Marketing Director of Mobile Products and Solutions at Kofax, the changes that an increasingly mobile workforce have brought about are explored. Smartphones are in nearly every hand and access to wifi and cloud-based technologies is easier than ever. Research is showing that mobile workers are growing in numbers and that trend is expected to continue - increasing from 96.2 million in 2015 to 105.4 million mobile workers in 2020. By the end of the forecast period, research company International Data Corporation expects mobile workers will account for nearly three quarters (72.3 percent) of the total U.S. workforce.
Mobile workforces are also changing how businesses are run - no longer are all workers under one roof during specified hours - communication now requires some sort of electronic device. Clark reports:
- 61 percent of workers report working outside the office at least part of the time
- The average employee uses at least three devices daily for work activities
- The number of devices managed in the enterprise increased 72 percent from 2014 to 2015
But how does this affect the daily process of a business? Here's how:
- Employees interacting with business processes across a variety of devices: your organization needs to be able to view processes from start to finish – regardless of the device used to complete them – in order to manage them.
- Employees completing processes at varying times: when employees are completing tasks across time zones, you risk bottlenecks and work duplication if you’re not tracking processes carefully.
- Increased chance for error and miscommunication:
- Real-time resource allocation: if you can see how your processes are working, you can adjust quickly when required.
- Increased experience expectations:your employees and customers are always connected – so they expect you to be, too. Expectations of performance, response time and self-service capabilities are increasing.
So, how is a company to manage the changing work environment while maintaining order in their workflows? It requires "process intelligence" - an idea that goes beyond basic analytics to reveal real-time insights within a company to show what bottlenecks and speedbumps are hindering progress. Process intelligence allows management granular access to how tasks are run - showing the who, when, where, and how employees are working. Tasks that have been performed incorrectly can be easily identified and addressed, and clear plans to streamline work across the enterprise can be organized.
With the ongoing shift to mobile workforces companies must respond now to avoid headaches in the inevitable future. To do this, they must implement proven process intelligence tools and prepare themselves for a workforce that will bear little resemblance to that of today.
Read "Five Ways a Mobile Workforce Impacts Business Processes" by Brant Clark