The five requirements for mobility greatness

In order to make mobility viable, work done in the office, on the go and at home needs to be seamless. Your customers need to have the same level of access to the tools and applications businesses rely on to be productive, regardless of where they are located and what device they have access to at the time. From a technical perspective, five steps are required to enable work to take place anywhere and everywhere, including at home. Each feature delivers a critical benefit to the customer, and the business, and is vital for creating office productivity outside the physical building. The five steps One-number accessibility ensures customers are always reachable on their direct office number, whether in-transit, travelling internationally or working from home, by allowing any incoming call to be extended to a mobile phone, laptop or PDA. Messaging management delivers universal access to any and all messages, so that voice, email or fax messages can be viewed from a PC, phone or other wireless device and managed from any location. This lessens the need for physical presence without compromising efficiency since information is quickly and efficiently delivered to its intended users, regardless of what form it is initially received in. Contact and information management allows users to connect to company directories and databases from any location, improving collaboration and problem solving in real-time, regardless of physical location. Personal efficiency management helps users make the most of their time by allowing them to manage appointments and tasks through rules-based controls that distinguish between urgent requests and routine interactions. Calling and conference management, namely the ability to launch and receive calls from any phone in any location. Add video-conferencing capabilities to the mix and the home worker can still have a (virtual) seat at the boardroom while working remotely, using no more than a broadband connection and a standard webcam. These features replace the need to travel and minimise home life disruptions, giving businesses the opportunity to both close deals while critical staff are away from the office location and save money in direct costs – key benefits in today's economy. Unleashing Potential Individually, each of these features conveys an important benefit. However, unified communications unleashes their full potential, delivering mobility and productivity that goes beyond the sum of their individual parts. Add to that the latest seamless user interface which allows this to be accomplished via a touch screen swipe or the click of a mouse, without changing programme, device or application, and the productivity gains and collaboration benefits can be considerable. A business leader can assemble his or her team instantly, via the device and mode they have selected, share documents, create sidebar discussions, view the context of previous discussions and come to a rapid decision – all from an overseas hotel room or direct from a customer meeting. Collaboration this easy – available from anywhere – is helping businesses across Australia and New Zealand save on costs, deliver better service and make decision squickly to speed business success.