# Work and Life in the Mobile Society/Business Impact/Productivity

Productivity is a multidimensional term and its meaning can vary depending on the context in which it used. It is widely agreed that mobile work in general have an impact on the output on the company and thus, on productivity. And today enterprises are moving towards mobility. Mobile work has evolved from being simple communication devices to a productivity tool for the professionals on the move. As they have greater functionality enterprise mobile work can perform better and at higher speeds giving professionals the edges, required to survive in the highly competitive market. They are becoming the lifeline providing them with not just connectivity, 24-7, but also the opportunity to increase productivity and build profit.

## Applications

More and more applications are being loaded on these mobile devices making them stronger productivity options for the enterprise users. There have been two kinds of adoption, one where the enterprise goes with planned purchase to integrate mobile applications within the organization, and the other where employees bring their own devices, which is more relevant in India. Today a professional can hold conferences, transfer data, access updates and information, all on the move through these mobile devices. To study how wireless-enabled mobile technology impact productivity, Intel studied more than 100 Intel employees in different offices around the United States by providing then with the Intel Centrino mobile technology notebook bundles. The pace at which the participants’ work productivity increased during the study. Intel observed a productivity gain of 37.3 which confirmed its business decision to migrate to mobile work.

## Mobility

There has been a significant amount of convergence of application in the mobile devices segment. Now feature loaded enterprise devices such as smart phones come with in built digital cameras and other features, which provide them with greater functionality and improved efficiency. Earlier the enterprises believed that most of applications would be data centric but the trend in last couple of years has seen voice as an integral part of applications. A number of players churned out PDAs in the last year but if we compare the shipments of smart phones to PDAs in last year it's 4:1. Whether to choose a smart phone or a PDA depends on the requirements of an organization. However, the enterprise has a clear idea of what is the ideal device to be used and then they bracket it in term of cost, functionality, etc. Mobility has become a crucial factor for the enterprise today which forms an integral part of its growth strategy.

## Future

With mobile devices becoming cheaper and services more affordable, the option to go mobile work is not a distant dream in the future. Mobile smart phones and PDAs are moving towards becoming the perfect solution for all enterprise woes of connectivity and communication. By adopting mobile works enterprises can better coordinate resources within the enterprise leading to improved asset utilization. By simultaneously vertically integrating, enterprises overcome haggling and hold-up costs associated with implementing mobile work, which allows them to leverage the productivity of the technology across the enterprise. Thus there may create a suggestion that adoption of mobile work improves enterprise performance through improved coordination but requires the enterprise to shift toward an increasingly vertically integrated structure to fully capture the benefits of mobile work.

## References

* Even Rauley. “How Do Mobile Information Technology Networks Affect Firm Strategy and Performance?” University of California, Berkeley 2006
* Major Kumar Govindaraju & David Sward. “Effects of Wireless Mobile Technology on Employee Work Behavior and Productivity: An Intel Case Study.” Intel Corporation Santa Clara, CA 2005
* Sonia Sharina. “Mobile Applications: Enterprises on the Go!” Gold-Book 2007