As Heather Clancy explained in a recent article for FORTUNE, desk phones chain workers to one location. Businesses need phones, of course, but proprietary telecom equipment is expensive. Business telecom, it seems, is in need of a bit of a reinvention.
Cloud startup Dialpad hopes to change the communications space and is taking advantage of the enterprise mobile app trend to do it. Dialpad CEO Craig Walker told FORTUNE that the company is trying to figure out “How do you take the best of mobile app technology and use those tools to replace the enterprise voice system?”
If this seems like a plug for Dialpad, it isn’t (though we don’t have any problem with the company). Rather, it’s a plug for the question Walker asked FORTUNE. Open it up to other problems in the enterprise and it becomes, “How do you take the best mobile app technology and use those tools to solve pain points around the company?”
If all you’re doing with enterprise mobility is making mobile versions of desktop applications, you’re missing out on tremendous upside and potential. With Dialpad, employees are freed up from their desks and enabled to become more efficient—all while enterprises save resources by cutting ties with pricey telecom solutions. Other mobile solutions enable employees to do everything from manage vendor relationships on the fly to track data on crops in the field, neither of which would be possible without the rise of enterprise mobility.
Which business functions or tasks are holding your company back the most? Pricey telecom contracts? Lack of customer data when working remotely? Complex security procedures that are difficult to navigate on a mobile device? Inventory tracking? Whatever the problem may be, chances are high that there’s a solution to be found in a strategically designed mobile app.
Dialpad’s CEO—and countless other CEOs of companies built around enterprise apps—realized just how helpful mobile apps can be in solving core business problems. Are you doing all you can to find your ‘Dialpad solution,’ or do you have unsolved problems around your business? If you’re in the latter category, we think that EMM might be for you.
