These days you can’t whip out your smartphone without someone commenting on how dependant we are on our devices. Sure, there is value in digital detoxes and connecting in person. But how about the benefits our smartphones impact on our business’? They allow us to leave the office earlier because we are still connected. They allow us to get our tedious admin out of the way while we sit in waiting rooms. If you haven’t leveraged your smartphone as a key business tool, you and your business may be missing out more than you think.
Keep your finances in check
If you have worked in an office then you have no doubt felt that end of month pressure as the entire leadership team runs around in a frantic rush to pay staff, suppliers and balance before that deadline. Your smartphone allows you to keep track of your finances with a series of invoice app options and advanced accounting platforms. Streamline your accounting responsibilities so that you can reap the rewards of mobile functionality and set a standard in your business to work on mobile to reduce that monthly panic.
No dead time
Humans are inherently impatient. Waiting is not a virtue mastered by many, but it doesn’t have to be with your smartphone on hand. Running a business is more than a full time endeavor and sometimes days are spent just putting out fires with no real administrative hours logged. That’s where waiting and dead time comes in handy. Don’t rely on office contact hours to get those tedious (yet important) tasks complete, and instead work on them during your commute, while waiting for a meeting, or when you find yourself without a lunch buddy.
Stay connected
The modern day office doesn’t look any one way. Flexible working conditions allow you to have a team spread all over the city, country or the world. Or perhaps your direct reports sit in another city, or even your key clients. Your smartphone allows you to stay connected with your stakeholders by way of phone call, video call, webinar, email or message. This instills confidence in your connections, and allows you to be agile and communicative with ease. There are also countless workflow apps that will give you an idea of what your team are working on, and when deadlines will be met without asking them directly.
Make audio and visual notes
We can’t control when those lightbulb moments happen, so it’s important to make note of these decisions and ideas as they come to us. Your smartphone will have apps that will make your note keeping easy by entering them into a notes log, through voice memos and by taking photos of concepts and designs that trigger creativity or future direction. You can then refer back to these cues and even email them to yourself as you make them to really get the ball rolling.
Make decisions in real-time
No industry is the same, but urgency and optimisation are important to all business leaders. Your smartphone becomes a critical tool for business success when you can leverage apps and online integration that give you real time reports and data. Don’t find out at the end of the month, week or day that a project failed or there was revenue risk – use your smartphone to get real-time results so that you can be making the best decisions for the business.
It doesn’t matter which generation you fall into, the value a smartphone can add to your business is infinite. Start educating your greater team on how you can leverage your devices, and sync up to apps and workflow platforms that will supercharge your productivity and success.
