The iPad. According to conventional wisdom, it’s a modern magic wand – an über device capable of revolutionizing personal organization, transforming workplace routines and delivering seemingly ridiculous productivity gains across a broad range of industry settings.
Even still, as much as 70 percent of iPad apps and app downloads are games, not applications designed to improve workplace productivity.
In many cases, a lack of tablet productivity can be traced to a combination of factors, including inadequate (or non-existent) mobile technology policies, poor communication channels and a general ignorance of business applications for tablets.
Yet there are many apps that undoubtedly drive tablet-based productivity. If companies want to effectively deploy iPads and other tablets to employees, they must identify key areas in which apps can be used to increase efficiency, improve performance and increase the productivity of technology users across the organization.
So how can businesses use the iPad to perform real work?
1. Worker Training. The widespread use of iPads and other mobile technologies creates a nearly limitless number of mobile learning opportunities. In addition to equipping workers with anytime, anywhere access to a library of company training resources, tablet-based mobile learning initiatives have been shown to deliver substantial cost savings to the organization, reducing required training time substantially and driving down training-related expenses. This is of particular importance, with the American Society for Training & Development’s 2011 State of the Industry report pointing to a somewhat bleak outlook, with more companies spending more money for diminishing returns in productivity.
2. Human Resources. Tablets offer a unique distribution channel for HR materials like employee handbooks, policy updates and other resources that are subject to frequent revisions. For HR professionals and small-business executives, apps like HR at Your Fingertips provide instant access to employment laws, glossaries of HR terms and more. Being able to easily pull up otherwise difficult-to-find documents in virtually any context makes conflict management and company policy questions much easier to answer as they arise, not requiring later follow up.
3. Presentations. The presentation capabilities associated with iPads and other tablets are well documented. However, few workers fully exploit those capabilities when presenting decks to either internal or external audiences. To maximize the use of Keynote, Quickoffice Pro HD and other solutions via tablet devices, companies should consider offering periodic training sessions for employees who are routinely involved in constructing slide decks or delivering presentations. Simple hardware dongles for connection to common VGA-enabled projectors or adding video streaming solutions such as Apple TVs to meeting room toolkits can turn the tablet into an experience everyone in the room can share.
Additionally, collaborative Web browsing tools such as Condé Nast’s IdeaFlight and our own RabbleBrowser are extremely useful for meetings and presentations. Whether it’s an internal company meeting or a presentation to a prospect, these types of collaborative tools are perfect for keeping everyone engaged and interested in the subject matter.
Other presentation and meeting tools that shouldn’t be ignored are GoToMeeting, Adobe Connect and WebEx apps. These apps enable you to participate in meetings (with presentations, if necessary) via your tablet. There’s no more worrying about missing a meeting while you’re stuck in the airport.
4. Point of Sale (POS). Tablets are making huge inroads in the area of mobile payments. Easy-to-use applications like Square and Intuit GoPayment enable vendors and retailers to complete consumer transactions in a mobile context. It’s foolish for organizations to ignore the accessibility and productivity that is achievable through tablet-based POS applications – some of which can be seamlessly integrated with inventory management solutions. Does your company have a mobile sales force? Consider equipping them with tablet-based POS tools that allow them to close transactions right at the end of a sales meeting. To take that a step further, employees can even use Sign-N-Send so that the deals they close can be signed and made official, all from an iPad.
5. Customer Relationship Management (CRM). Tablets are natural technology candidates for managing your contacts, interactions and other projects while you’re on the go. Apps such as the Salesforce Mobile Dashboard and Bento provide workers with a powerful yet fully mobile database solution that addresses your CRM and planning needs. If your current CRM solution isn’t tablet friendly, consider reaching out to your vendor to find out some roadmap information so you can plan accordingly.
6. Staying Ahead of the Curve. A key aspect of business success is staying on top of what’s happening in your industry. Media tools such as Flipboard keep you up-to-date on the industry news and trends that directly affect your company by aggregating and displaying only the most relevant items in a way that is easy to read and scan. The days of maintenance-heavy RSS readers may soon be over with reading tools like Instapaper, Scoop.it and others like it.
7. Working from Anywhere. It’s no secret that technological advancements have enabled more employees to work remotely without decreasing productivity. Thank you, cloud. The iPad only furthers this. The same cloud-based tools used for productivity, storage and file-sharing (Dropbox, Box.net, Wunderlist, JungleDisk and Evernote, for instance) should be loaded on your iPad.
This opens up even more possibilities for working remotely because employees no longer have to lug a laptop around with them to access files stored in the cloud. Similarly, employees who need to access their work computers from anywhere at any time can use apps like iRemoteDesktop or GotoMyPC to control their desktop from their iPad.
From a productivity standpoint, the potential benefits of tablets in the workplace are endless. Web conferencing, spreadsheets, file sharing, social media marketing and other functions can be easily accomplished with little more than an iPad and a server or Internet connection.
So the next time you see a coworker tinkering around on their iPad, don’t just assume they’re trying to get to the next level of Angry Birds or playing a round of Words with Friends. They could simply be using their tablet to get real work done, leaving them time to play later on.
