Mobile’s reach into field service business, especially with the proliferation of accessible, affordable consumer devices such as Apple’s iPad and Samsung’s Galaxy, is fundamentally changing how field service organizations operate. Beyond the communication and accessibility benefits, however, businesses, including field service operations, are using mobile devices to gain instant access to important company and customer documents. Mobile Enterprise covers how one vendor, CVG Strategy, a consulting firm that works with SMB manufacturers (most of them in the defense industry), securely transfers documents to its staff on smartphones and other mobile devices — lessons that any field service business can learn from.
According to Mobile Enterprise, CVG relies upon WatchDox, a cloud-based app that provides secure document downloading, sharing and manipulation. WatchDox includes lots of built-in functionality that allows companies the encrypt documents and restrict access to certain employees — an important inconsideration for service organizations that handle sensitive customer information. The documents are made available to technicians in the field using popular mobile platforms such as iPhone, iPad and Android devices.
Pricing for WatchDox’s services depends upon number of licenses and required functionality. CVG, for example, pays $2,000 per year to give its 12 mobile employees to 20GB of documents at any given time.
For service managers that don’t require extensive security measures, Google Docs is an option. Now available on most mobile devices, Google Docs allow technicians in the field to access and edit word and spreadsheet documents.
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