The partnership of mobile devices and the business world is starting to become as widely known as peanut butter and jelly. Walk into any office and you are likely to see employees with smartphones and tablets that are being used for some level of company function, even if it's a simple as email. While the pairing is becoming more commonplace, getting the most out of it takes much more than just buying the gadgets.
A recent CITEWorld article profiled Jones Junction, a massive car and truck dealership in Harford County, Maryland. Previously, every salesperson carried a heavy binder of sales brochures, customer testimonials, information on competitors' vehicles and more. They were used to help close deals and answer any question that customers may have. While they did offer benefits, the binders were also cumbersome to carry around and hard to keep updated.
This led Drew Bauer, the company's sales trainer and recruiter, to suggest iPad deployment instead. After a presentation from an outside sales rep, it became clear that the tablet was needed. A month later in September of 2012, 130 iPads – both company purchased and employee owned – were in play in the sales lot.
However, Bauer, soon realized that keeping all of these tablets updated with the latest sales and customer information, while preventing unwanted materials from infiltrating the devices, was a larger undertaking than he first thought.
"We realized that we needed help," Bauer told the news source. "We didn't know what we didn't know about using the iPads."
The company has since rolled out several mobile applications that can be updated remotely and ensures every salesperson has the most updated information. This shows that there is more to optimizing iPads in a business setting than just going out and buying one. With the help of an IT consulting firm that is experienced with the devices, any company can successfully implement the devices.
