The advent and dynamic evolution of mobile technologies have paved new ways of conducting and managing business operations. Offices are no longer confined within brick and mortar settings, rather the perimeters of the workplace are fading as more and more employees are working from remote places to suit a number of business requirements in real-time. Take for instance your frontline workers and the field force who tend to almost always work from remote locations like warehouses, construction sites, shipyards, transportation hubs, mineral ores, oil & gas fields, retail stores and so on.
Now to make sure that they are able to carry on their daily tasks and performances to maintain the required standards of efficiency and accuracy, companies mostly provide them with smart handheld devices in the form of tablets, RFID scanners, mPOS, rugged devices, barcode scanners and similar equipment. While enterprise mobility drives efficiency, convenience, precision and productivity, it is also essential for the companies to keep a constant track of these devices used by the remote workforce, for multiple reasons. Organizations can gain multiple benefits from an industry-proven MDM solution for frontline workers, when it comes to managing and securing the devices used by them.
Let’s look at the benefits that location tracking and geofencing as a feature can bring in for companies.
Data collection accuracy: Location tracking ensures that on-field employees maintain data reporting activities via mobile devices in compliance with the company-defined Permanent Journey Plan (PJP). This, in turn, enables the company to keep a constant eye on a geographically dispersed team. Proper maintenance of PJP reports proven by location-tracking signifies that employees are visiting the business venues they are supposed to visit and are collecting accurate data from the required locations to meet the enterprise purposes.
Enhanced work productivity: Location tracking might sound like overt policing to many remote workers but it’s a necessary feature that sets correct work expectations for both employees and employers. Although trust is important when it comes to getting work done from your frontline workers and field force, it is also important to stay observant. Location tracking enforces your remote workforce to use the right login and logout timings and details to help managers learn about their legit work locations and shift timings. This invariably enhances productivity and precision.
Real-time device tracking: For companies with a remote workforce, it is mandatory to have flawless field service management and location tracking works best as a valuable feature. It facilitates real-time tracking of all the company-owned devices used on the field in order to make sure that the data stored inside them are not leaving the pre-defined premises or locations. When location tracking comes as a feature of an MDM solution, it simultaneously works alongside geofencing and creates an alert or notification for the IT admin whenever a specific device leaves or enters a specific location.
Process and reimbursement efficiency: Location tracking imbibed in mobile devices used by frontline workers and field force disallow them to falsify any details and information around their routine trips and customer location visits. With devices enabled with location tracking, it shows the accurate distances covered by the field executives and also shows the right fuel charges for managers to reimburse. At the same time, when managers are aware of the real-time locations of the on-field executives, it becomes easier for them to reallocate venues for meetings to executives based on their neighborhood.
Also Read: Why companies should care about geofencing and location-tracking
Improved reporting and operations: Location tracking enables the IT managers to automatically collect all the accurate details of the areas that have been visited by the frontline workers or field force. This eliminates the requirement of paperwork or keeping manual reports by the employees, which often can be misplaced or stolen. It streamlines the entire process of work allocation, performance standardization and on-field operation management. Apart from that, location tracking also notifies the manager of any unscheduled or undefined trips or visits made by the field executives for personal reasons, within the office timings.
To sum it up together, companies that employ frontline workers and field force can benefit from location-tracking in multiple ways, which would not only allow the company IT team to ensure device and data security but will also enforce discipline, efficiency, productivity and precision in team and business operations.If your organization provides corporate-owned devices to its remote workforce, ensure to implement a powerful and scalable MDM solution with location-tracking as one of its core features.
