Transform Smartphones & Tablets into Business Tools
Updated February 2016
Mobile phones and tablets make our lives easier, enable us to connect, and entertain us. Loaded with the right apps, they also make great business solutions, giving us the tools to be more efficient, productive and responsive. Here’s how.
Organization
Staying organized can be difficult when you’re constantly switching between a laptop, smartphone and tablet or iPad®. You need to quickly synchronize your contacts, schedule and to-do lists. Your mobile device has some synchronizing abilities, but you may want a more powerful app, such as Any Time Organizer Deluxe. A business-level, to-do organizer, Any Time syncs between PCs and mobile devices through Google™ and Outlook®. One of the app’s most helpful features allows you to send text reminders directly to your mobile device.
Record-Keeping
A business trip requires you to collect and organize reams of small, easy-to-lose paper documents, such as receipts for travel expenses, notes, business cards and agreements. Pocket-sized scanners are one option, or you can install a scanner app, which uses your device’s camera to capture the document. Then you can easily tag, organize, email or upload the scan to cloud storage or your accounting and finance software solution and contacts.
Presenting & Video Conferencing
Turn your tablet into a presentation powerhouse. Use its bigger screen to share information or demo products to individuals or small groups. Address larger groups by connecting to computers, televisions or handheld mobile projectors. And since business travel increasingly requires people be in two places at once, a tablet with a front-facing camera and a web conferencing app doubles as a take-anywhere face-to-face communication tool. You can take part in your weekly board meeting in Boston from a hotel room in California.
Business Texting
Like it or not, business texting is an integral part of working life. Use text messaging to check in with the office or appointments, or for full-on team communication. Apps like Slack use messaging and other tools to track projects and communicate with team members on the mobile platform.
Document Creation & Editing
Microsoft® Office, Google Apps for Work and other office productivity apps turn your mobile device into a mobile desktop. Applications such as Documents to Go and Quick Office Pro support Microsoft Office and Apple® iWork, allowing you to easily read and edit documents. Most smartphones and tablets also come with useful voice memo and other recording apps that make it easy to capture your thoughts. Take those abilities to the next level with dictation apps, like Dragonspeak, that allow you to record notes, organize them, and email them to recipients.
Remote PC Desktop
You're meeting with a client who asks a question you could easily answer if you were at your computer. But you’re not. With a remote desktop app for your smartphone or tablet, however, your office computer files are at your fingertips. Apps like LogMeIn connect your phone to your office computer, allowing you to access files from a distance. Ask your colleagues to recommend the best remote desktop app.
Cloud Computing
Cloud computing has nothing to do with weather or using your laptop on a plane. The “cloud” is just another term for the Internet, and cloud computing is storing and accessing programs, apps and data via the web instead of your computer or network. Cloud services make critical business functions accessible on demand from any device anywhere. Cloud storage and data backup apps enable you to park documents so you can get them from any device with an Internet connection, making editing, sharing, collaborating and safeguarding easy.
Your mobile phone and tablet are important partners in your business success. Ask colleagues and industry experts to recommend uses and apps to make your mobile devices even more useful.