Whether you’re prepared for it or not, Apple’s iPad and the myriad of new tablet computers coming to market will change the way you do business. Not because there is a shiny new gadget available, but because that shiny new gadget is raising your customers’ expectations by a degree far greater than smartphones like the iPhone, Blackberry and Droid already have.
Regardless of the business you’re in – B2B, consumer direct or retail – the customer experience you provide is critical for long-term sustainability and growth. This is especially true for commodities that can be purchased at multiple retailers, online or direct from the manufacturer.
The impact of mobile on the enterprise, however, is being felt far beyond the point of sale. For example, at Eli Lilly and Co., advanced mobile devices and applications offer its pharmaceutical sales force the capability to be highly productive while they are presenting to physicians, as well as during the significant downtime waiting to see them.
For Lilly, mobile devices with longer battery life like the iPad that are always on and provide instant, secure access to any and all existing resources a physician may want to review about a drug are a must. Compared to the antiquated process of combing through hard copy brochures that may or may not have the very latest information or waiting for a laptop computer to start-up and open applications, this is a tremendous enhancement to the customer experience.
In deal-flow environments such as the one at Simon Property Group Inc., the sales force manages tens of thousands of active leases which have volumes of paperwork and space plans associated with them. Traditionally, the Simon sales force has had to travel with the associated paperwork or store it on discs, neither of which is easy to access quickly and seamlessly. Mobile devices like the iPad have helped Simon bring the largely paper-based leasing side of their business into a streamlined digital space that is much more customer friendly.
