It's easy to say that there's a great new service that literally every business needs; that's essentially the marketing plan behind every new service that targets the business user. The benefits of mobility managed services, however, make it perfectly clear that this is just as the marketing suggests: a great new service that literally every business needs. This is particularly true for businesses that either have a strong mobile presence internally or would like to have one.

The Benefits of Mobility Managed Services Can't Be Ignored

Examining the benefits of mobility managed services makes it abundantly clear that this is indeed a vital new service that can deliver important new opportunities for your business.

Cost Savings. Cost savings, by themselves, are reason enough for businesses to consider a wide range of new possibilities and managed mobility services certainly provide. Some estimates suggest that the annual cost of mobile-device use for businesses is about $1,900 per user per year. This includes a variety of points, including the actual mobile hardware, the service plans required to use that hardware, and the internal IT services required to set up and maintain — not to mention keep secure — the hardware. By turning to a managed mobility services provider, users get to pull a lot of that internal IT expense off the table immediately because the managed mobility services provider steps in.

Cost Transparency. It's one thing to offer cost savings immediately, but managed mobility services may pose additional cost savings through another point: cost transparency. The changing landscape of mobile services — costs are constantly rising and a company's needs often change, sometimes in the middle of a billing cycle — means that pinning down costs going forward can be difficult. With managed mobility services, the costs remain much more visible and identifying any waste beyond that not only becomes easier to accomplish but easier to address. Better yet, some improvements can be more readily identified as well. Some users will discover they're eligible for free upgrades, but before managed mobility services, they weren't taking advantage of that eligibility.

Getting Back on Task. By taking your IT staff off mobility detail, you've now freed up staff to pursue other opportunities within IT as well. IT normally wears a lot of hats in any organization; they're handling security, handling repair issues and operator problems, upgrades, patch maintenance, and a laundry list of potential tasks. Removing mobility-related tasks from the lineup frees up all that time to put IT back to work on the others, which can offer a wide range of benefits in and of itself. It's not just IT that receives this benefit, either; your regular end-users within the business also don't have to focus on mobility issues. If something goes wrong, there's a managed service provider at the other end waiting to make everything come out all right in the end. This lets your users get back to work faster, and improves their chances at being profitable.

Greater Expertise. Mobility managed services are experts in mobility services — at least the good ones are. Those who aren't experts will likely find themselves outmatched by their more adept competitors in fairly short order. Mobility managed services providers have a vested interest in knowing their field because it improves their attractiveness to potential customers. Given how many businesses are still struggling with mobile, that can mean businesses aren't just bringing in a service provider, they're also bringing in an expert who understands mobility and will be on-hand to help answer questions.

Constant Support. Many managed mobility services providers offer round-the-clock support. Again, it's a key distinction from less-available competitors and a point that keeps customers interested. For their customers, meanwhile, it's also a big component of peace of mind; the provider is available when it's needed meaning that downtime is limited, and you're up and running when you need to be. Some firms will even offer service level agreements (SLAs) that ensure uptime and offer remedies — prorated bills, outright refunds, and so on — for when the uptime isn't achieved.

Augmenting the Mobile Presence. Mobility has proven to be valuable for businesses on several fronts. It not only improves efficiency, but it also improves morale by making a workday more flexible. That flexibility is also helpful given the increasingly global nature of business; running a nine-to-five business is all fine and well if all of your customers run likewise. For those trying to do business in other states or countries, however, that nine-to-five is less a framework and more of a straightjacket. By opening up mobility and flexible schedules, a business is better able to address the needs of customers whose time zones don't closely align with the business's own.

Matching the Competition. For businesses that turn to managed mobility services, they're in an increasingly good crowd. Some studies find that 87% of respondents are already working with a managed mobility services provider. Large numbers of customers may already be taking advantage of such services for all the benefits previously described. Those that aren't, therefore, are facing a substantial disadvantage in their field. Bringing in managed mobility services can help level the playing field and give a business the same advantages its own competitors currently enjoy.

How to Bring the Benefits of Managed Mobility Services to Your Business

The benefits of managed mobility services make it a service that few businesses can confidently brush aside. Taking advantage of these benefits can be as easy as getting in touch with a managed mobility service provider and setting up a program. However, since it's that easy, there are a lot of choices out there. That makes telling where to start a challenge — a challenge readily overcome by getting in touch with us at Acuity. Our managed mobility services program starts with assessments of your current services designed to spot savings and follows up with our own wide range of options, making sure you get the most return for your investment. When you're ready to bring the benefits of managed mobility services into play, just reach out to us to get started.