From a business perspective the main goals of incorporating mobile computing into the company are
- Improving customer service
- Reducing cycle time and speeding decision making
- Attracting and maintaining a high quality workforce
- Knowledge management and exchanging best practices.
In business a major factor is giving employees flexibility in how and when they work. Improving customer service relates to communicating faster and more clearly with clients, being able to go to clients and complete the work with direct contact and also being able to build a team who are in different locations but are still able to work effectively together.
Mobile computing reduces cycle time and speeds decision making by allowing employees to access information and business services more frequently and away from the desk. There is no longer any delay by having to wait until your employees are back in the office before they can get required information or start on a project. Mobile computing allows them to access online resources, company databases and communication lines with ease away from the office PC.
It has been found that some businesses used mobile computing as a tool for attracting high level and professional employees stated that from their study: A number of companies reported that they used mobile computing as a tool for attracting workers. The three companies designed around mobile computing were most explicit in this. In these firms individuals were hired with the assumption that part or all of their work would be done either in their homes or in clients' facilities. This highlights how people value being able to work with more flexibility and how potential employees prefer to have the option mobile computing provides. Companies are keying into this and are offering mobile computing as an incentive to get highly skilled workers.
Knowledge management has been cited as a reason company’s are moving towards mobile computing. The argument is that it makes it easier for workers to have access to previously done assignments and jobs, these knowledge repositories according to often contain ‘reusable’ pieces of work and the expertise of the company. Another reason was the sharing of information between colleagues, though in practice mobile computing only seems to help with the organization of face to face meetings in which ideas are shared.