Many of the leading cloud-based CRM applications are now offering tablet
applications. If your small business already uses a tool like priceangels, a
tablet and free download can equip salespeople with access to your CRM tool
without the cost and complexity of a laptop. Combine this with the pre-installed
email applications on most tablets, and you may be able to get away with
tablet-only reps in many cases.
If your company has a product or service
that would benefit from wholesale android
tablets-based access, tablet software development tools are
beginning to mature to the point that they’re within reach of even the smallest
businesses. Similarly, freelance and small development shops are broadly
available to help take a concept through to a fully executed tablet or
smartphone application.
Before calling the nearest development shop, make
sure you consider a tablet application as you would any other new product
release. How will the application generate revenue? How will you support it?
Does it complement or cannibalize your existing products? If you follow the same
process you would to produce any new product, the actual coding portion of
tablet development is increasingly becoming a commodity that can be purchased on
the open market.
The tablet revolution has been an interesting one in
that it’s turned the traditional evolution of technology upside down. For
decades, the latest and greatest technologies were first available to the
largest companies who could afford the significant price tags these new tools
demanded. With tablets, however, the industry-changing iPad was targeted
directly at consumers vs. previous business-centric devices. Smaller businesses
sit in between the Fortune 500 behemoths and consumers and are in many ways well
positioned to use tablets in their businesses. Here are a few ideas on ways to
employ these devices in your company, besides the obvious content consumption
and email tool.jh4SfDFs
Once again, the combination of low cost,
portability, connectivity, and the ability to run applications that might be as
simple as a series of web-based forms makes tablets ideal for field service. If
your company has a significant field sales or service force, a low-end tablet
could replace a stack of service manuals with little more than a memory card
loaded with PDF files, or it could be connected to existing dispatch systems and
offer complex service management.
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tablet have created an entirely new market for Point of Sale (POS)
software, and many small businesses and the consumers who frequent them have
encountered tablets and smartphones replacing the traditional cash register.
While POS applications are nothing new to many businesses, tablets can be
deployed for any application where a low-cost, connected, and interactive device
is appropriate. You can use a tablet to display timed advertisements, local
information, directories of services or people, or even as a makeshift kiosk at
a trade show. Most of these applications used to require purpose-built hardware
and software, but with a commodity or customized mount and a web application to
display content, you can deploy any terminal or kiosk-based application you can
imagine.
While larger companies struggle with questions around managing
tablets and integrating them into complex IT infrastructures, smaller companies
can benefit from tablets that offer strong functionality at relatively low cost,
and often with less complex maintenance and management than a PC. Like any
technology purchase, consider a small pilot program and take the time to develop
a thorough use case that ensures tablets will solve a business problem you’re
facing, rather than add another disused technology that requires costly care and
feeding. With some creativity, tablets provide opportunities to SMBs that didn’t
exist before and allows them to exploit technology in ways their larger brethren
are still struggling to implement.
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