The unique appeal of apps installed on mobile phones or tablets is that they provide an ‘anytime, anywhere’ type of technology. Combined with gadgets like smart watches, we are also witnessing the birth of what is called “wearable technology”.

Business organisations are progressively embracing this new technology in pursuit of improved productivity. Key objectives include improved communication, enhanced project collaboration, and better customer service.

In the few short years following the universal adaptation of mobile phones, we can now claim that desktop technology is now completely available on mobile devices, and furthermore observe its transformation and enhancement with purpose built mobile apps.

Productivity tools that come with mobile apps

The range of productivity tools offered through mobile apps is already extensive. Using mobile apps, business people are now able to perform the following tasks on the move.

• Collaborate with colleagues regardless of location.

• Improve business processes by enabling information retrieval, file sharing, and data exchange across multiple mobile devices.

• Perform project management tasks with real-time status updates, task assignment, deadline monitoring, and individual or group conferencing.

• Pay suppliers and invoice clients.

• Deliver business related content quicker and more efficiently to business colleagues or clients regardless of time and location.

• Manage social media accounts.

• Track and submit expense reports from a mobile device.

• Manage contact and to-do lists in real time.

Let’s explore a few business areas where the use of mobile apps can significantly improve productivity. Some of these areas are generic to most business organisations; others are unique to specific market segments.

Customer relationship management (CRM)

Customer service yields customer loyalty and organisations with a large customer base traditionally use a centralised CRM system. This function can now be distributed, utilised and managed with mobile devices. Let’s explore an app with rising market acceptance.

Nimble CRM for improved relationship intelligence

This app includes features like Contacts, Activities & Calendar, Social, Emails & Messages, and Deals. This CRM system was ranked as a high performer by G2 Crowd in a recent survey of CRM systems, with a satisfaction rating of 94.

The system automatically assembles contact profiles, email conversations and social signals into one area to facilitate client engagement.

Nimble’s companion mobile apps are available for iOS and Android mobile devices, and can be downloaded from the Apple Store and Google Play respectively.

The Android app integrates with Google email, contacts and calendar as well as Twitter, Facebook, and Outlook. This means that you can send and receive emails as well as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn messages from one single inbox.

The iOS app is optimised for the iPhone 5, but is also compatible with other iPhone models as well as the iPad and iPod.

Other significant features include activity management with the ability to easily control tasks, events and calendars, team collaboration with information sharing, and social engagement where you can monitor social streams and engage with clients.

For more advanced users, Nimble provides integration with MailChimp, Wufoo and HubSpot. This integration can be used to build a closed loop marketing system.

Communication apps

Communication apps provide real-time contact with staff and clients, and can significantly improve organisational efficiency. They provide cost savings by reducing the need for meetings, travelling and time wastage.

Skype for voice calls, video calls and conference calls

This popular app, now owned by Microsoft, provides voice, video and conference calls. It is available as a free and a low-cost premium service.

WhatsApp, with voice communication coming 2015

This popular mobile chat app, now owned by Facebook, has already assembled some 600 million users. While this app was built for messaging, its CEO has announced that voice communication will be introduced early in 2015, provided some inherent technical issues can be resolved.

It is of interest to note that WhatsApp uses a completely different infrastructure which requires reduced bandwidth and provides cheaper usage rates. Their remarkable technical achievement is building a framework which had the capacity for 10,000 simultaneous connection to a network now capable of 2 million connections.

Project management and team collaboration

Most business organisations of mid size or larger engage in project management, using different methods and software applications to manage task definitions, task assignments and projected deadlines.

There are a number of mobile apps available which enable these tasks to be carried out on an ‘anywhere, anytime’ basis.

Basecamp for mobile project management

This mobile app can be tried free for 60 days to provide business owners the opportunity of evaluating its use and practicality. The Basecamp website claims that the app was used by 285,000 companies in 2013 to complete more than 2 million projects. Its main purpose is to enable project staff to collaborate by sharing files, conduct discussions, assign tasks, and monitor deadlines.

Basecamp runs “in the cloud” on their secure servers, from where the app can be accessed via a smartphone or web browser. This app is available for Android on Google Play, iPhone and iPad in the Apple Store.

Other project management apps include Asana, Producteev and Quip (iOS devices).