After a year of adjusting to rapid rule changes and restrictions, businesses still find themselves in uncertain times. It’s safe to say flexible working is probably here to stay. Even before the pandemic, many businesses were starting to adopt flexible working models and equipping their workforce with the necessary devices to do so.
Since we’ve all had to adapt to not just flexible working models, but full remote working at times, the functionalities we want from our devices has changed too.
In 2021, the tech has even more to offer. We look at the new features that can help your business adapt whatever the remaining part of the year brings.
1. Need an office anywhere? Make it easier....
With rapid change inevitable, you don’t want your teams spending ages tweaking settings every time they set up in a different work location. You also don’t want them to lose power as they move around.
Now, you can choose business devices with large, vivid displays that adjust automatically to their surroundings – making it easy to work seamlessly in bright sunlight or on the move. New smart tech can help device batteries last longer by matching refresh rates to your needs. It means your device delivers a great experience for interactive tasks like data visualisation, whilst also cutting back on power consumption for more simple tasks like reading.
And whilst your colleagues are still adjusting to working from disparate locations, you will want an easy way to track their mobile usage. We have a customer portal – which gives you full visibility and control over your mobile estate wherever your office is located that day!
Plus, look out for wireless tech that lets you connect your business phones to monitors or launch your content to smart TVs – it’s great for boosting productivity and pulling off impressive presentations.
2. Need to stand out with customers and collegues? Push creative limits...
Boosting your online presence helps keep customers close, whatever the situation. But with the airwaves crowded, it can be tricky to cut through the noise. Screen saturation makes it hard to keep teams engaged when they’re working in different locations.
New creative tools now make it easy to grab customers’ attention and connect colleagues with striking content. Some business devices let you record and intuitively edit stunning 8K video, activate front and rear cameras at once or even capture many creative versions of a picture in one go with no apps or editing.
3. Need to connect through anything? Get future ready...
In early 2020, Accenture found that 64% of businesses expected to use 5G in the next two years to help employees work remotely. 67% expected to upgrade to 5G phones and networks within two years to give employees faster and more reliable use of crucial applications.
With the recent boom in remote and hybrid working, 5G capabilities are now even more important than business leaders anticipated. So, your business phone should be ready to make the most of 5G as soon as it’s available in your area.
Ideally, your phone should have multiple connectivity options and automatically find the fastest, too. For example, it should switch seamlessly between 5G and new Wi-Fi 6E (twice as fast as the previous generation of wireless) – all without any input from you.
4. Need to manage and support remotely? Keep it simple...
With employees everywhere, it’s hard to deliver and access technical support. But since cyberthreats are on the rise, that support matters more than ever.
Look out for business devices that come with an all-in-one platform to help you access, configure, update, and deploy apps from anywhere. Ideally, you also need access to services and support to save valuable time and cut down on frustrating technical niggles.
The team from Android introduced Enterprise Essentials this year - a simple, secure management service that is designed to give businesses with smaller needs and smaller budgets an easy way to protects their business devices and data. It offers integrated, automatic security features and easy device setup and management, all at an affordable price.
