82% of housing departments and associations have stated that mobile working is a priority for them in 2010, yet only 38% have a mobile working strategy in place.
Integration with other IT applications is the main bug bear faced by housing departments in developing a mobile working strategy. Applications such as Micrsoft SharePoint and Microsoft Dynamics CRM can be intergrated with a mobile IT solution, such as Dynamic Forms. However, according to the poll, the greatest benefits in implementing a mobile working strategy are to provide flexible and innovative ways of working for housing staff (33%) and higher service to citizens (36%).
Housing associations face immense challenges (NHF, 2009). These range from being able to generate tangible savings in 2010, improving ways of working for staff and enhancing service for citizens. Housing associations are coming around to the idea that mobile working strategies can deliver innovative, yet practical, ways of solving these challenges.
An example of mobile working initiative is to give field staff handheld devices to carry out updates on repairs and timesheets while they are out visiting customers which are logged on completion. Immediate benefits in achieving efficiency improvements. In addition to reducing levels of manual data entry, fuel and inventory costs will decrease and there have been significant gains in productivity.