Mobile Security

Today’s advanced enterprises make extensive use of mobile devices in order for team members to exchange information, collaborate, and carry out business whenever and wherever they need to. BlackBerries, iPhones, Google Phones, and other smartphones as well as PocketPCs and PDAs are now allowed wireless remote access to the enterprise network.

As a result, they introduce additional vulnerabilities into the system.

Bluetooth exploits and unencrypted passwords can allow malicious individuals to gain access to private information.
Various wireless technologies that have substantially simplified the task of transferring data have provided openings for malicious code. In addition, the diversity of these wireless technologies combined with the constrained environments of these devices have made it difficult to come up with an all-in-one solution.
All PocketPCs, PDAs and smartphones can be synchronised with PCs and laptops, giving malware an entry point into computers and networks. Memory cards are guilty of this too.
VoIP, which are usually unencrypted, allow other people to perform unauthorised capture and recording of private conversations.

Mobile security is still an emerging discipline. Because of this, many organisations that allow members’ mobile phone access into the network don’t actually have a specific security policy for such devices.

That’s why we’re here to help. We’ll conduct a thorough evaluation of your security policies and systems in relation to mobile devices and seal gaps we spot along the way. If you don’t have the needed policies or if what you have needs an overhaul, we’ll set everything up (including the needed applications and infrastructure) for you.

Once we’ve got everything in place, you won’t have to worry about the vulnerabilities mentioned earlier. In addition to that, your organisation will already be capable of preventing the following:

Access to company information when the phone ends up in the hands of anyone other than the authorised user.
Being billed for phone usage due to virus activity
Unauthorised phone activity monitoring through spyware
Other disruptions caused by mobile-based malware

Other defences we’re capable of putting up include:

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Mobile Workforce Management in a nutshell

It is fairly common for businesses to have staff working across many different locations across the country or even the world. Engaged in various activities like door-to-door sales, delivery and installations, service maintenance, conducting inspections & investigations or even data collection.

Managing and co-ordinating tasks, scheduling activities, planning and monitoring activities and communicating can often be challenging.

Mobile Workforce Management is the automation of the entire end-to-end workflow management and operations of any field service workers.

Mobile Workforce Management Synonyms

Mobile Workforce Management is also known as

Field Service Management
Job Scheduling Software
Job Management Software

Advantages of Mobile Workforce Management

It is increasingly clear that there needs to be a certain sense of discipline and streamlining of field operations and important to automate certain tasks within field sales and operations, primarily because it helps you to track your assets remotely and ensuring contact with your workforce when required. Enabling your team to get in touch when required.

Most importantly, engineers, sales representatives and customer care executives can easily send information, scan receipts, Invoice customers and retrieve other crucial information in a standardized and streamlined manner. Assisting in regulating your business and also bringing some order to what is usually a very chaotic mode of working.

Why choose Mobile Workforce Management

Work Force Management tools help you to stay in control. They assist in automating what can and should be automated leaving only the crucial human-human interactivity. Helping you to keep a record of all interactions and important data within a database, without you having to manually go through sales receipts, complaint slips and other such details.

A Field Force Management tool is a time-saver and efficiency tool for companies. Moreover, these tools help to automate several aspects of your day to day operations, leading to an increase in productivity and motivation.

Streamlining operations, will also ensure that important stakeholders are well informed and management visibility is enhanced. Helping your business to make smarter decisions and help serve your customers better.

Field Force Management is similar to an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) solution but is vastly different. It is specifically targeted at staff that work on the field and is intended to make their and your work more streamlined, transparent and easy to track.

Cloud based solutions help you automate

Field Force Management is usually cloud based which means all data is stored and accessible on secure cloud servers. There is no question of losing important data or not being able to retrieve something important. If something goes missing, there will usually be a backup available. Field force management tools include the software, the hardware and also the kind of training that is required for users to use it efficiently.

The software usually helps in saving and processing information while the hardware helps employees to enter important data into devices while they are on the job. Sometimes, field force solutions can also be a mobile app which negates the need for a specific or special device.

This is very important when it comes to field jobs as carrying different devices can prove to be a cumbersome job. At the end of the day, field force solutions are meant to reduce the burden on staff and not actually inadvertently increase it.

Denizon?s FieldElite Mobile Workforce management application provides significant improvements in efficiency and service with a switch to digital working and the elimination of paperwork.

All the information that is stored on the cloud can be run through analytics software so that you get the kind of reports that you are looking for to improve your business.

Field Force Management Process

A field force management tool helps you to remain in contact with your staff while they are at work on the field. This helps you to track your personnel in real time. Field personnel or your staff can log in and enter their attendance using a smartphone. You can assign that particular day?s task remotely using a web console or your own smartphone.

Next, they can carry out whatever duties they need to while you get all the alerts that you set to receive. This helps to increase transparency. You can choose to receive alerts on your phone or on your desktop.

Finally, staff can tag completed tasks with audio and images, instead of they having to type reports. This helps to focus more on the job than on job reporting. Last but not the least, location tags help you to ensure that the job is done at the right place. Your staff will not be able to take your generosity for granted.

All in all, a field force management tool helps you to track and control your staff without you having to be physically present with them and this is the beauty of this tool.

Summary

Field Force Management helps companies to reduce administration expense and improve productivity. This helps to automate data integration which is usually done with the help of cloud servers. Moreover, you can set invoice parameters that help you to also keep track of stocks, inventories and engage in P.O. and task management.

A number of field force management users also use it as a tool to engage in credit management. Banks and insurance companies particularly find this tool helpful as payments can be received on the job, instead of asking customers to pay online or offline. This also helps in building valuable customer relationships and enhance loyalty.

Thirdly, a field force management tool helps to increase planning efficiency. This means, you will be able to allocate tasks and optimize routing. All this helps to increase your ROI at the end of the day and get back the money you invest on field force management.

Finally, you will have more control over productivity and sales thanks to automation of data collection. You will also have more control over the execution of tasks and that will invariably make your company leaner and smarter.

How Energy Management Software Benefits Your Business

We’re in an era of price volatility in gas and electricity prices, coupled with greater scrutiny on the environmental impact of businesses in their day-to-day operations. According to the Department of Energy & Climate Change, the average SME can slash its energy bill by 18-25% simply by installing energy efficiency solutions in their facility.

Are you looking to improve energy use in your business? Prevent wastage, track consumption, identify opportunities to save on energy and reduce your carbon footprint while at it? It can be a daunting process to do it all manually. Taking those meter readings, preparing spreadsheets and combing through quotes and energy bills to validate them – this is not something you should be enduring in this day and age. Not when there are dedicated systems built for the task. That’s where Energy Management Software (EMS) comes in.

Importance Of Energy Management Software

Wasted energy = Wasted money

Failing to improve energy efficiency is costing SMEs loads of funds, with it coming to between £5,801 and £12,109 of missed annual savings for individual businesses. These are 18% – 24% of their energy costs. Where do you stand?

Take timers and thermostats for instance. When not properly set and controlled, or even simply forgetting to turn them down when not in the room, it can easily lead to unnecessary costs. How often do your staff forget to turn off the air conditioning when they leave the meeting rooms? Do you account for weekends or bank holidays when setting the controls of the AC? Mistakes like turning the temperature high on the thermostat to “quickly warm the room” are common, yet heating costs go up by about 8% with every 1°C rise.

There are installations that you can make to minimize wastage. For example, the Chinese Contemporary Arts Centre in Manchester is able to save £4,363 annually just by having a £100 timer installed to its heating system.

Some energy saving measures won’t even cost you a penny. For instance, did you know that you can save up to 30% of your heating costs simply by preventing cold air from entering the building? This means not keeping the doors just open for convenience. So how can you find points of weakness and areas of improvements in your facility? Install an EMS.

While businesses vary from one industry to the next, energy management basically boils down to:

Metering systems where the consumption is recorded
Determining how much energy can be saved by identifying opportunities for this
Implementing policies and changing existing systems to take advantage of these opportunities
Tracking progress after the improvements have been made

Benefits Of EMS For Your Business

Data Acquisition – Where accuracy and reliability matters

Energy data comes from different angles and formats. From the building automation systems and IoT devices that have been set up, bills sent in by the utility company to the spreadsheets needed to analyse them – what if you had it all from one point of reference? The EMS gives you a “bird’s eye view” of all your energy data from one interface. It collects the data from any system – and being cloud-based, is accessible from anywhere in the world.

The ecoVaro data loggers can be connected with the Wi-Fi network of the facility or function independently, depending on your specific requirements. They monitor readings 24/7, retaining the data even when they have been powered off. The end-to-end encryption assures you of the security of the information that is being obtained.

Integrating the EMS into the existing systems will simplify the data collection process, and even for the cases where there isn’t a direct method transferring the data into the system, the setup wizards that come with the EMS allow you to prepare the required data and import it.

Data Analysis: From consumption, energy leaks to areas of improvement

The first step is accurately collecting the data. The next step is making sense of it. The analysis modules with the EMS allow you to monitor the energy consumption of the facility in real-time.

The energy data is displayed in engaging graphics that are easy to understand at a glance. The dashboard setup, with its customised layout, enables you to monitor the performance of the specific information you want, toggling through usage and savings data, to the meters and sites that are being tracked. With the ecoVaro Energy Management Software, you get Consumption Charts, Regression Charts, Cusum Charts and Heatmaps right to the submeter level. This information can be broken down into 15-minute durations, with the daily, weekly and monthly consumption reports.

Getting everyone on board

Making changes to company-wide energy policies needs to have the different parties on board – from the energy manager in charge of crunching the numbers and presenting the information, the CFO of the business, the staff running day-to-day operations, all through to plant operators for those in industries. An easy mode of communication is needed, that will be understood and availed in reports that can be shared with the relevant parties in the organization. The graphical displays that come with the EMS enable actionable information to be displayed in a simplified manner – that way all members of the business or organization will be able to comprehend it.

Meet your Energy Goals

The baseline that is created in the EMS is used as a standard when assessing the impact of future changes to the energy consumption. Using the information that has been obtained, the management can set up energy saving policies and implement changes, and track KPIs (key performance indicators) along the way. For instance, the market research company DJS Research installed a timer switch that turns off their two water coolers when they aren’t in use. This action saves them £144 annually, and had already paid for itself within 35 days.

You will be in a position to assess the actions that provide your business with the best ROI over time, monitoring the progress and verifying the savings from one central dashboard. Cutting costs here will enable you to divert the funds to other areas of your business, including promotions, marketing, and product development.

For businesses in the energy sector- including electric, oil and gas plants, they specifically need carbon emission reports, to pinpoint areas where the building’s energy efficiency can be improved. ecoVaro EMS allows you to set alarms and KPIs in the facility for issues to be identified and resolved immediately they crop up.

Turn to ecoVaro

EMS systems are used across the board – from optimising energy use in hotel rooms and hospitals, mapping out usage patterns for those in the agriculture and supply chain niches, running facilities for utility providers, all through to increasing the efficiency of equipment operation for business in the food and beverage sector. Want to learn how you can cut down your energy bills and make your business more eco-friendly? EcoVaro’s team is ready to get you started.

A Definitive List of the Business Benefits of Cloud Computing ? Part 4

Lowers cost of analytics

Big data and business intelligence (BI) have become the bywords in the current global economy. As consumers today browse, buy, communicate, use their gadgets, and interact on social networks, they leave in their trail a whole lot of data that can serve as a goldmine of information organisations can glean from. With such information at the disposal of or easily obtainable by businesses, you can expect that big data solutions will be at the forefront of these organisations’ efforts to create value for the customer and gain advantage over competitors.

Research firm Gartner’s latest survey of CIOs which included 2,300 respondents from 44 countries revealed that the three top priority investments for 2012 to 2015 as rated by the CIOs surveyed are Analytics and Business Intelligence, Mobile Technologies, and Cloud Computing. In addition, Gartner predicts that about $232 million in IT spending until 2016 will be driven by big data. This is a clear indication that the intelligent use of data is going to be a defining factor in most organisations.

Yet while big data offers a lot of growth opportunities for enterprises, there remains a big question on the capability of businesses to leverage on the available data. Do they have the means to deploy the required storage, computing resources, and analytical software needed to capture value from the rapidly increasing torrent of data?

Without the appropriate analytics and BI tools, raw data will remain as it is – a potential source of valuable information but always unutilised. Only when they can take the time, complexity and expense out of processing huge datasets obtained from customers, employees, consumers in general, and sensor-embedded products can businesses hope to fully harness the power of information.

So where does the cloud fit into all these?

Access to analytics and BI solutions have all too often been limited to large corporations, and within these organisations, a few business analysts and key executives. But that could quickly become a thing of the past because the cloud can now provide exactly what big data analytics requires – the ability to draw on large amounts of data and massive computing power – at a fraction of the cost and complexity these resources once entailed.

At their end, cloud service providers already deal with the storage, hardware, software, networking and security requirements needed for BI, with the resources available on an on-demand, pay-as-you-go approach. In doing so, they make analytics and access to relevant information simplified, and therefore more ubiquitous in the long run.

As the amount of data continues to grow exponentially on a daily basis, sophisticated analytics will be a priority IT technology across all industries, with organisations scrambling to find impactful insights from big data. Cloud-based services ensure that both small and large companies can benefit from the significantly reduced costs of BI solutions as well as the quick delivery of information, allowing for precise and insightful analytics as close to real time as possible.

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