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Mobile Corporate Theft, It’s Bigger than you Think

The emergence of mobile devices in today’s business culture has not only met the demands for more efficiency and productivity in the work place but has brought with it new areas of misuse of corporate funds.  Because mobile technology and smartphones have become increasingly central in business environments, this new category of mobile assets and data corporate theft has the potential to cause a tremendous negative financial impact.

Because mobile devices are the source of not only communication, but lends itself to overall productivity the wider accessibility to distracting applications can result in theft of not only company time, but wages and mobile data. MobilSense has witnessed a diverse number of company theft situations and have identified three categories to watch out for: intentional, semi-intentional and unintentional.  While we have found most users of company provided mobile devices to be responsible corporate citizens, the challenge is to find those who fall under these three categories and guide the behavior before it gets out of hand.

Forward thinking companies have not only clarified their expectations of acceptable business and non-business usage by adopting clear and concise mobile policies, but they have also implemented methods that inspect compliance to the policies they have established.  In the end, when mobile assets or mobile data are misused or stolen, both time and productivity suffer which ultimately equates to corporate dollars lost.

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Double Liability

The emergence of smartphones, coupled with the surge of mobile applications has conditioned employees to frequently check social media, online news sources and, when bored, stream video and play easily accessible mobile games. While multi-tasking is commonly considered a desirable attribute, when that skill is being used to intermingle personal and business activities on company time it costs companies twice in lost productivity and unneeded data charges.

The Double Liability

When an employee is using work time to consume mobile data by using or viewing mobile apps, not only is productive time lost but mobile data costs escalate. Though the average cost of mobile data has declined in recent years, with increased usage the total cost of  data has dramatically increased. Funding unproductive time with unneeded mobile data has become a double liability for companies.

Cell Phones are the Top Distraction

A recent study by CareerBuilder found 52% of over 2,000 respondents cited cell phones as the most common distraction to business activity. The estimated amount of time wasted during the day depended on several factors: the industry in which they worked, the employee’s role in the organization and even the level of their education.

Data Analytics as a Deterrent

If you aren’t using data analytics on your carrier invoices to identify employee productivity time, you should be. Understanding patterns can lead to appropriate intervention and dramatically reduce the effects of distracted employees.

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Why Weekend Wireless Data is a Problem for Companies

A recent corporate-liable device study shows 45% of all employee data usage occurs during off-peak hours.

Why Off-peak Usage is a Problem

Unlike the days of free night and weekend minutes, your company pays for every data MB used by your employees whether it’s during peak or off-peak periods. The problem is compounded by data pooling which helps mask individual data consumption making it difficult to identify the impacts of high data users as well as assess ratios of peak and off-peak usage. In the absence of targeted analytics and reporting, all of this critical information is submersed under data pools where administrators and company executives lose visibility.

Cost Controls Used by Expense-minded Companies

Companies who use the following usage cost controls typically see reductions of 25% or more on their wireless invoices over other companies who don’t:

1) A defined company mobile usage policy signed by each employee before issuance of a mobile device

2) Financial penalties for high data users brings immediate attention to usage issues. By applying proportionate charges based on the number of MBs used per device, visibility over individual usage is surfaced.

3) Thorough business analytics reveals trending, top user identification. Significant usage variances provide upper management a means for tracking cost savings initiatives.

4) Simple, intuitive reporting and alerts for line managers places actionable intelligence at the level of management most capable of influencing behavioral changes.

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