A recent survey carried out by 1st Touch and Ryzex highlights the key mobile device trends in housing and local government, covering rates for mobile working adoption, the need for at least semi-rugged devices, choosing air-time providers and replacement cycles for damaged devices.
67 per cent of the survey respondents, spanning UK social housing and local government, had implemented some form of rugged or semi-rugged mobile technology, although the majority of them still needed to use at least two different devices. Many respondents reported that the devices they originally chose were simply not tough enough for the job; semi-rugged or rugged devices have now overcome perceived problems such as poor battery life and cracked screens, mitigating the problems arising from devices dropped or damaged in the field.
Almost half of the respondents (42%) had chosen devices from their existing mobile network provider but found that the devices were often unsuitable for the working environment. Not surprisingly, the majority of respondents have needed to replace failed, broken or discontinued devices at least every six months.
The survey found that 100 per cent of second-generation mobile users would consider upgrading to more rugged devices to maximise productivity and uptime and every respondent would like to upgrade their existing mobile assets to semi-rugged or rugged devices.
Cherry Rance, marketing director, 1st Touch, said, “Our survey shows that pairing the right device with the right applications can bring significant efficiencies and productivity increases. Simply put, the right rugged device and the right mobile workforce solution can completely revolutionise communication with back office systems as well as with customers. Choosing the wrong device or the wrong mobile solution leads to significant downtime and highly-questionable returns on investment.”
