Last updated April 12, 2019
If your business travels a lot then it’s important to look at this as a big overhead and an area where you will be losing a lot of time and money. When your staff are driving they are of course using money in terms of the fuel and the condition of the car, and at the same time they aren’t really earning you any money or contributing to your productivity at all because they’re away from the office and unable to access their computers.
As such then, you need to think about all the ways that you can reduce the amount of time they spend travelling while increasing their productivity in that time. Fortunately there’s a lot of technology out there these days to help them do that, and these are important investments for savvy companies. Read on to see how the right apps and gadgets can help your company to save money and be more efficient when on the road…
GPS
Of course the most obvious piece of technology when it comes to helping you get around more efficiently is GPS. Using satellite navigation you can ensure that your staff never get lost, that they always take the most efficient and direct route to their destinations, and that they know where the traffic jams are and the nearest fuel stations. The more you spend on your GPS, the more different options you will have in terms of tailoring your journey – which makes this a good place to really invest. It should save you in the long run.
Find My Car
When your staff are out of the office on business, your aim should be to get them back at their desks as quickly as possible. If they are spending a lot of time searching around for their parked vehicle then, this is something you need to address. Find My Car is one of many apps that will allow them to assign a GPS location to their vehicle and then track it down again after the meeting saving that lost time.
Slate Computers
Slate hybrid computers are computers that run full Windows 8 but which take the form of a tablet and a laptop. When you’re at a desk you can attach a keyboard, but then when you want to work more casually or show something to a client you can hold the screen on its own and pass it around. These are ideal for working on the go then as they are smaller and lighter than even most ultrabooks and can be useful once you get to your destination as well as being productive tools for the passengers on the way there. Just make sure that you get a slate computer with a good battery life and enough power to handle all your usual productivity tools.
Tethering/Dongles
If you want your staff to be able to use a tablet or ultrabook for productivity on the move, then they are going to need access to the web to get the most from that. There are several ways you can provide your workers with that access, but two of the most popular are to use tethering or to use a dongle which you can add data to as needed.
Cloud Storage
Want your staff to be able to be able to work away from the office? Then what they will need is some kind of cloud storage so that they can easily access all the files that they have stored in the office, see any up-to-date changes, and make changes that will be automatically shared with the office. There are a number of options here for cloud storage including Dropbox, Skydrive and Google Drive – all of which will work on both a laptop and a smartphone.
Hands-Free
One of the most useful devices you can give a driver is a hands-free Bluetooth headset. This will allow them to answer calls from the office and even to make calls if their device has voice recognition. As a lot of work involves correspondence these days, this is a great way to get a lot more out of your staff and to help them really excel.
The author of this post, Jenny, is a freelance blogger who works for Parts Engine, a company that offers quality truck bed liners.