Most of the people you see using smartphones may well spend the majority of their time playing Angry Birds, but the reality is that many smartphones are also used for work. The analyst firm Canalys estimates that around one in five Nokia smartphones sold in the last quarter of 2012 went to businesses. Selling mobiles to enterprise customers is important to Nokia, but how does it all work, and why should companies choose Nokia phones for their employees? 
We’ve been talking to David Mason, global head of Business Mobility Marketing, to find out.
There are a many reasons why businesses are opting for Nokia’s Lumia family. David explains: “With devices like the Nokia Lumia 920, your smartphone comes with the same apps out-of-the-box that you work with on your PC; Microsoft Outlook and Office including Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote. Giving you the freedom and flexibility to work when and wherever you need.”
There’s more to productivity than just providing the right tools, however; it’s important that people actually want to carry the phone they’re given. “For Nokia, it’s all about offering phones your employees will love,” says David. “It’s important, as the smartphone you use is personal; it expresses who you are, as well as being a tool for both work and your personal life.”
“The Nokia Lumia comes with robust shells and tough screens. The Nokia Lumia 920’s polycarbonate unibody is scratch proof. For the Nokia Lumia 920 and Nokia Lumia 820 there’s the option of wireless charging. Just put your phone down on a charging plate, when you get to your desk or walk in the door from work and put your keys down. That way, your phone’s always charged and you’re not running out of battery and scrambling for a charger to finish that call with your boss!
“We’re also seeing businesses use Lumia to take and share high quality photos of events and promotions, sharing immediately with their social media followers. And features such as Nokia Drive with offline maps and navigation mean you can avoid roaming costs when travelling,” adds David. “For the IT department, the security angle obviously appeals, with hardware encryption and device management and other features including secure boot which help to ensure that business data on the phone is kept safe and secure.”
The Lumia isn’t Nokia’s only range to offer something for businesses. David highlights Nokia Asha as another great alternative. “With Asha we also have a much lower price point. The Nokia Asha 302 and Nokia Asha 303 offers businesses email via Mail for Exchange. These are some of the most affordable business email phones on the market.
“We provide a range of handsets, so the company can choose what’s right for their different employees. For example, we have companies who buy Nokia Lumia 920 to replace BlackBerry devices, who are also upgrading feature phone users to full smartphone experience with the Nokia Lumia 620, a very affordable smartphone that still offers the full range of business features.”
Why businesses need Nokia
“Businesses are looking to mobilise key workers and support other employees bringing in their own smartphones,” says David. “They’re continuing to provide phones to people whose work is mobile – where never being out of reach or being able to act on information immediately is important.”
“For sales teams for example, providing them with email and calendar, pushing appointments to them, and navigation so they can get to the client are important. Having the organisation’s own business apps also available for the mobile sales teams is valuable so they’re up to date on product availability when they walk into the meeting. The apps your business builds for PCs and tablets on Windows 8 can work with tweaks on Windows Phone 8; you can reuse the same core code and use the same developer tools. These are among the reasons that Foxtons, London’s leading estate agents, chose Nokia Lumia for their agents.”
“Smartphones have become the norm in many markets and people bring their devices into work. So there’s an opportunity to mobilise and give greater flexibility to the people that you might not provide a phone for, letting them have access to your business email and other apps via their Nokia Lumia. We were delighted to hear that when KONE Australia recently allowed employees to choose their smartphone for work, more than 70 per cent opted for Nokia Lumia.”
Offering support is one way to help companies to switch to Nokia. “There are basically two angles to support,” says David. “The everyday ‘how do I get my people started on the device’, so things like basic training, what they need to get started, mobile training guides and things like that.”
“And then we offer more technical support as well with Nokia Expert Center. It’s an online service with a portal. We offer support for IT departments, so they can find out how to sort out the more technical issues they may have. Questions about what you need to do, what device management you can use, those are the elements we need to support. You can find technical documentation and get your questions answered online.”
After running through all the benefits for businesses, it all comes back to what people actually want from their company smartphones, though. “The thing that really drives the market in business smartphones is what the consumer, the employee, actually wants. It’s a very personal device. If you buy them a phone they don’t want to carry, they’re not going to use it. As Janette Smrcka, IT Director of Mall of America said, ‘We’ve got a device we’re really proud to use.'”
Would you like to see your company switch to Lumia? Let us know in the comments below.
Image credit: cadfael1979, neur0tica