Choosing to go with Nokia Lumia is one of the best decisions that any business can make.
Whether it’s because of the complete Microsoft Office integration, the security features or the support provided by Nokia Expert Centre, Nokia Lumia devices are the best business smartphones you can get your hands on.
As well as the inherent features found within the Windows Phone 8 operating system, there is also a thriving app ecosystem, plenty of which are designed to make your working lives a little easier.
Here are five apps for your Nokia Lumia smartphone that can help you to work smarter too.
CamCard (£2.99)
If you attend a lot of conferences or meet a lot of clients, then you’ll know how quickly and easily a huge collection of business cards can be amassed.
CamCard solves the problem of storing and filing your business cards. Using your Lumia’s camera, this app will automatically retrieve the relevant contact information (which you can also edit) from a business card.
The contact information is stored in the app and it can also be exported to your People Hub. The Card Holder feature, where you can see what the original business card looks like, is a nice touch.
My Expenses (free)
Filing for your expenses is a necessary evil of the modern workplace. It’s time-consuming and feels like a chore but you need to do it though or you’ll find yourself out of pocket!
The key to expenses is being organised and this app can really help you to stay on top of things. You can create different accounts, such as work expenses or personal expenses, and then create an entry for each transaction.
Your HR or finance department will also appreciate that all the data can be used to generate weekly, monthly or annual reports in Excel!
Meeting Planner (£0.79)
Most office workers will recognise that world-weary feeling when all you seem to do is go from one meeting to another. Sometimes it can seem as if every other email in your inbox is a meeting invite!
At least this app helps to take some of the pain away. Going through your whole calendar to find a spare hour can be an arduous task but Meeting Planner does this for you to find the next few potential meeting slots.
There’s also a Live Tile, so you can get this information at a glance. The next time a colleague asks, ‘when are you free for the meeting?’ Look at the Meeting Planner Live Tile.
Conference Caller (free)
I’ve looked in some detail before about making conference calls on your Nokia Lumia device and this is the best app that I came across for the workplace environment.
It identifies the conference calls that you have scheduled in your calendar and automatically picks out the crucial information such as the Meeting ID, PIN number and, of course, the phone number.
All you need to do after that is join the call with a single tap of the phone icon! If you have a recurring conference call, or an especially important one, you can also pin it to your Start screen.
Power Project (£0.79p)
In our own little ways, we are all project managers. This app lets you create a project and assign various tasks to that project. You’ll also be asked to estimate how long it will take you to complete each task.
Once you’ve set up the project, this app will help to make sure that you are meeting your deadlines and that everything is on schedule.
You can create multiple projects at once, they can each be pinned to your Start screen as Live Tiles and you can also export your projects to SkyDrive.
Power Project doesn’t actually do the work for you, but it’s a great spur to make sure that the job gets done. After all, being organised and having a plan is half the battle.
Lumia for Business
Don’t forget, of course, Nokia’s HERE location apps, all of which are essential for the modern business professional: HERE Maps, HERE Drive(+),HERE Transit and HERE City Lens.
More and more companies are now switching to Nokia Lumia. London’s leading estate agents, Foxtons, recently chose the Lumia 820 as their business smartphone and in this video you can see why they love it so much.
Follow Nokia@Work on Twitter for more mobile work inspiration.