The Importance of Centralized Secure Charging Stations

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The Importance of Centralized, Secure Charging Stations in Businesses

August 21, 2018

Centralized Secure Charging Stations

The ability to transport mobile devices anywhere has huge advantages for the modern workplace, including increased productivity and efficiency. Portability is quite possibly the strongest feature of a mobile device; however, it can also be its weakest. Schools and businesses have to prepare for the worst as lost, stolen or broken devices can be a bigger problem than people think – yet 73% of organizations are failing to leverage secure device charging stations.¹ With so many expensive company-owned or school-owned tablets, laptops and phones floating around, this investment needs to be protected, digitally and physically. And in order for companies to meet the goals of a mobile device deployment, devices also need to be ready to use at all times.

Protect Data

If you lost your device, how much would it cost to replace it? The cost of the hardware, or more? It’s not just your hardware you are losing. Compromising or losing valuable intellectual property and confidential data can cause a severe business disruption resulting in penalties, reputation damage and wasted employee time. Would you be surprised to hear that the average cost of a data breach to a company in 2016 was over £3million?²

According to research from EE, employees lose more than 10 million devices with data on them every year.³ Some of the most common places to forget devices include the toilet, taxis and public transport, meaning it is very hard to know who might have found your sensitive data and what they might do with it. Companies are therefore realizing the critical need to protect company and consumer data.

Think of all of the valuable data you store on your laptop, tablet and phone – and then think of how many stories you hear in the news about security threats and data breaches. The fact is, 41% of data breaches are caused by lost or stolen devices⁴, and therefore it is important to have the resources in place to protect yourself by securing your devices with both digital security and also physical security when not in use. Sadly, for businesses and schools, it is often a case of ‘what happens to them won’t happen to us’ until it is too late. Laws now hold individuals personally and fiscally liable in the event of information disclosure, and lost devices can cost your business thousands of dollars in crippling fines. The implications of information falling into the wrong hands can be potentially devastating.

Decrease Costs

According to a recent article in Education Executive Magazine, more than £5,000 worth of iPad minis have been stolen from Edinburgh city high schools in the past two years.⁵Companies and schools spend a huge amount on mobile devices each year. As careful as individuals are with their hardware, 10% of mobile devices will inevitably go missing or get broken during each year of a mobile device deployment⁶. If we look at this conservatively – let’s say a deployment of 100 devices at £250 per device – with 10% breakage and loss, a school or company would lose £2,500 per year just on replacing devices alone. According to Panasonic, the most common cause of tablet failures is battery problems (27%), touchscreen issues (16%) and screen breakages or button failure (10%)⁷. A centralised point of secure charging helps companies and schools provide a repository for devices, in turn, helping to reduce device breakage, theft, loss, and things like screen breakages. The critical oversight of not protecting your mobile devices when not in use can create painful hassles for employees and administrators alike. By using a secure device charging station, you can minimize per-employee device costs.

Converting More Sales

Businesses often deploy mobile devices with the goal of converting more sales, but this can only happen when the device is charged, accessible and ready to use at all times. Your business could be missing opportunities if waste time employees (often unintentionally) while looking for devices when because are stored haphazardly throughout an organization. Once they successfully locate a device, it could very well be that the device isn’t charged and ready to use. Using a secure, centralized charging station with a streamlined approach to workflow is key here – otherwise you are relying on individuals to successfully manage shared-use devices.

Improve Communication

Many mobile device initiatives begin with the goal of improving communication. This can be across a business or between staff and their customers. Many businesses are focused on developing a solution that gives employees access to a single platform for communication–but in order to be successful, communication needs to be timely, and needs to keep everyone up to date with processes, news and important information. Devices that are not updated with current or accurate information can stop communication dead in its tracks. And, uncharged or missing devices can lead to slower employee adoption of these processes or missed information.

Increase Efficiency

If portable devices increase productivity, then it’s clear that misplaced or uncharged devices lead to lost productivity. Panasonic report that the tablet is most commonly used for work-related tasks when employees are travelling (73%). However, 64% use it when they work outside of their regular hours and 49% use it to work when on holiday. 53% of respondents said that they use the tablet to work outdoors, with 45% using it inside or at their desk and similarly, 45% when on client or customer premises.⁷

Think of it this way–powered devices empower employees to process business transactions more efficiently and reduce cumbersome manual or paper processes. Mobile devices can shave hours off regular tasks, through apps for online programs, easy access to data on the go and cloud solutions replacing traditional filing. With shared, company-owned devices switching hands several times throughout a day, a centralised point of charging is not only more efficient, it is necessary.

Increase Customer Satisfaction

Businesses can never stop improving their customer service. Organizations undertake mobile device deployments to impress customers by faster or more convenient transaction processing, by more accurately inputting data into their system and by more thoroughly collecting helpful customer insights. In today’s fast-paced world, customers now expect instant replies to their customer service questions or issues. Providing devices that make it easy for staff to contact customers is one thing, but you also need to ensure customers have easy access to communicate with your staff as well. Mobile devices and on-demand charging can offer customers an improved experience, but this is only possible if the device is charged and ready to go.

Ultimately, LocknCharge products help businesses create a secure, efficient and streamlined workflow through centralized, secure charging all via a device charging station. We help simplify device management because you always know where to find a fully-charged, fully-updated device. And if anything goes wrong, we provide customer support that goes above and beyond.

Sources:

80% Reduction in Managing Student Devices | LocknCharge