<div>A CEO related this story to me last week: <br />A few years ago, most of my meetings started late, Invariably someone forgot to check their email the previous night. Now its different- my assistant sends them a what’s app reminder message 10 mins before the meeting. Majority of the meeting begins on time.”<br /> </div><div>This behaviour underlines a three profound trends that’s changing the workplace <br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0);"><strong>Messaging As The Killer App </strong></span><strong><br /></strong></div><div>In a world where everything is instant--noodles to news, energy to equity, asynchronous messaging has emerged as the true killer app on mobile; not even phone calls come close. Messaging is low friction, non-intrusive, works at your own pace, and is perfect for multi-tasking. It’s not just the teens anymore that are texting. Whether itsyour latest sales forecast or a status update, Lets face it, messaging is convenient.<br /><br />According to research from CTIA-The wireless association, the average text message is read within 90 seconds during the workday, whereas email responses average 90 minutes<br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0);"><strong>Your Team is a Bunch of Millennials</strong></span><br /><br />The Internet generation has entered the workplace.They think in 140 characters devour everything from the emoji (stickers) to parody Twitter accounts. In an increasingly fragmented communication landscape, the mobile phone has become the primary business device for the majority of the day. A text message is apt to get their attention instantly.<br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0);"><strong>The Rise of The Mobile Only Worker</strong></span><br /><br />IDC estimates that there will be 1.2 billion mobile-only workers worldwide in 2015, almost 37 per cent of the workforce.This is not you’re the knowledge worker who is away from his desk at times and uses his mobile as a replacement to his laptop This is the truly desk free who has been empowered by the mobile phone. <br />- The civil engineer who spend his time onsite. <br />- The flight attendant<br />- The retail salesman on the floor<br />- The warehouse assistant<br />- the insurance salesman selling policies all day travelling the city’s bylanes<br />- The fertilizer salesman who is visiting farmers all day.<br />- The doctor who is flitting between surgery and consulting room<br /><br />The mobile worker is always connected and his primary device is the smartphone!<br /><br /><br /><strong>So whats up? What’s the problem?</strong><br />Sending a message to your friend to meet for coffee is very different from updating your co-worker. “Meet me in conference room,” leads to “Why?”, and then “So we can review the new project,” which prompts, “Oh, the $5M order ?” – and suddenly, you’re in hot water, divulging sensitive information on an unsecured channel and opening the company up to risks on several fronts. Trouble brews so fast.<br /> <br />Taiwan has banned the use of messaging apps such as LINE on government computers/phones due to security reasons, Premier Jiang Yi-huah announced recently.A CIO at a financial institution recently told me he has uncovered more than 50 company groups on a consumer-messaging network, on which employees routinely post company information. <br /><br />Companies have started to look at deploying enterprise-messaging Apps. By all accounts, legacy enterprise IM has quite frankly been clunky and sub-par. They usually consist of a 10- year old desktop messenger dressed up recently with a mobile client, no one uses it. <br /><br />Startups like Avaamo have launched a new class of enterprise messaging that provides the slick “ease of use “ users crave and at the same time provides governance, control and security, enterprises care about. These new tools have been built for India’s patchy network and truly mobile first from the ground up. The evolution of the messaging- the killer app on mobile to a essential workplace communications platform has already begun!<br /><br />(<strong>The author, Ram Menon is Founder and CEO of Avaamo - a messaging app for the enterprise).<br /><br /><br /></strong></div>
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