In a recent study, respondents say that mobile technology enables them to optimize inventory planning and management (96 percent) and point-of-sale (96 percent), personalize the customer experience (96 percent), as well as boost employee productivity and motivation (95 percent). The majority of respondents also claimed that mobile technology makes their retail brand more competitive and drives increased revenue by streamlining the sales process (both 91 percent). Half of respondents (50 percent) report that customer satisfaction has improved significantly after deploying devices.

Mobile technology plays a great role in retail environment and will continue to do so in the future. In the same study, almost 100 percent of respondents said they plan to increase mobile technology use in the future and already are offering or planning to offer company-issued mobile devices for staff use (95 percent), point-of-sale systems (95 percent), connections between physical and online shops (93 percent) and shared devices (90 percent).

Why not take it a step further and implement mobile credentials as part of the transforming the shopping experience and boost employee productivity and motivation?

Steve Van Till, President and CEO of Brivo, says, “Now is a good time to implement mobile credentials if: 

• You are ready to explore upgrading from a legacy security system that may not support mobile credentials to a mobile-friendly cloud-based solution that can provide a 5-year total cost of ownership savings of up to 50 percent.
• You assessed your needs with stakeholders and your business wants to establish a robust BYOD program that supports mobile applications for your business and employee/tenant use.
• You want to go “mobile only” or want the flexibility of a phased migration path where you utilize mobile credentials along with access cards and fobs to provide additional user options and reduce the hassle of lost or forgotten credentials.  

The first step to implementing mobile credentials in workplaces is to, “Start by setting business goals and desired outcomes with key company stakeholders based on your company vision, use cases and identification of gaps in your physical security system,” Van Till says.  “Address the impact on visitor policies including employees, customers, and suppliers, as well as policies related to remote access.”

In addition to setting goals, says Van Till, it is important to assess the opportunity for integrating other applications as part of a BYOD program, conduct a corporate risk assessment and identify facility and environmental requires. “These steps can be done by working with an Integrator that offers a cloud-based solution that provides the infrastructure to unleash the power of mobility for both end users and administrators, supports encrypted secure communications and integrates with a range of other systems and software,” he says.

A benefit of mobile credentials is that they can also be adopted by small-to-medium businesses who cannot afford pricey solutions, need to ensure ROI and customer satisfaction. Van Till says, “Small to medium-sized businesses (SMB) can save time and money by eliminating the need for ID badging systems or replacing lost or forgotten access cards. With smartphone based credentials, there is no inventory of access cards to be stored or shipped. Installation is as simple as sending the credential to the user via email, where it can be printed as a day pass or activated on a smartphone.”

This is a huge relief for users who often forget and lose their access control cards, since they are less likely to lose or forget their phones as phones are always on hand or in our pockets. Enterprises and administrators are then able to save time if they aren’t replacing lost or forgotten access cards, helping increase productivity and lowering costs associated with rekeying and reissuing physical credentials. Enterprises further ensure their physical and cybersecurity is protected, by mitigating the likelihood of credentials being copied or cloned. Now, it’s critical to invest in your physical and cybersecurity to prevent any security and data breaches; mobile credentials is just one of the many measures available to improve the safety of sensitive customer, financial or company data.

For SMBs particularly, who may have limited on-premise staff, mobile credentials allow them to quickly deploy, provide and administrate credentials and boost their security along the way with an all-in-one technology solution.

Another benefit is that mobile credentials allow for integration with other technology, such as facial recognition. Van Till says, “Embedded smartphone biometric features available on IOS and Android platforms can now be integrated with access control systems and are easy and convenient to use. As an example, Brivo recently announced the introduction of its biometric integration that supports fingerprint, facial, and voice recognition. Using smartphone based biometrics can also reduce the need to purchase and install wall mounted biometric hardware.”

Integration with complimentary business applications not only ensures a seamless user experience, but enables the enterprise to ensure safety and security through the use of integrations of alert systems, safety notifications and other alerts.

Whenever you decide to adopt mobile credentials in your security enterprise, Van Till says, “It's important to view a mobile-based strategy as a business enabler rather than just as a technology option.”