Employee Productivity

As employees and their job requirements become more and more mobile, CIO's will wrestle with how to provide anytime, anywhere external access to company data and information - while keeping valuable corporate data secure.

These days, it's not about where you work- it's about working wherever you are! Today's employees are not 9 to 5 office bound workers. Instead, they are knowledge workers with an "anytime, anywhere" attitude towards their job. Their office could be a in a meeting room at a client's site; in a coffee shop or airport; or from the basement of their home.

According to an IDC report, "U.S. Mobile Worker Population Forecast and Analysis, 2002-2006", by the end of 2006, approximately two-thirds of all US workers will be mobile - in very different forms than the stereotypical traveling executive or sales person dialing in from a hotel room to check his email.

This increased emphasis on mobility has driven unprecedented demand for external access to corporate data and information that resides on corporate networks, intranets and applications.

Making the Entire Enterprise Mobile

True mobility is about providing secure information to inventory managers, executives, sales people, finance managers, MIS staff-practically anyone, no matter where they are. It's about making customer contact information, inventory data, pricing information, and other core data stemming from a variety of back-end systems, including CRM, sales force automation (SFA) applications, databases and mainframes as mobile as the person who uses it. AccessAnywhere enables the entire enterprise and their extended value chain of suppliers, partners and customers to access any critical business process or corporate application running on a UNIX/Linux, Microsoft Windows, IBM AS/400 or mainframe platform-whenever and wherever they please -all from a standard Web browser.

Sales Productivity

Most sales employees need to use local client/server applications, such as e-mail, CRM or Sales Force Automation (SFA) programs, already installed on their laptop computers. These are typically local applications that exchange data with backend host servers, while also supporting offline usage (an example is Microsoft's Outlook client and Exchange server for e-mail). These applications often reside on company-owned computers that are managed by MIS staff.

AccessAnywhere is designed to make remote access for employees as cost effective and easy to use as voicemail. Because the AccessAnywhere appliance eliminates the need to install or configure special-purpose client software, sales people can work from their client sites without concern for customer firewalls or requiring the customers MIS staff to open their network. If a company can mobilize CRM to the sales force and reduce the sales cycle because reps can get at key customer data, then you've delivered a real return and concrete ROI.

In these cases, a network-layer type access can be provided via SSL tunnelling technology in the AccessAnywhere product.

Executive Productivity

Executives no longer have to travel with laptops to stay connected. Clientless access enables executives to securely access their desktop from any convenient computer, not just their own laptop PC. Executives no longer have to lug laptop computers through airports and around the world only to find out that they cannot get access from their hotel room or client site anyways.

AccessAnywhere solves this dilemma by providing clientless, remote access to legacy applications through the incorporation of web-enabling technology directly within the platform. This integrated approach eliminates the need for enterprises to deploy and maintain server-based 'middleware' and associated remote-access clients. In this model, both the client and server portions of an application are centrally hosted in the corporate data centre. The advantage of this approach is that end users need only a browser to access these remotely located applications; no additional software or configuration of the remote computer is needed.

Office Worker Productivity

Senior managers want more productivity out of their general office workers. They want to give every knowledge worker in their organization the capability to connect to their computer resources while away from the office - and no matter where they are. Certainly part of the motivation is extra workforce output. However, enlightened executives also see this concept of enterprise wide remote access as an important step in improving work-life balance for employees and creating a healthier organization overall. It also comes with an interesting security advantage. During a terrorist attack, a virus outbreak or severe weather, an organization can remain productive through its vast network of individual "cells".

With AccessAnywhere general office workers can supplement office hours by working from their home PC and telecom connection. Without the need to install and configure special-purpose client software users can access web applications, client/server applications and enterprise file shares.

As cost effective and easy to use as voicemail

Mobile workers want to get access to the information that lies in the CRM, SFA and ERP applications and they want to do it as easily as they check their voicemails. For example, today companies provide a voicemail service and let the employee access that system from their own telephone and connection no matter where they are. Because AccessAnywhere eliminates the need to install or configure special-purpose client software companies can provide a similar in-house service for remote access and let the users provide their own PC and connection. The productivity benefits of remote access are no longer bound by the high PC acquisition costs and support and maintenance of client software.

Executives no longer have to travel with laptops to stay connected. Sales people can work from their client sites without concern for customer firewalls or requiring their customers to open up their network. Partners and suppliers can access applications from incompatible equipment and office workers that want to extend their day can access email, files and applications from their home PC in the evening. It enables your entire company and extended business community to access ANY critical business process or corporate application running on a UNIX/Linux, Microsoft Windows, IBM AS400 or mainframe platform-whenever and wherever they please-all from a standard Web browser.