Predicting the unpredictable

It’s that time of year when the great and the good attempt to make predictions about the year ahead. There have been some spectacularly incorrect ones over time. The automobile was just a fad and a terrible investment idea, and the changing of the date at midnight on December 31^st, 1999, might bring technology and society crashing down because of the millennium bug. 

If anything, the future seems even harder to predict than ever. The events of the past few years have shown us that the world is unpredictable. As we move towards 2023, the economic outlook looks uncertain, and it is hard to understand how geopolitical factors will impact us. So, what does that mean for businesses across Europe in 2023? I think the only logical conclusion is for business leaders to try to build in more flexibility into their organisations and their operations. 

Increased flexibility will enable organisations to react faster to the inevitable changes that we will find hard to predict but no doubt have to deal with in the year ahead. For those organisations with mobile workforces, this means building in the capability to be able to scale up or down quickly, whilst ensuring the workforce has access to the right technology to support them as they flex to meet changing requirements. 

For our major customers, it’s the reason that we have introduced TOUGHBOOK Lifecycle Solutions. It brings together all the managed services that a business needs to make the most of its rugged mobile computing investment throughout the lifetime of the devices. It also ensures that the organisation can flex quickly to meet the changing priorities of its mobile workforce. 

What does that mean in reality? Well, initially we work closely with the customer to scope their needs today and build in flexibility to adapt in the future. This is true of everything from our modular rugged devices that can be easily adapted for different tasks in the field, through to our specialist professional services team that can design and deliver total solutions, such as fully tested in-vehicle docking solutions, for mobile workforces. 

In preparation for the roll-out, we can use industry best practices to create bespoke software solutions and the master software image. We then test and ensure that there are no operating system or driver issues. Following roll-out, we then offer a range of managed services that can help organisations quickly update and adapt their technology for new challenges and minimise downtime. These range from mobile device management of the entire estate to predictive maintenance, as well as helpdesk support and fast servicing. And to ensure that organisations have the ultimate flexibility this investment can be designed as an OPEX monthly payment contract delivering just the tailored services that the individual business requires.

There will no doubt be more mobile technological advances in 2023. 5G will continue to become more pervasive and as a result application capabilities will continue to develop. We will also see the further integration of mobile computing solutions with in-vehicle information systems, as they continue to take advantage of more powerful systems and larger screens. But the one thing that I am certain about is that it will continue to be difficult to predict the unpredictable and for business leaders flexibility will be the watchword of 2023.

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