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• Mobile

By Jo Best, 13 May 2005 12:20

NEWS Getting 250 of your top executives to go mobile can be a real trial - especially when their secretaries normally handle 'all that email business' and their killer app is a U2 ringtone.

Parcel logistics company TNT has just completed a rollout of 230 of Nokia's 9500 smart phones to its top tier of executives and, despite its history as a mobile company, finding the right skills to go mobile has proved taxing, according to Jim Flood, TNT director.

"We are, and have been for a long time, a mobile company," Flood said. The company has some 25,000 devices already in places, from traditional mobiles to scanning devices used by the delivery staff.

The company was charged by its CEO at the end of last year to have the 200 plus devices up and running by January of this year, with all the necessary business functionality its high level staff require, as well as the personal touch - a ringtone by the boss' favourite band, U2.

According to Flood, issues of both skills and staff had to be solved for a successful rollout.

"They're very high profile. The majority never use email - their secretary did that," he said. However, getting the managers involved with mobile has had the knock-on effect of teaching them good habits on email management.

With the 9500's storage capacity capping email limit at some 2,000 messages, the managers were forced to get used to housekeeping their messaging.

As well as introducing the execs to the concept of email, TNT also had to educate them about phones that were more than a simple phone.

"It's not just something you can pick up and use," Flood said. "We had to provide editorials and training."

TNT's early adoption of the 9500 device also presented a unique challenge, with support skills being thin on the ground due to the smart phone's novelty.

"This was new technology from an IT point of view. We were provided with pre-production [devices]. When things went wrong, who could tell us how to fix it? There was no experience out there," Flood said.

The company conquered the skills shortage by setting up tech support tasked with looking after the newly mobile workers.

"You need IT support and you need skilled people to manage it - we established a support function purely for the mobile service we were offering," Flood said.