Traditionally, company boards and c-suite executives create value by investing in automation, data management, customer acquisition, cost reduction and revenue growth as these activities produce efficiencies, production and, as they say, move the needle. These gains in productivity have focused on what business schools, analysts and board rooms call “knowledge workers” or “desk workers” and functional silos . . . after all, these workers were visible, there were “comfortable” controls, and accessible measurement. Any initiatives to improve outside of these tightly controlled and traditionally understood areas, were seen as “soft”.
As Red e App comes to market and initiates conversations with “Every Company USA”, we are slowly seeing a shift. Executives in Retail, Restaurant, Healthcare and Manufacturing often look at us and cock their head sideways and say, “you can do that?” Or they say, “it would be nice if we could do XYZ,” to which we reply, “Not only can we do it, but we are doing it for customers TODAY.” So, what is the shift, and what exactly are we doing?
As we espouse often, Red e App privately and securely connects senior leadership with their hourly workforce to fulfill the promises of extending efficiencies of traditional IT systems focused on HR, Training, Scheduling, Crisis and Change Management to the outer boundaries of employees in large hierarchical companies with many locations. You know the mantra, “Engage, Manage, & Measure”.
That’s all well and good, but the “Ocean Boiler” in me, continues to find myself in conversations uncovering countless ways to utilize Red e App to connect to others in so many ways. One of the biggest has been for the seasonal workforce in every industry. We see many businesses swelling from an administrative staff of 200 to more than 2000 employees at peak times. What if you could seamlessly on / off board seasonal employees, train, connect, communicate – all in real time with no infrastructure to buy, deploy or manage. For example, a civic organization with a city as my customer base, or a fair and exposition center with hundreds of events, vendors and event workers.
I met a woman the other night who stopped by our Red e App Open House. She came in late to check out our “cool collaborative” space. With zero understanding of our business, so of course I gave her our 30-second pitch. She had a thousand light bulbs go off and proceeded to tell me she worked for a global company (rhymes with Boca Rola) where she was a field coordinator that worked with retail merchandisers that needed to know what the weekly plans were for product promotion, positioning and presentation. These conversations happen all of the time for groups of people who have clamored for the type of connectivity and connection that desktop workers have and non-desktop workers do not have.
So, now that the masses have computers in their pockets (i.e., smart devices), people need to shift their traditional perspective of value and efficiency from the desk worker sitting in an office to, …well,… EVERYONE! Where does this leave us? At the very least, communication to non-desk workers is an emerging market segment that has good potential to change several industries immediately. At most, it is a massive paradigm shift with a mega market cap that can have an impact across the globe. Not only the way, companies connect employees, but the way we connect employes to systems, to devices – enabling interconnected productivity with both tight and loosely affiliated communities of workers.
We are welcoming mining companies in boom towns, associations, and volunteer organizations! Hello Nurse Smith, this is the blood pressure cuff for your patient in room 12 C – I need immediate attention. Hello small deli in San Diego, and large day care in Manhattan!
The mobile shift is in motion. We believe that as Red e App customers large and small begin to embrace this change and review the results, the data will speak for itself. Companies will need to leverage the sunk costs that exist in silo’d systems and expand their reach to unconnected workers and affiliates to drive efficiencies that did not previously exist – “pre-mobile”.
Jonathan Erwin
Founder and CEO
