How Smartphones Can Be a Valuable Asset to Your Company

Smartphones can make businesses run faster, cheaper and more profitably. How can smartphones make a difference in your company? Here are a few high-impact ways.

==> Check Email Anywhere

Sometimes, emails just need to be answered immediately. Not in a few hours when you're at your desk, but right now. Smartphones allows you to do that from anywhere.

It also allows you to shoot off quick emails from anywhere. If you're on the bus and need to send a two-sentence email to your secretary, it's all just a button away.

==> Video & International Calls

Apps like Skype allow you to do video calls and conferences for free. While you might not always have a laptop on you, if you have a smartphone with a camera on it, you can participate from anywhere.

In addition, you'll also be able to make inexpensive international calls right from your smartphone. It's quite tacky to talk into a laptop on a business call. But if you have Skype on your phone, calling India could cost you just a few cents a minute.

==> Get Up-to-Date News on the Phone

The Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, the National Public Radio (NPR) and The Economist all have highly rated apps available for download.

These apps will download the most recent or most popular stories of the day right to your smartphone. You can then read the news stories at any time, anywhere, when you have a moment to spare.

It's cumbersome to carry around a copy of the Wall Street Journal wherever you go. But if you have it on your Android anyway, you'll be able to catch up on what's going on in the world any time you have a few minutes of downtime.

==> Check Industry News with RSS Readers

Want to stay on top of the latest developments in your industry? What kind of new technologies are emerging? Who's going public and who's struggling for funding? Where are new business opportunities emerging?

You can stay up to date on all of this by having a great RSS reader right on your smartphone. The RSS reader will download all the articles from your RSS feeds onto your phone, so you can read them from anywhere.

==> Expense Tracking

Tired of tracking your expenses by hand? Why not instead track it using your smartphone?

There are dozens of different expense tracking apps to choose from. Instead of having to write your expenses in a notebook or tally up receipts at the end of the day, all you need to do is take ten seconds any time you make a purchase to punch the expense into your expense tracker.

As you can tell, smartphones can make your life a lot easier in business. It can save you time, help you stay up to date and even help you appear more professional.