Smartphones for lone workers - a smart idea?
Last week was a busy one with both IFSEC and a specialist lone worker conference at Earls Court, London happening at the same time. Connexion2 used IFSEC for the launch of its new Identicom mobile product and to showcase its new web-based tracking application.
Identicom mobile is the company's first venture into the smartphone arena and I was interested to see how customers reacted. As you will know from previous postings, our belief has always been to deliver 'fit for purpose' solutions with BS8484 not defining what fit for purpose means. It was important to us therefore that Identicom mobile (initially for Blackberry but other platforms to follow) met this philosophy as well as being easy to implement, elegant and easy to use.
Reaction to our products was excellent and most pleasing of all was the fact that the majority of customers understood when it would be appropriate for a smartphone based solution to be deployed rather than a dedicated lone worker device such as Identicom. (the answer is when the worker doesn't suffer from a specific risk of attack/abuse/man-down or has only occassional risk such as driving or walking in at-risk areas).
It surprised me also (pleasantly) how many Health & Safety and Risk Managers knew about BS8484 as the standard for lone worker solutions. This is encouraging because all understood that this provides a credible benchmark not only to ensure a supplier is capable (i.e. if they have been audited) but also because without this, there is a heavy risk that a Police response in the event of an incident couldn't be guarenteed.
If you'd like more details of Identicom mobile or our tracking capabilities then let me know.
Identicom mobile is the company's first venture into the smartphone arena and I was interested to see how customers reacted. As you will know from previous postings, our belief has always been to deliver 'fit for purpose' solutions with BS8484 not defining what fit for purpose means. It was important to us therefore that Identicom mobile (initially for Blackberry but other platforms to follow) met this philosophy as well as being easy to implement, elegant and easy to use.
Reaction to our products was excellent and most pleasing of all was the fact that the majority of customers understood when it would be appropriate for a smartphone based solution to be deployed rather than a dedicated lone worker device such as Identicom. (the answer is when the worker doesn't suffer from a specific risk of attack/abuse/man-down or has only occassional risk such as driving or walking in at-risk areas).
It surprised me also (pleasantly) how many Health & Safety and Risk Managers knew about BS8484 as the standard for lone worker solutions. This is encouraging because all understood that this provides a credible benchmark not only to ensure a supplier is capable (i.e. if they have been audited) but also because without this, there is a heavy risk that a Police response in the event of an incident couldn't be guarenteed.
If you'd like more details of Identicom mobile or our tracking capabilities then let me know.
posted by Craig Swallow at 10:17 AM
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