iPhone in Business

Integral to Burton’s business operations is iPhone. “The first day I turned the iPhone on, it changed our business model,” he says. “It was so powerful in terms of data, email, and connectivity. It was virtually a laptop.”

Staying connected, keeping informed

In a company that has to respond to crisis at a moment’s notice, connectivity is crucial. “With iPhone in my hand, I’m connected to everything,” Burton explains. “Safari means that I have instant access to the USGS for earthquake data, NOAA for historical weather data, the CDC and WHO for updates on disease outbreaks, and CIA fact sheets for every country in the world. I have everything I need to know to do my job.”

In fact, Burton recently impressed a major corporate client by showing up in Peoria, Illinois with what he calls “total situational awareness.” On the flight in, he used iPhone to read PDF briefs he’d assembled that tapped into social networks, local blogs, and local news feeds about Peoria. “The guy said to me, ‘You know more about my town than I do.’”

Also important for BAM is the ability to stay in touch, and nimble, while on the road. Burton alone logged 176,000 miles in the air last year, and he found iPhone indispensable. “On a plane, I can have my music, my books, my email,” he says. “On the ground, I can use the Voxie app for transcription, pull anything I need down off the web, post items on our internal Wiki, and stay on top of my email and phone, so I don’t have 100 messages waiting for me on Monday.”

Safe, secure, and smart for business

In his line of work, Burton’s top priority is security. And with iPhone, he sleeps soundly at night. “We have full control over our technology,” he says. “If an iPhone disappears, we can wipe it remotely, from anywhere.”

“With iPhone, I’m connected to everything.”

Back at BAM headquarters, Burton runs his office on iPhone instead of land lines, which is good disaster planning. “If this building burns to the ground, all my agents need are their laptops and iPhones,” he says. “We’d have zero interruption in our technology flow.”

There’s another benefit to running on iPhone—cost savings. “You can dump the costly land-line system,” Burton says. And because iPhone is so reliable and easy to deploy, Burton saves money on IT resources, too. “I don’t need an IT department,” he says. Instead, he has young employees who are early adopters of technology. “So I don’t have to wait for a consultant to show up at my door, or hire a Chief Technology Officer for a couple of hundred thousand dollars a year.”

Putting the apps to work

Among Burton’s favourite iPhone apps is Salesforce, whose dashboard gives him instant access to the big-picture numbers for his company. He also uses Salesforce to keep tabs on his clients. “We’re in negotiations with a large cell phone carrier,” he says. “And their stock price went up $6 yesterday. So I tap into Salesforce on iPhone and update my notes on this client, which immediately informs the sales agent in the field that there won’t be a budget issue.”

Burton also takes advantage of the 3.5-inch display on iPhone to share media with his clients. He shows them YouTube videos of his keynote speeches and PDFs and product specs on the BAM website. He also Twitters from iPhone. “Those Twitter relationships turn into conversations,” he says. “Which turn into leads, which turn into sales.”

Dan Loschiavo, Executive Director at BAM, calls this “digital intimacy.” “With Twitter on the iPhone, I can stay in touch with the disaster recovery community—in real time, as opposed to waiting for a phone call or an email.” When Loschiavo is away from the office, he keeps up with breaking news and maintains BAM’s blog with iPhone. “So if I see a new outbreak of H1N1, for instance, it’s two clicks and then post. It’s instant.”

The same can be said of the impact of iPhone on Burton’s business. “Within the first three minutes of using iPhone,” Burton says, “it exceeded my expectations. iPhone has given us empowerment, connectivity, transparency, and new capabilities. Who doesn’t want that for their business?”

See how Burton Asset Management uses the Mac in their business. Learn more