The proliferation of smart devices and the bring-your-own-device trend have given knowledge workers more freedom than ever to work where they are most productive, inside or outside the office. A study by Juniper Research forecasts the number of personally owned smartphones used for work to reach 150 million by the end of this year. That number will more than double, they say, to 350 million by 2014. While the advantages of a world without walls are many, the emergence of this new way of working poses challenges for companies, particularly those that rely on Salesforce or another CRM to track the activities that drive revenue and ensure excellent client service.

Many companies have discovered that by unifying their corporate phone system and their CRM, they can gain valuable insight into the health of the business by looking at leading indicators such as how many calls it takes to reach a prospect, or how frequently the most valued clients are contacted. These records also help management determine which employees are meeting performance expectations and using best practices. This works great, as long as every call is made from a business phone by someone who is logged into the CRM. But, with about a third of the global workforce expected to be mobile by 2015, we know this isn’t the case. More and more business calls are made from mobile devices and the records of those calls are lost to the CRM.

This problem is insidious because it decreases the value of the information that is captured. If I know that my employees are making calls that aren’t logged, I simply can’t make business decisions based on the CRM data because I know that it’s incomplete. If you’ve invested in CRM to get a true view into all of the activities that drive the business, the “mobility gap” is no small challenge.

Fortunately, technology is catching up. The best cloud-based business phone systems now have applications that join mobile devices to the corporate phone system. This means that calls can be made from a mobile device using the business phone number and that records of those calls can be captured by the integrated CRM. Even better, salesforce.com has eliminated the need for desktop software in telephony integration, paving the way for 100% cloud-based integrations. With the right technology in place, data-driven enterprises can now be sure that they are getting an unobstructed view.

Of course, we’d love to show you how ShoreTel Sky is leading the way in embracing the mobile enterprise and the BYOD movement. If you’re going to Dreamforce, please stop by booth #301 to have a look. We’ll also have a spot in the Bluewolf booth, so pay us a visit while you are there.