Enterprise mobility strategy – first steps to finishing line !
In the blurring lines between official & personal, between multiple devices for consuming data/apps, a challenging opportunity presents itself – “Enterprise Mobility strategy”. In the changing times, enterprises are not behind to embrace new ways of doing work like BYOD, anywhere access etc. However most of the enterprises are in the initial stages of defining a proper strategy on ‘how to handle mobility’.
Firstly, what is mobility strategy?
Is it the ability to let users have access to any applications from anywhere? Is it managing devices that connects to corporate environment? Is it about keeping security to the core? Is it about giving seamless self-service experience to end users? Is it mobile application management too?
Indeed, it’s all of the above and could be much more. Strategies are very context sensitive to enterprises so what might be a great mobility strategy for one, might not fill the gap in other enterprise.
Disruptive innovation is the need of the hour & navigating through with a clear strategy would be a key differentiators in Enterprises. One way of looking at the Mobility strategy could be –
How & what IT will manage the user owned devices?
In the hurry to manage, enterprises must not overlook privacy. Drawing clear lines between personal & corporate is essential to take into consideration.
Categories data & application access in terms High impact, medium impact, low impact brackets so that corporate remote access strategy could be defined well.
Define reasonable security checkpoints (like multi-factor authentication, application gateways etc ) to ensure vulnerable/ hacking connection could never get into corporate environment
Chose a management solution that could cater to variety of devices, from various phones to phablets to tablets.
Apart from a technical strategy, one other aspect requires equal attention i.e Process modifications when needed. More often than not, enterprises bring new technologies but without modifying the existing processes. This one is really important for the new “mobility” scenarios. While it’s important to not deviate from core policies, at the same time it’s important to relook at processes & policies that might had been put up years ago.
Last but not the least, enabling people within an Enterprise to understand the importance of data security. Make tools & techniques available to users & educate them to take right decisions when dealing with corporate data.