To most people, mobility is a very general term describing the ability to do lot of things on their mobile. Is that true? Mostly yes – just that not many have realized the true potential of their mobile devices – be it smartphones or tablets. What’s more, with trends like BYOD catching up at lightning speed, people would not even realize when personal and professional work start getting mixed up.
Enterprise mobility is all about helping people and organizations realize the true potential of their investments, and making the mobile workforce more and more productive. A significant section of employees in organizations are on the field, either talking to prospective or current customers, or executing official duties. It is important to appreciate the time that they spend traveling and waiting across locations for logistical reasons. Empowering such valuable employees with enterprise applications on their smartphones and tablets, will help organizations drive quick decisions, avoid paperwork, ensure real time data updates as well as improve employee training and satisfaction.
With enterprise mobility, organizations, also get an opportunity to reach out to their end customers in the contemporary world via extended apps, without having to wait for them to be seated at home or in office to make decisions. This drives customer loyalty and ensures closer customer engagement, thus being a win-win solution for both the organization and the customer.
Enterprise Mobility is a way of working today and as more and more devices are being made available in the market, organizations realize that there is no option but to adopt mobility. Some of the typical challenges any organization would face when starting off with their Mobility strategy:
BYOD or not?
This is a debate which is going to continue for a few years to come, but as of now, it seems to appear as if employees will find a way to use their own device, even if you don’t want them to. This, as we have seen, is not a trend restricted to a particular age group – all generations want to use the latest devices. So, if BYOD is inevitable, it seems that a better strategy may be that an organization decides what platforms/ OS versions they would permit and create a formal policy around it; then develop the apps and services around those to ensure a good level of standardization without compromising on company policies and security concerns
Security of data
One of the topmost concerns in Enterprise Mobility, this parameter deserves maximum attention. Although data security on mobile devices is not conceptually different from other web applications accessing data from outside the organization firewalls, there are at least two complications to be considered if not more – (a) “offline” mode access to company data (b) what to do when a device is stolen/ lost/ compromised.
There are various Mobile Device Management (MDM) tools available in the market, that can be leveraged to implement security and remote device control to do things ranging from enforcing password policies to remote device wipes. Organizations need to choose what is just right for them.
Selecting the right device / platforms for the Mobility strategy
Compatibility issues between various enterprise backend and mobile platforms do bring up an ongoing confusion on which platforms to adopt for the Enterprise Mobility strategy. BlackBerry can open only specific file types, Apple does not support Flash, Windows Phone has not evolved much and Android does not feel like an enterprise platform yet. At the same time, there are some excellent features already being used by enterprises to their benefit – robust email services of BlackBerry, solid standardization of usage of the IOS platform by Apple, flexibility and availability of cheaper hardware with Android, and the ubiquitous “Microsoft” connect of Windows Phone.
The device platforms selected need to match up to the business needs of an organization, and should be selected carefully. SMBs can go for Android/Blackberry based solutions, while larger organizations may need IOS based solutions – it’s important not to use a gun to kill an ant!
Aligning investments with the dynamically changing hardware/ apps market
CIOs are facing pressure from management and employees to make their lives simpler while working within allocated budgets. The complexity and availability of a variety of platforms, and their dynamic nature of acceptance with end users, is driving the need for a long term strategy around mobility rather than tactical decisions. Considerationsaround these investments include backend servers due to increased transactions and big data availability, use of MDM tools, maintainability, scalability security etc. While the CIO needs to optimize the leverage of BYOD and existing infrastructure for these, it is important for organizations to increase agility and adaptability to new technology platforms, to allow for flexibility in approach depending on the current market scenario.
Pressure to roll out applications in a competitive scenario
In their internal battles to catch up with fast moving technology and align necessary investments, some organizations are realizing that their competition is far ahead in their mobility strategy. Customers, partners and employees realize this and there is a pressure on organizations to have their own presence on various app stores for end customer engagement, and to have their own Enterprise App stores for internal employee and field worker productivity. The Enterprise Mobility strategy must include all of these parameters and must be agile enough to adapt to changes in the future. While some applications may need to be rolled out in a tactical manner, they must align to the overall strategy in some way, so as not to lose out on the newly opened up market due to an ad-hoc approach.
Considering these challenges, it is important for organizations to draw out their own “Enterprise Mobility Strategy” and revisit it at regular intervals. An effective mobility strategy would cater to following important user segments:
End customers– The parameters for decisions on applications for end customers include ease of use, ability to engage, hassle free, flexibility of platform. Engaging end customers has a direct impact on the organization’s top line.
Employees and field workers– The topmost needs of these users include anytime, anywhere access to data and ability to collaborate. A careful strategy targeted at these users would bring about faster decision making, increased productivity and alignment to green initiatives; thus contributing to reducing cost and improving employee morale as a whole.
Executive Management – Careful consideration is needed from an executive management perspective to ensure availability of organizational dashboards in a secure manner on mobile devices; while ensuring that the enterprise mobility strategy incorporates qualities of security, flexibility, maintainability while remaining within budgets. This will help the organization be agile to market needs.
Misha Joshi heads Enterprise Mobility Solutions at Fujitsu Consulting India