Turn Enterprise Mobility Challenges into Opportunities

A decade ago, using personal mobile devices at workplaces was frowned upon and employees were admonished for using them at work. Today, the corporate sector has been pushed into having to accept the fact that enterprise mobility is here to stay. Along with this acceptance however, comes an array of problems and challenges that organizations have yet to tackle in totality. A study by CompTIA notes that the time has arrived to turn these challenges into opportunities.

While it is heartening to note that over 70 percent of organizations have made some level of investment to build out mobility solutions, it’s clearly not enough. With more employees accessing corporate networks, valuable data and enterprise mobility, the issue is clearly much more than about mere procurement -management of mobile devices is a big issue.

Companies need to learn how to manage different types of devices, operating systems and applications, how to handle sensitive and critical data, sync the various devices, have security policies in place and exercise control over the way mobile devices are used. This is certainly a daunting task.

"Mobile devices get used heavily in employees' personal lives, but there are enterprise aspects such as encryption, proper security settings and enterprise apps that require further and ongoing education," said Seth Robinson, director, technology analysis, CompTIA.

The study noted that 55 percent of U.S. firms have implemented some form of bring your own device: some provide devices while allowing employees to bring their own as well. Hence, in addition to smartphones and tablets flooding the corporate sector, PCs and laptops are also in use.

"The new norm is quickly becoming one employee, three devices," Robinson said. "PCs, smartphones and tablets will all remain major components in the workplace for some time."

But with so many employees and so many devices, integration and support becomes a rather complex issue and a top challenge even for the largest firm.

According to the study, small companies don’t have the skills, infrastructure and bandwidth to tackle these issues, while medium sized firms have to balance the needs of end users and IT requirements. Not many companies have formal mobility policies in place and only eight percent appear to have performed significant workflow changes as a result of mobility. To cap it all, the skill level of employees is inadequate.

With mobile devices set to relentlessly storm the corporate world, the sooner organizations learn to manage their devices, the better for them.