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The tide of business mobility continues to rise as more companies realize the productivity benefits available from an always-connected workforce, and as users realize the flexibility corporate-connected mobile devices, such as smartphones and tablets, offer them. This gravitation towards mobility represents more than a trend; it is a true transformation of business technology. This is excellent news for the wireless telecommunications industry.
It is also becoming increasingly difficult to have a discussion on business mobility without it including the “bring your own device” (BYOD) movement. Impressions of BYOD range from company to company, with some embracing it wholeheartedly, some remaining cautiously optimistic and some still approaching the topic with outright reproach. However, there is a common belief among nearly all of these organizations: BYOD in some form or another is largely inevitable.
In fact, recent research by analyst firm Ovum indicates that by 2017, there will be 443.9 million BYOD mobile connections worldwide. This number is surprisingly large taken on its own, but becomes even more impressive when it is compared to Ovum’s estimate that there will be 532.8 million corporate-liable mobile connections worldwide. Thus, in just five years from now there will be nearly as many employee-liable devices moving in and out of corporate networks as there will be corporate-liable devices.
The impetus behind the BYOD movement is twofold and presents benefits to both businesses and end users. First, by allowing employees to choose and subsequently purchase their own mobile devices for both personal and business use, companies hope to reduce capital – and perhaps even operational – expenses. Second, employees’ job satisfaction and productivity is increased.
However, BYOD is not all roses and sunshine. For all its potential benefits, BYOD also creates security and management challenges. After all, at the end of the day, BYOD involves IT relinquishing at least some control over the devices connecting to corporate networks, resources and data. As always, there is some risk when relinquishing any such control.
Nonetheless, companies realize that BYOD within their organizations is going to happen whether they promote it or not, thus many are coming to the conclusion that they can at least make it on their terms. This involves efficient enabling of employee-liable devices, establishing strong policies for their acceptable use and utilizing technology to enforce those policies and secure mobile devices against a myriad of threats, from loss or theft to malware.
When all of this is taken into account, there are many companies that simply either cannot or do not want to assume this burden. Some of these are enterprise-class organizations that are finding it more financially viable to outsource the management of their mobile infrastructure, while many others are small- to medium-sized companies who do not have the resources. After all, SMBs often already have their hands full with managing the demands of their traditional IT infrastructure and endpoints. Add mobility and BYOD to the mix and often overtaxed IT staffs become spread even thinner.
Herein lies a tremendous opportunity for wireless carriers to step into the role of managed service provider for companies such as those described here. And while some are already doing this to a degree, there is much more opportunity than first meets the eye.
Carriers are in a unique position to do this. Once they have developed a trusted network, their existing relationships with customers and the level of access they have to devices is a recipe for success. There are five pillars of business mobility carriers should seek to address on behalf of their customers. These pillars are:
–User and app access: At all times, the people, the apps and the devices that are connecting to, and accessing, business assets must be identified and validated as authorized business participants. Identity is the first and most important component to any IT strategy, especially where mobility is involved because device and cloud access is not inherently as strict.
–App and data protection: Business data must be protected at all times. This is a primary objective of any IT organization, and the reason that most IT technologies exist in the first place. Mobile apps are the primary method to access, view, store and transmit that data, so both apps and data must have controls and protection appropriate to the company and industry.
–Device management: Devices that access business assets and connect to company networks must be managed and secured according to applicable company policies and industry regulations. Every company should establish appropriate mobile policies, and those should be applied to all managed devices.
–Threat protection: With the incredible growth of mobile devices, they are rapidly becoming a key target for cyber criminals. Protecting devices and the apps and data on them is paramount to secure business data. Good threat protection should protect from external attacks, rogue apps, unsafe browsing and theft.
–Secure file sharing: Although mobile access, storage and sharing of files is not a challenge unique to mobile, the fact that a mobile device is typically one of multiple devices a user may have, the cloud is the obvious and simple solution for distributing and synchronizing information across devices. Businesses should have full administrative control over distribution and access to business documents on any network, and especially in the cloud.
As alluded to, some carriers have begun venturing down this path, but they have not gone far enough. They are not offering a holistic managed security and management experience. Carriers would do well to expand their services offerings to address all five pillars of successful business mobility. The mobile security and management market has matured to the point where effective, scalable solutions are available to help them do this.
