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Keeping Up With Modern Enterprise Mobility By Brian Albright Mobility projects have increased in scope and complexity, and they require a more grass-‐roots approach than previous technology initiatives.
Enterprise mobility solutions have evolved rapidly over the past several years. The number and type of mobile devices have exploded, there are more operating system platforms available, lines are blurring between consumer and rugged devices, and many companies have even adopted BYOD programs for employee-‐owned hardware. There are new security concerns and solutions, along with cloud-‐based applications and new mobile device management options. Many enterprise mobility strategies, however, were originally developed around older technology paradigms. In some cases, companies may never have fully developed a mobility strategy at all. A guiding plan for a company’s approach to mobile deployments is important to ensure the systems are secure, reliable, and manageable. Given the complexity of the current mobility market, Field Technologies surveyed a number of leading solution vendors to find best practices for developing a modern enterprise mobility strategy. “Every department has a hand in mobile and expects IT to deliver on and support these demands at an accelerating pace,” says Marco Nielsen, VP of managed mobility services at Stratix. “IT organizations face new complexities with expanding heterogeneous technology populations, multi-‐OS environments, new IT security and management processes, along with how to deliver an always-‐on, always-‐available experience. In order for companies to stay ahead of the curve, they need to invite the business operations into the mobile strategy.” A significant new wrinkle in enterprise mobility is the extension of these solutions to employee-‐owned devices, as well as to mobile devices used by contract service providers, partners, or even customers. Using mobile device management (MDM) solutions is not as straightforward a solution as in completely corporate-‐owned, homogenous environments. “Since MDM solutions require devices to be first enrolled and managed, it’s not suited for extended mobile users such as contractors, dealers, suppliers, agencies, etc.,” says Brian Day, CEO of Apperian. “Even BYOD users are beginning to reject MDM from being installed on their phones just to get access to their corporate email, not wanting to give up personal privacy to employers.” Another challenge is the rise of employee-‐initiated, sometimes unofficial, mobile deployments. IT departments have found it difficult to keep up with the long list of mobility projects, both internal and customer-‐facing.
“Even if the project is completed, IT departments often find it challenging to devote the proper resources needed to manage users, make changes, and deploy updates,” says James Quigley, CEO and cofounder of Canvas. “An organization might have to start from scratch every six months to keep up with ever-‐evolving needs, platforms, and mobile devices.” That has led to so-‐called “shadow IT” technology solutions that the IT department may not even be aware of. Employees can use cloudbased software and services to create their own mobile solutions without any coding, which can be both a blessing and a curse for IT. “One could argue that shadow IT must be front and center in an enterprise’s mobile strategy today in order to transform it from a potential negative that the IT department struggles to retain control of, to a positive that empowers non-‐IT specialists to accelerate innovation and efficiency within organizations,” Quigley says. Mobile Strategy Must-‐Haves Unlike other initiatives, mobility is much easier to understand for employees affected by the deployment. In many cases, end users have as much or more knowledge about the technology and applications than their internal support teams. These solutions may also encompass nonemployees such as suppliers, contractors, or even customers. End users have a larger role to play in the mobility strategy than ever before. “Even BYOD users are beginning to reject MDM from being installed on their phones.” Brian Day, Apperian “Because everyone has an interest in mobile technology, mobile is actually forcing companies to become more aware of their operations, processes, and, more importantly, their customers,” Nielsen says. “A modern mobile enterprise will have cross-‐functional teams driving mobile innovation — with customers at the core of everything they do. Providing a flexible framework to continue to adapt, adopt, and change will give companies the freedom to grow and transform their business.” Mobility is no longer a fringe IT strategy; it’s core to the entire business and must include line-‐of-‐business leadership. “Mobile apps need to be designed with a perfect user experience, similar to consumer apps, and have an adoption strategy,” Day says. “Users need to understand the need for the apps, where to find them, how to install them and get updates.” Modern mobility must also be ROI-‐focused. “Mobility projects can increase efficiency, reduce costs, improve employee engagement, and drive powerful customer experiences,” Quigley says. “With all this opportunity and the growing variety of tools and software, organizations must remain focused on ROI-‐ centric initiatives.” The mobility strategy should be scalable, cross-‐platform, and be adaptable enough so that the technology can grow with the organization. It’s important to empower staff outside of IT to be able to build applications, improve processes, and take accountability for their own mobile solutions. “The pace of technology and business change is unrelenting, and enterprises cannot afford to etch a strategy in stone and then revisit it years later,” Quigley says. “In some cases, projects and technology that were relevant a few months ago may be rendered obsolete by faster, cheaper, more efficient, or more customizable technologies. And as this has occurred, competitors can move even faster than before. Organizations must have flexible strategies around mobile and must constantly be disrupting themselves in order to avoid being disrupted by a competitor or other technology or market forces.” Security is a key consideration and should be addressed early in the development of a mobility strategy. That includes app-‐level security as well as device security. Any solution should be evaluated based on app-‐ level coding, third-‐party modules, log-‐in processes, data encryption, data transfer methods, and potential defenses against hacks. “Relying on device-‐level security, such as requiring device PINs or having the ability to remotely wipe a device, only helps if the device is lost or stolen,” Day says. “It does not provide features that offer real-‐ time protection of apps and data. These features are even more important for organizations employing extended workers. Getting apps to 100 percent of the target audience is a key piece of today’s strategy.
The need for a system to provision and deprovision apps is extremely integral, as full MDM device control is not able to be implemented in these settings.” These concepts are not necessarily new. What is new is that companies are looking for more “killer apps” that will create business impacts (as opposed to simply mobilizing existing paperwork) and developing a strategy of building multiple apps and finding ways to securely deliver them. “The rapid innovation around mobile technology changes like the tide,” says Nielsen. “Whereas previous technology waves could be left alone until the next CPU leapfrog in Moore’s Law could be justified, modern strategy cannot be fixed. Changes are no longer driven by enterprise IT; the actual use cases are now being brought from the outside in. Stakeholders have expanded from internal resources to the point where activity, service, and care are taking place. Access to on-‐demand data, location, and real-‐time alerts are the use cases companies need in order to remain competitive.” Partners Provide Latest Mobile Expertise According to the vendors interviewed, stumbling blocks in mobility projects often arise around incompatibility with MDM solutions or deploying cloud-‐based solutions that are unable to communicate with other business systems. Companies may bite off more than they can chew if they try to build their own work process applications from scratch. “This is usually not the best use of IT,” Quigley says. “Plus the time, costs, and resources needed to build, deploy, and maintain their own apps end up being much higher than organizations anticipate. These companies end up with something that is not updated regularly and thus is frustrating to employees, not compatible with newer mobile platforms and devices, not featurerich, not secure, and not driving the ROI that it could be.” Companies sometimes try to do it all themselves in order to maintain control of the mobile environment, but are quickly swamped by the unexpected complexities. “Mobile solutions change often, so just managing the hardware, OS, MDM, and application upgrades becomes a full-‐time job,” says Nielsen. “Before they know it, the IT expert they just hired to support the mobile environment has left for another job. Companies need to decide whether they want to be in the mobile support business or the business of driving new growth opportunities.” According to Day, companies should also separate their mobile strategies into requirements for hardware and software. “Don’t let a solution for one dictate the strategy for the other,” Day says. “An MDM solution is superb at managing corporate-‐ issued mobile devices, while a modern mobile app management solution that is not built with a legacy MDM framework will provide the most flexible and scalable way to secure, deploy, and monitor mobile apps for all users. This can be done regardless of whether or not their devices are enrolled in MDM, allowing for a ‘system of record’ of mobile apps across an organization.” Finally, the biggest mistake service companies can make is delaying a mobile deployment because they are waiting for a “perfect” solution that provides specific features. “There are too many opportunities to leverage mobile technology, and the technology changes too quickly to perfectly time your investment,” says Nielsen. “Create a cross-‐functional team, and then partner with a mobile specialist (not a generalist) who can help you create a plan to deliver, execute, monitor results, and ensure your mobile environment is always on and always available.”