Enterprise mobility is the bona fide ruler of today’s business world. However, mobility best practices are only now being adopted and adjusted in many organizations. Those who have it, love it, and those who don’t wish they did. It’s an enticing idea—the possibility of having work easily accessible at your fingertips. You can work from anywhere.
Although enterprise mobility is well on its way to becoming a staple in business, interestingly enough, only a third of businesses have a mobility management strategy in place, which leads us to believe that more direction is needed. When a strategy is incomplete, mishaps occur to the detriment of the company.
Mobility Strategy Best Practices
When creating your mobility management strategy, you need to consider the capabilities of smartphone technologies. The devices we have now can do any number of things: record, sense, navigate, etc. When these capabilities are used across the company, data loss can occur, including the loss of vital intellectual property. Then there are legal implications to consider if this situation were to play out. When creating your strategy, make sure you keep these other technologies in mind.
When you have a mobile workforce, you also need to have an exit or loss policy. It’s not all that common for employees to stay forever with an organization now; eventually, they will leave. When that time comes, you need to be ready. He or she will carry a large amount of company data on their phone that can’t be forgotten like sales contacts. Big corporate assets can be gone as soon as they walk out that door. You’ll have to find a way to protect your employee’s personal information along with your business reputation.
Consult and Consider Possibilities
Insecure Wi-Fi should have a section in your mobility strategy, too. Devices used by employees need to be protected against possible attacks and data loss, the risk of which is enhanced through the limited security measures of some Wi-Fi networks. To prevent the unauthorized access of corporate data, all personal employee devices should be in line with your business’ security standards. If you want sensitive and vital data to stay safe, all mobile endpoints should have encryption and access control.
Related: How to Future-Proof Endpoint Security
Finally, a mobility strategy affects everyone in your organization. If you want a mobile workforce, there’s not one single department it won’t affect. Therefore, you need to involve everyone when it’s being created and get their input. Mobile work management should include developers, employee users, the IT team, human resources, and even the legal department if you have. If you’re shifting to mobile work management, it means a culture shift for the organization, so everyone needs to be on the same page. There should be no questions about what can and can’t be accessed through a handheld device.
As in any area of business, strategy is crucial. It provides concrete guidelines for what should be done in certain situations and tactics to make it successful. When developing a successful and thorough mobility management strategy, mobile device management is key. Involve everyone, consider device technologies, have an exit plan, and plan for insecure networks. With these best practices, your organization will be able to embrace mobility and manage it efficiently.
