Careful planning and a strong channel partner key to mobility projects

People across the Asia-Pacific are working in new ways, at varying times and from different locations. With companies and government departments embracing hybrid cloud models and making core business applications accessible on smartphones and tablets, while vendors ramp up mobility products and services, the region’s workforce is becoming increasingly mobile. However, mobility carries broad cultural, governance, policy and process ramifications that require organizations to plan its implementation carefully and measure its impact regularly.

For most organizations, mobility offers a range of benefits. Foremost among these is the ability to improve employee productivity and performance. For example, a salesperson can call up a client’s recent sales history on her tablet or smartphone while on the way to meet them and tailor her pitch accordingly. A technician on site can use a tablet to add details of an equipment service into his company’s business systems without having to return to his office. And a senior executive can add his business division’s latest revenue figures into a presentation while on a flight to head office.

Introducing mobility can also help an organization become an ‘employer of choice’ for young people who have grown up with technology, and better support parents with children who may need their employer to be flexible about where and when they complete their work.

But all these benefits can be completely overshadowed if, for example, a virus enters the corporate network from an unsecured mobile device and encrypts files and requires payment be made to decrypt them, or destroys business-critical data, or steals sensitive information such as credit card details.

So how can organizations bridge the gap between productivity and security to ensure seamless, secure and effective mobility deployments? The key is to focus on mobilising the individual rather than the device. This means determining what technologies, applications, information and services the individual needs to work as productively as possible. These decisions also need to account for trends such as the increasing importance of analytics in delivering key business insights as data volumes continue to surge.

This focus should drive key decisions such as which groups of workers should be issued with smartphones or tablets, and whether or not employees should be allowed to access corporate systems and data on their personal mobile devices.

Organizations should not allow internal politics or operational silos to influence their decisions, as a whole-of-organization approach is crucial in maximizing mobility’s rewards and benefits. However, they should also not underestimate the change management required to introduce mobility and enabling technologies such as cloud. For example, the IT function needs to move from a position of controlling IT use within an organisation to becoming an enabler.

Implementing mobility requires organizations to involve every affected back office and customer-facing team in establishing their objectives and developing their strategies. Failing to do so can mean crucial user requirements are overlooked. In addition, to ensure their mobility projects are completed on time, within budget and meets all objectives, organisations should also secure senior executive sponsorship for the project and require project teams to report regularly to oversight committees on progress.

Executing mobility also requires organizations to select integrated solutions and channel partners capable of providing advice and implementation services. For large organisations in particular, moving applications, data and public services to the cloud to make them easily accessible on mobile devices is an extremely complex exercise. Large channel partners may extend their role to providing the cloud themselves and how they can guide customers into this new world.

To reduce the time and cost of managing multiple products and vendor relationships organizations should also select holistic mobility solutions which minimize the need to use third-party software to add further functionality.

These solutions should provide employees with secure, instant access to applications, data and personalised desktops when they need them – and whether low bandwidth high latency WANs, variable 3G or 4G networks or reliable corporate LANs serve their location. Employees should also be able to synchronise data from any device and share it securely with colleagues and customers. The solutions should support both corporate and bring your own devices, ranging from personal computers and Apple Macs to smartphones, tablets and thin clients.

The solution may also feature app stores which provide workers with self-service applications that can be delivered to any device to improve their productivity and performance.

From an administrators’ point of view, the solutions should reduce the complexity of managing and securing end-user computing environments. They should minimize the loss of intellectual property and sensitive personal and corporate information through data encryption password authentication, and secure lock and wipe on the device. Organizations should also have the option of centralising all applications and desktops in their own datacentres rather than sending them out to the public cloud.

Ultimately, the key to bridging productivity and security in mobility lies in developing and executing the right strategy, choosing the right channel partner and deploying the right technology. Put these three things in place and your organization is well placed to reap considerable rewards.

The article is authored by Kaushal Veluri, director, channels and alliances, India subcontinent, Citrix