Real World Mobility - Filling the Gaps

Sponsored by Dimension Data.

I just finished reading through the Dimension Data Secure Enterprise Mobility Report.The report is a nice report on how modern organizations are thinking about and approaching strategic planning with mobility, BYOD and security in mind.

A few highlights of the report where 1,622 IT decision makers were surveyed:

• 27% said they have a well-defined network policy for mobility
• 23% said that they allowed employees to download non-corporate applications to increase productivity.
• Only 29% have ave tested how well their applications work on mobile devices
• Only 32% have conducted a security audit of applications touched by mobile devices
• 79% of IT leaders who classify mobility as a top priority
• 71% named data security as their greatest mobility-related concern
• 71% of respondents indicated that their business leaders view personal mobile devices as potentially dangerous, costly and not business critical

Some of those numbers (or…maybe all of them) are a bit frightening but they aren’t a surprise.

They tell me that organizations are still a bit confused about mobility.  The survey highlights that companies and IT groups still see a dichotomy between seamless mobility for their employees and rigid and robust security for the enterprise.  While I won’t argue that this dichotomy doesn’t exist, a well developed strategy for enterprise mobility (including BYOD) should be able to reduce the gap between security, mobility and productivity without undue challenges.

Developing an encompassing strategy for BYOD and mobility isn’t easy. There are many areas to consider before rolling out a mobility strategy that cover all areas from security, bandwidth, architecture, BYOD, data governance, backup and recovery and ownership of data/apps when employees leave.

Organizations need to identify whether mobility is business critical and whether personally owned mobile devices fit into their business and strategy.  Based on the survey results, many business leaders don’t see BYOD as business critical but they do see mobility as a top priority.  In today’s world, I do think BYOD and mobility are synonymous so it behooves organizations to build a plan for mobility to include personal mobile devices.

Building a policy for today’s mobile world must fill the gap between security, data ownership, mobility and personal devices.  How well is your organization’s mobility strategy filling these gaps?

Sponsored by Dimension Data.