The rewards and risks of enterprise mobility

1. Summary

With enterprise documents increasingly available to workers on the go, opportunities to collaborate and work more efficiently are without bounds. Initiatives that provide employees with solutions for accessing, editing, and collaborating on documents in the cloud from mobile devices are leading to new business models that drive down costs while improving service and outcomes.

The productivity gains that are uniquely enabled by the cloud and mobile also present significant security challenges. Valuable and private data stored on mobile devices presents potential nightmare scenarios for departments and teams using the technology as well as CIOs, CSOs, and IT managers, particularly on employee-owned devices that are out of their control. The growing trend of a more distributed and independent workforce is further weakening IT’s control of data behind the firewall. If not managed correctly, these challenges can lead to a reduction in productivity or unnecessary risk taking.

This research report will outline for IT managers the importance of balancing the advantages and risk of increasing enterprise mobility and will explain the following:

• To be successful, enterprises need to provide employees and partners with solutions that are simple, intuitive, functional, and fast.
• As infrastructure moves to the cloud, IT departments need to refocus on balancing the tasks of protecting company data while driving efficiency through new technology and services.
• Collaborating with and co-opting users into risk-management practices will lead to operational efficiencies, competitive advantages, and lowered risk.
• The increased mobility of the global workforce is contributing to the demand for cloud infrastructure. As this technology is implemented, users are demanding mobile access to documents locked behind the firewall.
• The mobility of data facilitated by new technology is a challenge IT managers will need to closely manage.