Accommodating For The Mobile Movement Will Require Foresight
The workplace is much different than it used to be, largely due to the consumerization of IT phenomenon and the Internet of Everything trend – both of which are encouraging employees to leverage mobile devices for more activities than ever before. While embracing bring your own device (BYOD) and other mobile trends can help support a remote workfoce and augment the way colleagues and customers communicate, launching the endeavors inefficiently can result in significant performance and security challenges.
A new Workshare study of more than 5,000 employees around the world revealed that the new mobile mentality is encouraging 81 percent of respondents to access critical documents outside of the workplace. Unfortunately, nearly three-quarters of individuals have not been authorized by decision-makers to do so, which has created unforeseen complications and vulnerabilities.
“Businesses can no longer ignore mobility trends. Instead, they must find ways to meet their needs, while meeting strict security demands,” said Anthony Foy, CEO of Workshare.
The survey found that approximately 62 percent of respondents use personal smartphones, tablets and other devices for work-related purposes. If decision-makers want their BYOD programs and use of sophisticated phone system features to not introduce unnecessary complications, they must develop innovative strategies that take new business activities, processes and philosophies into account.
The Dawn of a New Day
A separate Citrix study highlighted similar findings, revealing that BYOD initiatives are becoming the norm, as 71 percent of companies are now allowing or accommodating the use of personal smartphones and tablets for corporate tasks. Unfortunately, 76 percent of these organizations said that more than 100 unidentified gadgets access critical resources every day. This proliferation of unauthorized or unrecognized devices suggests that companies need a new plan.
Before organizations can fully embrace the mobile philosophy, executives must understand how their employees currently work and what they demand in the future. This insight can be extremely helpful to a company that is not sure which mobile route will be the most effective. Analyzing the workforce’s mentality can also reduce the chances that individuals will breach any best practices.
“By 2015, most very large enterprises will have to provide more structured and formalized support for employees who elect to use personal mobile devices for work – including smartphones and tablet PCs,” said Brownlee Thomas of Forrester Research, according to Workshare.
After recognizing how individuals prefer to work, organizations should establish some form of governance to keep processes in line with long-term performance metrics and objectives. This may mean allowing only certain teams to work remotely or supporting a finite number of devices in the workplace. Executives need to embrace the methods that work best for their companies to keep risk to a minimum without introducing performance or experience issues.
In the coming years, the rapid development of mobile devices will continue to affect the way businesses collaborate and function. Forward-thinking decision-makers must recognize these monumental changes and plan for them accordingly if they want to remain competitive and efficient.
