Managing Mobility

Implementing mobile governance in the face of constant change is a matter of balance, says Willie Jow, Vice President of Mobility Product Marketing at Sybase.

There’s a constant buzz in the IT world. It seems more like a non-stop chorus of thousands of cicadas ‘singing’ on a summer night. In the IT world, each buzz is an alert that some technology issue is becoming problematic. Lately, one of the most audible buzzes pertains to the issue of mobile governance – establishing rules and regulations focused on people, processes and policies concerning the use of mobile devices in the enterprise.

This is nothing new for IT departments. Policies are necessary to protect both physical and intellectual corporate assets. Extending governance beyond traditional corporate walls is also not new. However, the rapid adoption, evolution and diversity of mobile devices and types of users pose unique challenges. IT is being called upon to extend management and security policies to the farthest reaches of the enterprise, which today can be practically anywhere.

IT has long since learned that it cannot simply forbid the use of new technologies. This is certainly true in the case of the broad range of mobile devices that are used by virtually every category of employee from senior executives to warehouse workers. Banning or limiting specific device types is particularly futile in light of the indisputable benefits enabled by mobile technology. IT must find another way to address this challenge.

Strategic approach
This leads us to another current buzz in the IT world: managed diversity. Managed diversity is a strategic approach based on the recognition and acceptance that workforces are more diverse than ever, consisting of traditional employees, part-time and contract employees, consultants, telecommuters and others. Each may have different mobility requirements based on their roles and the devices used (some of which are personal devices while some are owned by the organization). It is an approach that requires a combination of user education and technical capabilities to effectively protect corporate assets.

Education critical
While it is true that many employees regard any mobile device they use as their personal device, it is also true that most employees will respect corporate usage policies, provided they know what those policies are.

It’s important for organizations to clearly document and publicize policies. IT, with end-user input, may need to create and document different policies for different user groups. Once documented, these policies should be distributed to and reviewed with employees. It’s also a good idea to create a type of contract that is revisited and revised frequently in order to keep pace with the constant evolution of mobile technology and user expectations.

The mobile platform
Employee honesty and good intentions aside, it is essential to have a way to monitor and enforce your mobile governance policies. Most experts recommend that organizations implement a mobility platform – a single, strategic architectural platform to mobilize, manage and secure data and business processes for users of virtually any mobile device.

Simply stated, you want a mobility platform that allows you to extend your historically office-based management policies to your frontline devices. It should provide cross-platform support and enable you to monitor and manage devices to ensure compliance with your policies. It should also enable easy integration with enterprise applications. And, of course, it should enable you to implement security features such as password sign-on, on-device encryption, data fade and device wipe, in the event a device is compromised or lost.

A matter of balance
The mobile enterprise is guaranteed to continue to grow, both in terms of user population and device types. The sooner you create mobile governance policies and implement a mobility platform to simplify enforcement of those polices, the better off your department and your organization as a whole will be. Mobile deployments are driving business success. But like all of the technology across your enterprise, their competitive value must be balanced by policies and controls necessary to protect the organization.

Willie Jow, a 15 year veteran of Sybase, oversees critical initiatives aimed at improving customer interactions and enabling Sybase growth.