Mobile solutions

Good Technology’s John Herrema offers an insight into the competitive advantage of a mobile workforce and the major drivers behind the adoption of such solutions.

“The most important thing that companies can do to resolve this device dilemma is to take a proactive approach to enterprise mobility management”
-John Herrema

The widespread adoption of consumer devices such as smartphones into the enterprise has caught many IT departments off guard. What challenges does this scenario present to enterprises?
John Herrema. At Good, we call this the ‘consumerization’ of enterprise mobility, which presents both opportunities and challenges. Our customers are seizing this opportunity to increase employee productivity, operational efficiency and responsiveness to customers by enabling more employees to ‘go mobile’ and stay connected to critical business data and processes. By actively embracing consumerization, many of our customers have actually expanded their mobility deployments while reducing their overall mobility spending. Employees are so passionate about devices like the iPhone and the Google Nexus One that they will pay their own way in exchange for being able to use their device of choice for both personal and business use. This is a significant and very unique opportunity for companies – you basically have a large and rapidly growing group of employees who are willing to spend their own money to make your business more productive, efficient and responsive. Seizing this opportunity requires companies to overcome the management and security challenges found with larger mobile deployments.

How can companies manage increasing device proliferation within the enterprise? What factors do they need to consider?
JH. The most important thing that companies can do to resolve this device dilemma is to take a proactive approach to enterprise mobility management that encompasses four 'best-in-class' practices:

Multi-platform support: as reported by Aberdeen Group and others, best-in-class companies support multiple mobile devices and platforms and embrace consumerization as a way to increase their operational efficiency, productivity and responsiveness by enabling broad mobile access to critical business data and processes.

Mobile security and policies: best-in-class companies also adopt a proactive approach to mobile security and policies based on knowing, not assuming, that business data and applications are consistently secured and that policies are enforced.

Control and tracking: best-in-class companies control how employees and their devices are accessing business data and applications. This includes tracking and reporting on who has been authorized to access business data and applications and knowing exactly which device(s) they're currently using for such access.

Self-service and zero IT touch: consumerization typically leads to larger mobile deployments, but rarely to larger IT support budgets. Best-in-class companies respond to this, not by limiting or restricting mobility, but rather by enabling a policy-based 'self-service' model that allows users to activate devices, wipe data, reset passwords, install applications and perform other routine troubleshooting without the need for expensive support calls or direct IT intervention.

When managed successfully, what advantages do the growing variety of mobile workforce solutions offer to businesses looking to gain a competitive advantage?
JH. Companies that proactively invest in mobile workforce solutions are more productive, collaborative and responsive to customers and new business opportunities than their competitors who do not. It is no longer a question of whether workforce mobility delivers competitive advantages to the companies who embrace it. It is really a question of whether your company has a proactive enterprise mobility plan and solutions in place that will allow your company to maximize the benefits of workforce mobility, while minimizing costs and security risks.        

What will be the major drivers behind the adoption of such solutions over the next 12 months? Are there any key developments on the horizon that you see impacting this sector in 2010 and beyond?
JH. Good sponsored the Aberdeen Group study, Enterprise Mobility Strategies 2010:  More Mobility, Less Budget, which found that increased operational efficiency and economic pressure to boost worker productivity are key drivers behind the growth in workforce mobility solutions. These findings are consistent with what our customers are telling us and what see every day in our own business. We see no end in sight to mobile device proliferation and believe the distinctions we draw today between 'mobile' and 'desktop' computing environments will become increasingly blurred. 

If you want more information about Good, please visit: www.good.com.

John Herrema joined Visto Corporation, the parent company of Good Technology, in June 2003 as VP Business Development when Visto acquired ViAir Inc. Herrema helped drive Visto's growth based on marketing and distribution partnerships with partners such as IBM, Microsoft, Palm and Ericsson.