Mobile computing and BYOD are now baked into business IT strategies. They’ve moved far beyond employees simply being always reachable to employees always able to access the data they need to be productive.

Mobility Challenges

Keeping those employees empowered and protecting the business requires overcoming a number of mobile challenges:

Security

Keeping data safe when it’s accessed outside of the office is the number-one challenge related to mobile computing. Employees who use out-of-date operating systems and public WiFi are vulnerable to malware. Devices that aren’t password-protected and don’t encrypt stored data mean a lost device can expose significant volumes of company data. Apps that aren’t accessed from official app stores (and even those that are) can have built-in malware.

Compliance

Along with security considerations come compliance concerns, ensuring that mobile device users adhere to all policies and usage satisfies regulatory requirements like GDPR and HIPAA. There may be specific regulations dictating how mobile devices may be used.

Compatibility

Every employee has their favorite device and device settings. Not all permutations of device, mobile operating system, and configuration settings will work with a business’s systems. Attempting to support user devices and ensure access to necessary resources can be very time consuming. There are continual changes and updates to versions and capabilities, making compatibility an ongoing effort.

Usability

When mobile computing was the employees’ choice, there was a simple solution if an app didn’t work well on the small screen: tell the employee to come into the office. Now that business depends on employees working from anywhere, ensuring users’ apps fit the screen and the network provides good performance is harder to achieve. This is complicated by compatibility and security considerations, of course.

Integration

Closely related to usability challenges are integration challenges: the mobile devices need to fit into your business workflow. This can require creating entirely new front ends and apps, plus making sure the devices can synchronize with systems and support the ability to do at least limited work when connections aren’t available.

Meeting Mobility Challenges

The bare minimum any business that allows mobile device usage should do is develop a BYOD policy. This policy ensures that employees understand the responsibilities they must meet to use a mobile device for business purposes. It also should get their agreement to accept company access to devices as needed to achieve security.

That company access to devices comes through using mobile device management or enterprise mobility management software. With MDM or EMM, your IT team can ensure that devices meet security requirements and that only approved devices and operating systems are able to connect to corporate systems.

Mobile support from Prescient Solutions provides services that help your employees connect from their preferred devices while providing your company data the protection it needs. Contact us to learn more about developing a secure mobile computing strategy.