Enterprise Mobility
The benefits of cloud computing and mobile computing have created a fresh air, combination of these technologies contributed towards a concept called Enterprise Mobility.
What is Enterprise Mobility: Enterprise mobility is the trend toward a shift in work habits, with more employees working out of the office and using mobile devices and cloud services to perform business tasks. The term refers not only to mobile workers and mobile devices, but also to the mobility of corporate data. Enterprise mobility can improve employee productivity, but it also creates security risks. Enterprise mobility management products such as data loss prevention technologies are available to help IT departments address these risks.
Enterprise mobility management (EMM) is the set of people, processes and technology focused on managing the increasing array of mobile devices, wireless networks and related services to enable broad use of mobile computing in a business context. This is an emerging discipline within the enterprise that has become increasingly important over the past few years as more workers have bought smartphone and tablet computing devices and have sought support for using these devices in the workplace.
Top Enterprise Mobility Management vendors are AirWatch, BlackBerry, Citrix, IBM, Good Technology, Kaspersky Lab, McAfee, MobileIron, SAP, Sophos, SOTI, Symantec, Tangoe and Trend Micro.
For more details on EMM vendors you can read this: 10 Enterprise Mobility Management Solutions
Implementing Enterprise Mobility: A good starting point is gaining an understanding of the way customers and employees are using (and want to use) mobility, as well as the likely ways that it can be introduced, a good understanding of business processes will help in leveraging the capabilities of mobile devices.
Some aspects to consider are:
Technology: Components (hardware, software and services) required to support new devices owned by employees and customers.
Governance: Policies that govern the device lifecycle, use of business networks and data.
Compliance and Security: Tools, policies, data containment, device strategies and organization and industry-specific mandates that need to be met.
Support: Skilled personnel to manage mobility and its related applications for employees and customers.
Build or Buy decision, a key decision point is whether to embark on embracing enterprise mobility with in-house resources or buy these through an arrangement with an external service provider. Whether organizations are expanding existing architectures or starting fresh by building or acquiring new IT infrastructure via managed services, they will need to tread carefully by making tradeoffs that balance the aforementioned risks and rewards. There are some EM Frameworks available, which can help in designing a framework for your organization:
Cognizant- Enterprise Mobility Framework
KPMG- Enterprise Mobility Framework
DimensionData.com-Enterprise Mobility Case Study
Everware CBDI- Developing Enterprise Mobility Framework
Enterprise Mobility Benefits- Portability, Availability, Sharing, Access data in context, Capture data in real time, Improved user experience, Personal ownership of devices, System independence, Increased efficiency, High productivity, Cost reductions, Workflow Personalization etc.
Recent Developments: According to research firm IDC, the enterprise mobility market in India is forecast to grow at a CAGR of 63 percent from $ 394.3 million in 2012 to $ 1.8 billion by 2017. Tata Consulting Services (TCS) has been evaluated as leader in enterprise mobility services by industry market researcher IDC for securing highest scores in customer satisfaction, innovation and productivity. The company’s mobility delivery centers serve about 250 clients across geographies. Analyst firm HfS Research in its 2015 enterprise mobility services blueprint report (authored by Ned May, senior vice president HfS Research) placed Tata Consultancy Services in ‘winner’s circle’. On 2nd April 2015 HP India announced the launch of its enterprise mobility solutions. The company announced the eight new mobile devices including HP Pro Slate 8 and HP Pro Slate 12, HP Elite x2 1011 G1, HP Pro tablet 10 EE, HP Pro Slate 10 EE, HP Pro tablet 408 G1, HP ElitePad 1000 G2 Healthcare tablet and HP ElitePad 1000 G2 Rugged tablet.
As per Blackberry’s India Enterprise Mobility Survey the education sector comprising education and training focused-companies, schools and colleges is one of the early adopters of enterprise mobility by making its database and content available on mobile devices. Along with education (59% of respondents in the education sector have a mobility policy) the other early adopters are banking and financial services (54%), telecom media and entertainment (53%). According to this survey mobility is a top priority for most organizations with 71 per cent saying they either have a mobility policy or are at present in the process of drafting one. Also, data security and control of devices emerged as the key requirements. As per this survey the top three investment areas for enterprise mobility include business consulting services, telecom expense management solutions and mobile device management solution. Google’s Android leads among the tablet devices used in education followed by Apple’s iOS, Windows and even Blackberry has a strong presence.
Last week BlackBerry announced the acquisition of Israeli security startup WatchDox Ltd. to further enhance its mobile security platform and give enterprises more control over their files. WatchDox’s technology will be offered as a value-added service that complements BlackBerry’s enterprise mobility management (EMM) portfolio and will be available with BES12. Six days back HP and FireEye Inc. announced their go to market partnership to make incident response, compromise assessment and threat detection offerings available to HP Enterprise Services’ clients globally. Four days ago IBM Security joined hands with Swiss Re Corporate Solutions to provide advanced cyber risk protection products and services to companies worldwide. Kony, Inc. and SOASTA are also working together to optimize the performance of enterprise mobile apps across the mobile app development lifecycle. Both companies will integrate their technologies and expertise to deliver an integrated mobile solution across the DevOps lifecycle for customers. On 15h April 2015, EMC Corporation acquired a small (Ottawa, Canada based) cloud security and data encryption management company Cloudlink. Brother Mobile Solutions, Inc. (BMS) announced its strategic partnership with PeopleNet, a provider of fleet mobility technology, to deliver cutting-edge solutions to the transportation and fleet industries. On 24th April 2015, HP announced an expansion in its partnership with Microsoft. Building on a recent agreement to offer Office 365 as an HP service delivery, HP is adding the Microsoft Enterprise Mobility Suite (EMS) to its services portfolio. Few days back secure mobility company Good Technology launched an enterprise mobility management app, Good Mobile Device Management for Apple Watch. The app will control and facilitate management of Good Work email and calendar notifications on Apple Watch and will provide support to iOS 8.2 MDM. In January’2014 Enterprise mobility management (EMM) provider AirWatch was bought by VMware, In July’2014 IBM and Apple announced a partnership whereby iPhones and iPads will be shipped to the enterprise market with IBM apps.
According to Ernst and Young’s survey “Enterprise mobility in India”, more than 60% of organizations are still in the process of making existing IT assets mobile-enabled, there is a growing “consumerization” of devices and increasing preference of employees to stay mobile and connected.
Here I’m sharing a list of some popular Enterprise Mobility Startups: Appthority, Armor5, FeedHenry, MobileSpaces, MobileSpan, Enterproid, V-Key, Capriza, Domo, Roambi, Skygiraffe, Mocana