Driven by the mobile workforce, bring your own device (BYOD) has become the norm, as people continue to expand their use of personal devices to get jobs done.
According to Mareike Fondufe, senior product marketing manager at FrontRange, with BYOD comes the expectation of anytime, anywhere access to corporate applications and information without compromising access to personal data. This expectation across many devices creates significant challenges for IT teams, she adds.
FrontRange states that organisations need an enterprise mobility strategy as a way to solve the challenges that come with BYOD. It is important to define a company's specific mobility best practices and policies, says Fondufe.
"Most mobile device management vendors provide similar capabilities regarding securing devices, applications and data; however, when a company fully understands the use cases in its business and what its users require to be productive, a fully automated, unified solution that allows for self-service and zero touch deployment becomes important. It becomes apparent that pure enterprise mobility management or just securing devices is not the fix."
It's important to understand the priorities of the organisation and then change the processes and skills sets before choosing a solution or technology to support, adds Fondufe.
The policies should define which type or models of devices the company will support and also determine the extent to which the IT department will provide technical support for these devices, says FrontRange.
The software solutions company believes that the biggest impact of mobile devices on IT support is not the volume of devices, but the style of support. BYOD limits the scope of service IT is required to provide and, in turn, puts more of the responsibility on the end-user.
Fondufe believes end-users should have the ability to provision their own devices with little or no interaction with IT operations. This prevents IT from becoming overwhelmed by service requests for the flood of personal devices entering the organisation, adds FrontRange.
If a company wants maximum efficiency of its mobile devices, it needs to incorporate mobility management into its support processes and workflows, says Fondufe.
This will give support analysts access to all endpoints, allowing them to see and resolve any issues, she concludes.
Share