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BYOD, mobility fuel enterprise growth

Lebo Mashiloane
By Lebo Mashiloane
Johannesburg, 02 Oct 2013

Enterprises are at a tipping point in mobility and bring your own device (BYOD) adoption, and should leverage these technologies to fuel growth.

So said Werner Lindemann, MD of technology solutions at Datacentrix, speaking yesterday at ITWeb's Business Continuity 2013 Summit.

According to Lindemann, key considerations need attention in order for mobility and BYOD to be successfully incorporated into an organisation's day-to-day running. These include unified access with identity based access control for employees; security to manage the risk of data loss and threat prevention; company policy that governs device usage; management that runs on a single system and provisions mobile device management; and applications that are suitable to run on mobile devices.

"There are areas of business that are already ready to adopt BYOD and mobility; these include: hosted virtual desktops, emergency/mass notification services, crisis/incident management software, work area recovery, and e-mail continuity," said Lindemann.

He noted that the benefits to companies deploying BYOD are that employees can stay connected from anywhere, during any disaster, at a fraction of the cost that comes with sourcing a permanent work area recovery site from a service provider. It also creates a real-time view of the supply chain for management from anywhere, he said.

According to Lindemann, new market opportunities are driven by client needs, and with the rapid access to mobility, 90% of IT industry growth will be driven by mobile devices and apps, which today represent just 22% of ICT spending.

"CEOs need to develop new mobile and BYOD business models, and ensure employees are more mobile, while working with the CIO and IT departments. That way, they can implement strategies to support multiple device types and protect intellectual property of their businesses," he said.

"Mobile initiatives are significantly impacting IT resources and becoming critical business tools."

As the IT landscape evolves, companies that embrace social and technological changes originating from enterprise mobility and BYOD will be better equipped to lead the growth and future of the organisation, he concluded.

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