Mitigating the risks involved in Enterprise mobility

Posted On: December 18, 2013

The consumerization of IT and BYOD trend has provided flexibility to employees to use their own devices at workplace thereby enabling them to be in touch with the corporate work at all times. This enterprise mobility has increased the flexibility and responsiveness of employees. Employees are now more productive as they now have all the time access to updated information. The enterprise mobility has enabled the companies to target the global markets and access business opportunities more efficiently and quickly. It is rightly said that every rose has thorns and this phrase holds true this time also. The enterprise mobility has brought along with many security issues as well that has put the IT department into a deep thought on how to face these risks. Let us have a look how these problems can be mitigated:

Implementing Mobile Device Management Solution- Mobile device management (MDM) is a type of security software that is used by the enterprises, telcos to monitor, manage and protect employee-owned mobile devices. These solutions provide organizations with end-to-end security to the corporate network, mobile apps, and data used by BYOD devices. All these are managed by the IT department of the organization with single MDM software. The features offered by the MDM are:

• Data Management
• Mobile policy management
• Inventory management
• Security management
• Data Analytics

Implementing Mobile Application Management Solution- Contrary to MDM solution that has control over an entire mobile device, MAM primarily focuses on individual application management. These solutions ensure greater amount of control over individual apps with features like per app VPNs, push services, user authentication for individual apps and remote support etc. The built-in security features of MAM ensure safe access of applications to all the employees and also authorize them as per the company’s policies. The enterprise app store offers apps that are specifically customized according to the company’s requirement.

Telecom Expense Management- The BYOD trend has forced the IT department to carefully inspect the employee contracts and control the company data and information.  Telecom Expense Management (TEM) helps to control and manage the overall costs of mobile voice and data communications. It optimizes and manages the equipment cost, invoice accuracy, and carrier contract negotiations.

Policy Management: Strictly enforcing security policies on the usage of mobile devices at workplace is the key to the success of enterprise mobility. Implementing a proper policy restricts the employees on the usage of BYOD devices within the bounds of corporate policies. IT policies outline whenever a private device should be used to access corporate assets, whether it’s the network, email or data