Is Your Mobility Solution Up to the Challenge of Today's Business Environment?

Last week, we offered some insights into the current state of enterprise mobility and made several recommendations business leaders could implement to keep their mobile strategy updated. This week, we'll offer a list of "mobility "must haves"—features that any mobility platform should offer to ensure optimal worker productivity and security.

As it becomes increasingly ubiquitous and integrated into our lives, mobility brings greater complexity and risk for the organization. It also blurs the lines been roles and responsibilities of both employees and the company itself (or more accurately, the IT team). A well-designed, expertly implemented and managed mobile device solution is critical to realizing full value from mobility while protecting the company from unnecessary exposure. Following are the functions we believe to be absolute requirements for any platform.

1. Streamlined Access to Mobile Device Management Functions: Administrators must be able to remotely secure and manage any device (e.g. control device features and settings), with a few clicks of the mouse. The interface to access these functions should be user-friendly, with all functions united in a centralized dashboard.
2. All-Inclusive Device Control and Security: Features should include device inventory, password enforcement and remote viewing of statuses as well as all of these remote device functions—PIN reset, total wipe and/or selective data wipe, locking/unlocking, geo tracking and copy/paste restriction.
3. Preconfigured Policy "Templates": The solution should come with preset, centralized policies to facilitate rapid deployment of consistent security and configuration profiles on user devices.
4. Robust Data Management: The firm should be able to segregate personal and company data into containerized, PIN-protected apps to restrict unauthorized access.
5. Strong Encryption: All data in containerized apps should be protected by AES-256 encryption (on top of the Internet's security protocol, SSL) both on the device and in transit over the Internet.
   App-level PIN protects data within the app against unauthorized casual browsing.
6. Device Level App Control: Administrators should be able to remotely monitor, push/update and block all apps installed on devices and otherwise enforce app compliance policies.

Not a requisite for all firms, but an important addition for those that want to let users access third-party applications, is support for marketplaces such as the Apple App Store and Google Play.

If your mobile device management platform doesn't offer all of these features, or if you haven't yet deployed a solution yet, we urge you to do so, quickly. A recent mobile device security study (May 2015) found that 52 percent of mobile users conduct personal business on employer-owned devices and 21 percent have modified the default settings on their company devices. Among Millennials—which will soon compose the majority of the workforce—the numbers are even higher. Sixty-four percent use company devices for personal reasons. Even more disturbing, 25 percent of Millennials believe their device behavior compromises the security of the organization (compared with five percent for Baby Boomers).

About DynaSis
DynaSis is an Atlanta IT services and cloud computing provider for small and midsized businesses. All of our solutions focus on helping companies achieve the three fundamental IT necessities of the modern business—availability, security and mobility. We specialize in on-demand and on-premise managed IT services, managed cloud infrastructure, desktops and backups, and professional hardware and equipment installation. For more information about DynaSis’ IT support and services, visit www.dynasis.com.