Just as "Mad Men"-style offices of Rolodexes, typewriters and hat stands evolved into workspaces of cubicles and desktop computers, contemporary work environments are changing in face of new technology. Today's workers arrive on the job toting their personal mobile devices, intending to use them for more than just music and social media status updates.
It can be tempting to think of bring-your-own-device (BYOD) as a single disruptive trend making its way through the enterprise, but BYOD should be treated as more than an isolated movement, according to a recent Federal News Radio article. Although the article focused on BYOD as it applies to U.S. government agencies, it makes a strong case for BYOD in the increasingly mobile world of all sorts of organizations and enterprises.
BYOD and the evolving enterprise ecosystem
The article highlighted comments from Michael Isman, Vice President of Booz Allen Hamilton, who hopes the Office of Management and Budget's upcoming BYOD guidelines connect with an overall mobile strategy.
"The best agencies are really looking at this not as BYOD in and of itself but BYOD as part of a broader digital ecosystem, so thinking about BYOD as it relates to your broader mobility strategies," said Isman. "Really taking this all together and thinking about it as a broad paradigm within which you're working."
Isman believes BYOD should be seen in the context of increasing social media use, teleworking and cloud computing. He also stressed that organization leaders should think about how workers are using their mobile devices, which means considering issues such as applications and data storage.
Government agencies aren't the only organizations that can benefit from integrating BYOD as part of a larger digital ecosystem. Businesses are looking towards employee mobility to improve efficiency and connect with customers. Marketing teams armed with mobile devices can gauge the impact of social media campaigns from anywhere, and customer service representatives with analytics applications on their iPhones can make more informed decisions regarding business consumers. Fully leveraging BYOD means integrating multiple mobile strategies together and recognizing the potential for new business trends.
Corporate app stores on the rise
According to a recent ZDNet article, one of the ways BYOD can change the corporate landscape is by pushing the demand for internal enterprise app stores. Because the practice is relatively new, it will take time for implementation to occur on a large scale. Several experts have weighed in on internal app stores to explain the benefits they offer.
Vishal Jain, Mobile Services Analyst at 451 Research, believes companies will see the benefits of a centralized system for delivering enterprise apps. He added that control over enterprise app solutions should be allocated based on heirarchy, allowing business leaders to distribute by departments and user groups.
As the business world evolves, there will be a greater demand for mobile device management (MDM) solutions to meet a larger range of needs. According to Gartner, businesses are increasingly turning to "as-a-service" MDM solutions for greater flexibility as well as better cost effectiveness when compared with on-premise MDM technology.
An MDM solution with a built-in enterprise application store (EAS) for iOS and Android, MaaS360 addresses current needs as well as upcoming trends. Fiberlink's cloud-based solution was recently recognized in Gartner's Critical Capabilities for Mobile Device Management report. In addition to scoring 4.8 out of 5 in the "As-a-service and cloud delivery models" category, MaaS360 received the highest assessment for Product Viability: "Outstanding."
