Once this is achieved, companies can increase productivity and enhance collaboration.
In the space of a generation, we have witnessed a revolution in the field of new technologies. We are well past mainframe to client-server environments have seen progress mobility thanks to laptops and have witnessed what likely will go down as the most significant advance in recent history: the launch of the iPhone in 2007. One thing is certain: a lot has changed.
It would of course be naive of us to think that this accelerated transformation of our everyday professional life has now ended. Many other changes are coming.
Apple offered us, as consumers, the opportunity to take advanced technology and use it to make our life more enjoyable. Since then, more and more services and applications have evolved and created a strong emotional connection with users. Now that could honestly say to do without her cheerfully iPhone (or the Samsung Galaxy Smartphone or other art)? No one, of course.
These devices have set a new standard for future technology trends. The power of the computer is huge, even for the simplest tasks. There are twenty, getting rid of mosquitoes with a rolled up newspaper: now there is an app for that. In short, so we live in a radically different world.
Video conferencing, managing bank accounts, reading books, games, chat with friends, listen to music … the list of our new capacity is long. How not to build an emotional connection with such a device?
At what impact should we expect in the workplace? The consumerization of IT has had an impact. Paul Maritz, Chief Strategy Officer at EMC and former CEO of VMware, also argues that the public quality is set to become the new reference.
And I could not be more in agreement. Now, the importance of having information at your fingertips is so great that what previously corresponded to the professional level technology is now simply called new technologies. That the public has the hands today is that it will use in the workplace: the attachment exists, and these devices are more than enough in the context of their missions.
The power for the people
The influence of new technologies for the home on the characteristics of those Workplace caused the emergence of BYOD (Bring Your Own Device). If this has sometimes been observed due to inadequate (or non-existence) of technological devices provided by the company, it is often the result of the refusal by an employee to break the link with its personal device.
Whatever the motivation leading to BYOD, the result is that decisions about the equipment used in business are usually taken by the company itself.
This is further evidence that the public has an influence ever view of the IT business. Be it iPhone or Android, the use of a mobile device changes the dynamic communication, collaboration and data use.
Security is Queen
CIOs are concerned about data security. Nothing is possible as long as it is not guaranteed. Issues related to the simultaneous management of data security and accessibility are obviously complex.
However, a strategy focused on containerization, and delivering software development kits (SDK) to meet safety requirements as well as the simple encapsulation applications can achieve this goal.
Companies can then progress to the next step: using secure mobility to perform their transformation.
Stir employees of a company computer model
Employees have the devices of their choice, and within two years, 80% of the population in Europe and the United States will have a smart phone. Now, companies IT departments as they have the means to secure their mobility.
We arrived at the interesting step for companies: the one where they can be free and create an IT environment leveraging the consumer affection for their device. They have the opportunity to achieve levels of productivity, efficiency and unprecedented collaboration.
The first objective is to combine devices and preferences of consumers / employees with the applications necessary for their business. Professional software was originally designed for use on a desk with a keyboard and mouse. Mobility removes these elements of the equation and poses a different problem. According to a report from Infonetics Research on mobile security, nearly one million Android application will integrate the business world this year.
So, to satisfy employees more willing to use their smartphones and tablets, and accustomed to a large number of specific applications in their personal lives, companies only only solution available: provide applications!
This may be to develop custom applications for specific business processes to use secure applications commercially available, or to set up their own market place of application. The latter option enables IT to control their information systems to a level unattainable in a classic scenario BYOD (and thus more open).
IT departments can not control personal devices of their employees, and in most cases, can not control the incoming data (especially their destination after passing on these devices).
The solution is not to control everything. Rather, it is to create an IT environment that is consistent with what the user needs while meeting business objectives.
Take the example of Facebook as an application popular with users. What are the reasons for this success? The first reason is obviously the fact that their friends use this application. Why? Because they can communicate with each other via instant messaging or using a conventional mailbox. They can also share their photos and movies, links to articles they like, and anything else considered interesting.
Let us carry these items in the workplace. What tools like Salesforce Chatter, or Microsoft Sharepoint are they so different from what Facebook offers to individuals? If you make them accessible on mobile devices of employees and if you make sure they are appropriate to the platform, there is a good chance that they are used by employees.
The good news is that once this type of secure tools using a container, they can be monitored and managed. IT teams can analyze their usage while simultaneously controlling the available data and their destinations. As stated above, it is impossible to control what an employee … or indirectly.
If you can set up a controlled environment in which your employees work calmly, you will then arrived in the promised land of IT.
Simplify business transformation?
There is no easy way to transform fundamentally operation of a business. It’s never simple. However, knowing which direction to take and the route to get there is certainly useful.
Mobility has changed the behavior of employees, but very few companies have actually built this development in a real mobility strategy and, above all, in order to a competitive advantage. Cease to require employees to put aside their strong relationship with their smartphone and rather put this link in favor of the company.
