7 Must-Haves for Embracing Consumerization of IT

Consumerization of IT is a new phenomenon hitting the work places and various reports and statistics indicate that this trend is here to stay. The reason is simple. These technologies are simple to use, have intuitive features and loads of reference documents are available in the Internet. In other words, the learning curve is shortened.

As employees continue to use these mobile consumer technologies for work, IT administrators must harness the power of this new trend to their benefit. Its time IT becomes innovative enough to transform business operations, improve employee productivity and customer experiences.

This post highlights how IT administrators can prepare for this trend and the must-haves for tackling any associated challenges.

BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) policy: Encourage your employees to bring their personal-owned favorite device to work. This not only helps your organization in cutting down their expenses but also breeds employee productivity by allowing them to be connected to work for long hours.
Support for different mobile operating systems: IT administrators must define a list of supported operating systems (iOS, Android, Windows 7, etc); each operating system is different in its own way and supporting multiple operating systems requires extensive planning, infrastructure and manpower resources.Irrespective of which all mobile operating systems your management decides to support, mobile devices across all mobile operating systems must be secure and compliant.
Centralized console for monitoring all mobile assets: It is imperative for IT administrators to keep an eye on both corporate and non-corporate assets; the on premises non -corporate assets may also house confidential corporate information.
Enforce mobile device policies for different device types and teams: Device policies must be enforced for all mobile devices, and relevant auto-quarantine actions must be triggered for incompliant devices. If required, IT can also enforce mobile policies to control the use of social media applications at work.
Own an Enterprise App Store: As the mobile device population in your campus continues to grow, an Enterprise App Store allows easy, safe and secured distribution, deployment and monitoring of applications across different devices. IT administrators must ensure that applications must access business resources over a secured tunnel to prevent any malware infestations or data leakages.
Educating employees on smartphone security best practices at work place: According to a Symantec survey, around 49% of employees look forward to their IT folks to educate them on smartphone security best practices at work place. Employees must also be educated on the corporate smartphone policies and the implications of violating them. Every employee must be aware of the allowed and prohibited mobile device list and mobile application list at his workplace.
Efficient troubleshooting tools across all operating systems: There must be efficient troubleshooting tools and skilled support staff available at your disposal to handle any critical or simple enterprise mobility related issue.

Consumerization may seem a challenging task but the trick lies in striking a balance between embracing the inescapable technology changes and still maintaining your organization data safe and compliant. Use a mobile device management (MDM) solution to maintain visibility and control over your corporate mobile ecosystem and resolve your data security concerns.Refer to this Gartner paper for more information on the critical capabilities of an MDM solution.

Check out this MDM console to have a feel for the key features, modules and deliverables of an MDM solution.

Pragati Chaplot Jain is a technical writer at MaaS360 By Fiberlink. Fiberlink is the developer of MaaS360, the leading cloud-based, mobile device visibility and management platform.

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