The exciting thing about enterprise mobility challenges is that it is born out of a tremendous opportunity.
Mobile devices bring exciting facilities like convenience, flexibility, portability, ease of operation, ease of access, and so on. That explains why organizations of different sizes are choosing to adopt mobile devices.
However, a unique set of challenges are associated with choosing mobile devices.
Consider this situation: let’s say a mobile device with one of your top business executives is lost. With essential data at the risk of leaking away, your business could face penalties; you could lose customers, you could face legal trouble.
That’s why it’s crucial to identify and understand these challenges.
Here are the 7 top enterprise mobility challenges businesses face:
1.Data Security
Two factors place data security among the top enterprise mobility security threats.
The first is that data security can be compromised through multiple routes. Everything from unverified wi-fi networks and third-party apps to IoT (Internet of Things) and inadequate security protocols can pose serious security challenges.
The second is the scale of damage it can cause. A single compromised device can cause leakage of sensitive data. In addition to data leakage, there is the additional danger that the security attack will disrupt existing processes, cause data loss, or expose personal data.
2. Device Accountability
Estimates vary, but studies suggest that 67% of employees use personal devices at work (Source). This trend, called BYOD (Bring Your Own Device), will most likely increase.
No doubt, BYOD brings enormous benefits, but it’s not without associated enterprise mobility risks.
To begin with, these devices may not have uniform levels of protection. Also, not many of these devices could be having security features that a company-owned device will have.
Your IT department may have to do some heavy lifting because BYOD is reported to bring a lot of productivity.
3. User Experience
Mobility systems and business applications have come a long way. Mere functionality is no longer the goal; pleasant engagement is.
When a considerable number of employees and customers use an interface, you want to be sure there are no hiccups. The first challenge in building great user experience is to create something intuitive – if people need a detailed instructions-manual to use it, there’s a lot more work still left.
Another question is whether the apps work seamlessly with the other systems of your business. If they don’t, you’ll either need to upgrade it or get a new one designed.
4. Regulations and Compliance
Laws like the European Union’s GDPR and California’s CCPA have laid down strict requirements on how organizations acquire, store, share and even destroy data. These regulations come with stringent requirements and hefty penalties.
Fulfilling the requirements of such regulations is easily one of the vital enterprise mobility challenges. And as the number of devices through which data flows increases, your responsibility increases too.
Your IT admin department will need to coordinate with internal compliance teams to ensure no unauthorized data exchange or transfer happens.
5. Applications Connectivity
Nearly all businesses today use one or the other form of CRM software and ERP tools.
No doubt, such systems help you scale by automating processes. However, they pose enterprise mobility security threats because they carry sensitive data about prospects, customers, and resources.
The backend integrations of these systems with your business help your teams work at peak efficiency. Against that, the mobile devices your teams use to access these systems can add to your enterprise mobility risks.
Your IT team cannot satisfy itself by finding a middle way between risk and efficiency. They will have to devise a system that lets your team access CRM or ERP tools with zero tolerance for breaches.
6. Mobile Architecture
If there’s one thing both your partners and your customers demand, it’s flexibility. And mobile devices provide you with the flexibility that’s required.
Enterprise mobile architecture, however, throws up several challenges. Because mobile applications regularly interact with your backend, they must have robust authentication systems and protocols. Without extensive app security testing, it’d be dangerous to accept an app into your business.
The principal challenge here is to design security processes that don’t slow down the apps. Your mobile architecture should be sure that your eagerness to speed up things doesn’t add to the list of your enterprise mobility security threats.
7. System Fragmentation
If your organization is large, your teams and departments will have various devices, manufacturers, and OS preferences. Hence, the solutions that you develop in-house or get from a third-party vendor may render differently or may not render at all.
Add to it the fact that some of your teams may be working from home or operating with BYOD, and you could have a problem of varied and sometimes conflicting systems.
The diversity of devices and their protocols lead to teams forced to work in silos because their devices aren’t compatible.
System fragmentation, one of the unique enterprise mobility challenges, needs to be prevented early on by setting down requirements of what devices and platforms are acceptable and what aren’t. Any delay could lead to what’s called an ‘information mess’ – you have what’s required, but you don’t have the means to extract it.
Summing up
The decision of your business to encourage mobile devices is a wise one. However, you cannot ignore the challenges that come along with the adoption of mobile devices.
Challenges like data security, compliance, fragmentation, device accountability, user experience, and mobile architecture can turn extremely serious if not thought out initially.
That means these challenges are a kind of opportunity for you to design more robust, more muscular systems. How are you coping with these challenges?
