Businesses struggle to meet the technology and business challenges of managing mobile workers

Dec. 1, 2010 - PRLog -- DETROIT, MI – Mobile devices have become a standard part of today's workplace; in fact, most companies and their employees would likely struggle to operate without them.

However, many corporate executives and their IT staff are beginning to realize they can no longer enforce corporate standards for mobile devices and networks, and instead must begin to embrace the popularity of consumer-oriented, employee-selected handsets. According to the Aberdeen Group’s 2010 Wireless & Mobility study, “there's been a four-fold increase in employee-purchased devices used for business purposes. In many cases, workers are choosing to bypass enterprise IT departments entirely to use their own mobile devices for work.”

As a result, companies are facing increased pressure from employees who want to bring personal mobile devices such as iPhones and iPads into work, and those employees aren’t very understanding when told it's not an option because the IT department can't provide support.

At a recent Computer Weekly roundtable event, Steve Sacho, General Motors Global Director of Mobile Computing and Unified Communications stated, "You can't stop people from bringing in powerful devices. They have applications such as Google Talk and Microsoft Live capability on their SmartPhones, but many come up against the geniuses in the IT department who can't give them access to corporate systems.”

But this issue isn’t new.  As long ago as 2007 an article in CIO Magazine stated, “A mobile mess looms for CIOs who ignore the rising popularity of connected handhelds.  This trend poses new challenges to CIOs who need to maintain enterprise network and data security, plus keep end-user support costs down. Yet most enterprises have no policies or mobile management strategy in place to achieve these goals.”  Questions such as:  How do you maintain security?  How do you minimize costs? And last but certainly not least, how do companies integrate such a multitude of technologies into the IT infrastructure? Four years later companies are finally starting to realize the challenge they’re faced with, and are now seeking strategies to meet that challenge.

To assist in this effort, on Monday, December 13th, Mobile Monday Detroit will offer presenters and exhibits to help companies begin to understand the issues involved in managing their firm’s mobile technology needs.  Discussions will include:

•   Security; how to protect the firm’s data, as well as the investment in company-provided mobile equipment.
•   Budget; what are the ramifications of electing to provide mobile equipment to employees, or alternately, allowing them to use their own equipment?
•   Wireless lifecycle; how often does mobile technology (hardware and software) need to be updated?
•   Technical support; who should take care of mobile technical issues – the employer, the manufacturer, the carrier, or the employee?  
•   Mobile software and applications; what’s available to help firm’s increase communication and productivity?

Presenters for the evening will include: Nick Pike, representing Nick Pick Consulting and VOX Mobile and Randy Nunez, a Senior Network Engineer at Ford Motor Company.

Pike will be speaking about the diverse nature of the current wireless horizon; Blackberry, Droid, i-Phone, i-Pad, Windows, Palm devices - how to securely manage these various platforms across the Enterprise, plus how to manage the wireless lifecycle by creating control, increasing visibility, achieving 20%-30% savings, and implementing a technical help desk and support for a company’s mobile program.

According to Pike, “The ability to use wireless for business today has become more exciting than ever.  Deploying applications that save time and money has never been easier.  Unfortunately, with the introduction of the i-phone, i-pad, droid devices and 3G and 4G networks, the wireless landscape has never been more confusing.  How do we secure these devices? How can we manage these devices? How do we support these devices? How can we leverage the best pricing from the carriers? How can we control international users? Which applications do we choose? From the smallest business to the largest Enterprise - all of these questions exist. I look forward to discussing these challenges and hopefully giving some clarity.”

Discussing Ford Motor Company’s mobile technology journey will be Randy Nunez, who works in the firm’s Enterprise Technology-Research organization as the technical lead for the mobile computing work-stream.

Nunez will discuss a number of trends that are causing companies to look more closely at the use of individual-liable (employee-owned) SmartPhones for business purposes. His presentation will discuss Ford's experience in using employee-owned devices in the enterprise, and will include the reasons behind the effort, key highlights of the journey, a description of the current program, and his recommendations for companies seeking to ‘tame the mobile beast’.

The Mobile Monday Detroit event will be held from 5:30 p.m. – 8:00 p.m. at the Compuware Building located at One Campus Martius in Detroit.  Attendance is Free, though registration is required.  Those interested in attending may register at http://meetup.com/Mobile-Monday-Detroit. Parking will be validated for attendees who utilize Compuware’s parking deck.  Sponsors for the event are:  Mobile Monday Michigan, Compuware, and the Mobile Technology Association of Michigan.

The networking portion of the meeting begins at 5:30 p.m. during which time displays and information will be available from Sprint, Verizon and AT&T to showcase their mobile business solutions.  Presentations will begin at approximately 6:20 p.m.  

For more information about this event, please contact the group’s founder, Linda Daichendt at Linda@MobileMondayMichigan.org.

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MobileMonday (MoMo) is an open community of mobile industry visionaries, developers, influential individuals, and users fostering cooperation and cross-company business development through virtual and live networking events. The groups programs are designed to facilitate idea sharing, best practices development, trends identification, and Mobile Industry growth locally, regionally, nationally, and internationally. The Michigan branch executes on these objectives, thru its Ann Arbor and Detroit chapters, by delivering a balanced approach of business and technical content from within the Michigan business community, as well as beyond our State, in order to insure the Michigan community is made aware of developments taking place that can aid local businesses. Those interested in learning more about Mobile Monday Detroit can find the group’s website at http://MobileMondayDetroit.org ; and information about the International organization can be found at http://MobileMonday.net.