Unisys Clients Discuss Implications of Mobility on Business and IT
Author(s): Chris Paul, Posted 06/20/12
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The Client Exchange Forum, Unisys’ bi-annual event for major clients in North America, in St. Augustine, Florida, was quite literally the watering hole for CxO level executives. In attendance were representatives from across industries including, Banking, Airlines, Cruise Liners, and Technology. Among the many topics on the agenda, the event provided an opportunity to discuss and debate the potential gains, risks and competitive advantages of enabling mobility.
As the workforce paves the way for more technology savvy individuals– those who are seasoned in social networking and the use of smartphones — the way forward for our clients is to embrace these devices into their enterprise. Nothing is more exciting than being part of our client’s transformation and in today’s reality nothing is more transformative than empowering customers and employees with a mobile enabled enterprise. Interestingly, most CIOs at our recent event listed four categories of inhibitors to the process of enabling and sustaining mobility:
- People – Today it is the employees who are driving change within the enterprise and not the IT departments. They expect a better user experience, greater convenience and richer interfaces. And more importantly employees are finding ways of enabling these devices sanctioned or unsanctioned with IT departments playing catch-up or worse yet losing control of their own processes.
- Infrastructure – Many organizations are burdened with old architecture not suited for mobility. A primary concern for decision makers is finding a solution that can integrate with their legacy and back end systems. Besides, IT departments are not prepared for the onslaught of changing technologies, form factors, and platforms. Consumers adopt new devices far more quickly than IT can find the means to support them. Finally it is the sheer volume of information being shared that challenges enterprises.
- Policy – Many organizations have ad-hoc policies in place. There is great uncertainty in the minds of management about the right kind of policy that must be implemented for a sound mobile engagement.
- Security – Organizations want to capitalize on the surge in mobility but are wary of the risks. They want to make sure their core data remains secure and inaccessible to unauthorized users. Security breaches and identity theft and misuse of data if a device is lost or misplaced are only some of the many concerns that cause anxiety when it comes to enabling mobility.
The need of the hour is to create cost-effective ways to manage and support employees, customer and devices while maintaining the security of sensitive, mission-critical corporate data and resources.
What are your organizations doing to take advantage of emerging trends?
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