Enterprise mobility: the tricky 'getting there' stage
Enterprise mobility is growing up fast but it is not mature yet, a Computing survey finds
From its first baby steps prompted by the boss demanding email on his new iPad, enterprise mobility has really grown up. Most companies of all sizes now allow for working offsite using phones and tablets, and even the most humdrum of organisations are now developing their own apps.
However, to say enterprise mobility has reached maturity would be wrong. Rather, it is going through an awkward adolescence in which those things that used to seem so fun and exciting are now dull, boring and difficult, and the things the really grown-up businesses are doing seem complex and out of reach.
To underpin our Enterprise Mobility Summit and Application Management Summit, Computing has undertaken a major research programme comprising focus groups, in-depth interviews, and a quantitative survey that was completed by 340 IT decision makers. We wanted to find out how far they had got with integrating smartphones and tablets into their set-up, what they hoped to achieve, and how successful they have been.
Asked where they are on the maturity spectrum, more than half of the respondents to the quantitative survey said "getting there", implying they had got some way in rolling out a mobility strategy but had seen few tangible benefits yet.
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So what does it feel like to be responsible for mobility in an organisation that is "getting there"? For many IT teams the overwhelming sensation is confusion and frustration; trying to match growing user expectations in line with developments in consumer IT with the need for security and cross-platform compatibility.
"Everything is coming in quicker than it should do, more upgrades come out, changes to the environment. We have a lot of legacy stuff that we can't upgrade and which has to stay in situ and work; it's a real head-scratch at the moment..." said the IT manager at a restaurant chain.
"Mobility is now a buzzword and a buzz topic, but there is not a real answer yet. A lot of it is [that] the pace of people's adoption of this technology is much faster than we can manage and moderate it..." added the director of global threat management in the education sector.
When we talk about mobility these days, it's not about people working from home on company-sanctioned laptops. Rather, it is allowing access to corporate systems on all kinds of devices including consumer-oriented smartphones and tablets. So what demands is consumerisation bringing?
"We are getting more and more requests from the business to be able to use consumer point-to-point video such as Skype and Facetime via the business platforms," said the head of IT at a gaming company.
Others mentioned new devices and new screen sizes, while some looked with obvious trepidation at the imminent arrival of smartwatches and the Internet of Things. Change is not slowing down to allow the IT team to catch up. In fact the opposite is happening, and the tools are not yet there to help them.
"Although the market looks like it has matured, as there are fewer vendors with buy-ups by bigger players, in terms of the actual software that goes on the end point, I think it's still a complete bag of nails," said the head of IT in gaming, who illustrated his point by describing his struggles in just getting MDM software to work properly on both Apple and Android devices - a basic requirement for BYOD.
"I'd say it's far less about the device now and much more about the interoperability... So you've got an application, I just want an application to work on any of the devices that they might turn up with..." said an IT manager in higher education.
Growing up is hard to do
The "getting there" stage is all about hard graft: integrating systems to support multiple platforms; meeting the needs of multiple users and multiple use cases; and creating the enterprise equivalent of plug 'n' play. It's about integrating applications with the back end and building an architecture that is both device agnostic and secure.
It's about building in flexibility, both to enable the business to adapt to changing markets, and also to allow IT to accommodate new technologies as they turn up. It's about decentralising control to allow a more self-service ethos to prevail. This is something IT cannot and should not do alone.
"You need to separate out the things that need to change and the things that stay the same, but most people aren't able to do that on a project, which is why it needs to be tied in to strategic architecture decisions around networking, hosting providers and technology platforms," said an enterprise architect in utilities. "It all needs to be linked together."
An IT director in manufacturing added: "A lot of people are looking at just the mobile app, but how that integrates and links to your back-end systems is a far bigger piece of the work than just the mobile app... We can develop the front end far quicker than we can tinker with the back end".
So IT and the business together need to take a holistic view of the entire organisation and its partners and pull together all the strands to make them work as a whole, something that obviously takes a lot more effort and planning than simply allowing email or creating an app.
It means creating a system that can react flexibly to people's needs, because mobility is more likely to succeed if it is demand-led rather than imposed from above. Each individual or business unit will require different apps and maybe different devices too. In retail, for example, you might have the people on the shop floor, the distribution hubs, the warehouses, marketing and helpdesks all using specific apps to do their jobs, as an enterprise architect from that sector explained:
"Our strategy is front and centre a retail strategy. Therefore it's a shared vision across the different business units, permeating down within the business units. As to what it actually means on the ground, it's different for each unit," he said.
"It's not pushing the solution out to them, you let them pull it... so it's not saying 'you must use this app', it's saying 'these are some of those available'," added an infrastructure manager in the technology sector.
This sort of decentralisation means allowing each unit, or perhaps each individual, to choose how they access a central pool of resources in the best way for them, without having to jump through hoops to do so. However, enabling business units to make their own choices of platforms, devices and apps can be a can of worms for IT when it comes to access rights and managing who is responsible for what.
"In some ways we find it's the decentralised models that are the problem," our retail architect continued.
"Someone will kick it off, they will get funding from a unit, a sector or division, then all of a sudden they move on, and they say 'well, who is going to upgrade it?'. We say 'it's a central issue' they say 'we have no central pot for it' and this was something that you bought in. There are some complex issues around it, around budgeting and cost."
It is perhaps inevitable when projects become mired in complexity and those implementing them find themselves running just to stand still that the vision of what they are trying to achieve can get lost. In such circumstances it is instructive to examine what an advanced organisation looks like.
"Mobility, to put it simply, is to be able to work from anywhere and everywhere, not to be constrained by your location, making sure that you've got access to the right stuff to do the right job at the right time - but without incurring any extra risks," said the CIO of a local authority.
And the main aims, as the chart above shows, are to increase productivity, improve the experience of customers and staff, and foster better collaboration.
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Enterprise mobility: the tricky 'getting there' stage
Enterprise mobility is growing up fast but it is not mature yet, a Computing survey finds
Grown up mobility
Our enterprise architect working in utilities gave us this take on what "advanced" means in this context:
"The whole company can be more integral. Devices are incredibly personal, they're in people's hands and in their pockets. If you have something that is meeting or exceeding expectations, it draws them into the organisation. It can be a catalyst for organisational change. Bringing life into the field force. Making them know that they're wanted and the work they are doing is important."
So, once mobility has taken root, a host of positive changes become possible, making it easier to keep up with technological advances, shortening development cycles and fostering a happier and more collaborative workforce.
But getting the balance right between security and functionality is the key ingredient in achieving these goals, according to our survey respondents, as the table below shows.
In the early days when enterprise mobility meant connecting up the CEO's iPad, the concern about security was less of an issue, as the devices were few and easily managed. However, as the demand for pervasive connectivity has grown, so security has rapidly risen up the agenda, to the extent that in many organisations – such as the NHS – restrictions make meeting users' demands practically impossible.
"You've got a lot of pull in the system and you've got very little opening of that system to allow that pull to happen, but I think security is the first thing," a senior director in that organisation said.
Getting the balance right between risk and reward is a particularly tricky part of growing up, especially given that many organisations are hidebound by legacy infrastructure. Security cannot be bolted on after the fact – it needs to be designed into all enterprise mobility schemes. This is not easy when things are moving so fast.
"The main issue with security and mobility is related to change, because how do you secure something that is changing all the time?" said one respondent.
In such a fast-moving environment it is unrealistic to think of an end to the journey. Instead it is achieving a state of confidence that you can cope with the changes as they arrive.
"We are getting there. Getting there means that we have contingencies in our platforms and our strategies in terms of addressing processes. We will always be getting there as things change..." said one respondent.