Mobility

Enabling the Remote Workforce

There are now 5.4 million home workers in the UK*, with 2.2 million of these working from home as employees.  There are clear market drivers for this high number of home and mobile workers;

• Broadband is available in every home
• Prevalent wireless access and home and on the road
• Government Initiatives and Incentives
• PC’s have largely replaced laptops. Statistics from Datamonitor show that laptop and PC shipments were equal in 2004.
• Technological advancements with mobile phones and PDA’s

The technologies enabling remote working are often referred to as mobility solutions. Mobility solutions can be defined in a number of ways and in its widest definition mobility is about allowing employees to work from anywhere at anytime with the same level of functionality as in a fixed work place. Specific areas include:

Clientless Remote Access

Clientless remote access uses ubiquitous web browser technology such as Internet Explorer and Mozilla to allow remote users to access company resources from anywhere. As there is no need to install a client application to enable remote access this is suited particularly to providing access to a large user population

Secure Application Access

Secure application access allows organisations to provide access to core applications using a combination of technologies. The current technologies include a number of choices including client based and clientless options

Access to Calendar, E-mail and Tasks while on the Move – Personal Information Management (PIM)

Remote access to e-mail, calendar and tasks has become a must have for most information workers. 
As is the case with any new technology it is very important to understand both the business and security impact of new working methods

Poor Support for Remote Staff

A report from the Management Consultancies Association (MCA) indicates that despite the high numbers of home workers, many firms offer inadequate IT support and experts believe that businesses would perform better if they improved IT and security support for their remote staff. 
Many remote workers feel that their employer’s technology does not allow enough flexibility, and in a study by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) over a quarter said their firm should improve its use of IT, connectivity or bandwidth.
IT vendor Citrix and Professor Cary Cooper found that poor systems can make home working very inefficient with remote workers taking an average of four minutes to get external access to email, which equates to about 24 hours a year wasted per mobile employee.  14% of respondents to this survey were so keen to work remotely with less time wasting and stress that they say they would gladly take a pay cut in exchange for better external access and more modern mobile devices

Lack of Trust

With many UK employers there is a tendency to believe that staff can only be properly managed if they are physically in the office, the EIU found that over a third of respondents to their report claimed that mobile employees were suspected of failing to do their fair share of work and only seven percent of people working at home said they do so because of encouragement from their firm (Source: MCA)

Security Concerns

For many bosses, top of the list of their concerns is the security of data.  As is the case with any new technology it is important for managers to understand both the potential benefits and pitfalls. There are a number of solutions to provide secure remote connectivity.  Typical areas that need to be addressed include:

Device Security

• Protecting local data on remote end point from exposure, damage and loss
• Protecting corporate network from malware introduced by remote devices

Network Security

• Protection from unauthorised access on to the corporate network and data
• Protection from abuse of access by authorised users

Lack of Management Control of User Behaviour

• Inappropriate access and increased liability
• Need to monitor staff presence and productivity

Confidentiality of Data in Transit

• Encryption is the authority

Mobility issues will be unique to every organisation, but some standard threats that should be reviewed prior to setting up a mobile workforce include;

• Expanding the corporate perimeter creates issues with spyware and viruses, including malware for smartphones
• Mobile users can cause support issues as they require 24/7 access and support
• Deployment and update of applications to mobile devices
• Administration and monitoring of internal access to user accounts becomes more critical
• Transport costs - especially minimising GPRS charges and achieving fixed/predictable costs
• Enhanced technical skills required for mobile provision of full network access

Securing your Mobile and Remote Staff
There are a wide range of solutions available on today’s market and every business now has the ability to allow its staff to work remotely whilst monitoring their productivity and without fear of security risks.  By dealing with an experienced consultant that understands that the lines between networking and security have become blurred and that the two now go hand in hand you can find the right solution for your business

The biggest challenge for CIO’s and CSO’s is to understand the true impact of mobile working for organisations. The impact assessment should examine a number of factors including working patterns, support implications and security. With the full effect of mobility understood it is possible to create a mobility strategy which provides an appropriate level of functionality with a defined level of security

Mobility Tools

MIS CDS carries a range of mobility tools within its portfolio, for more details please click on the individual tool.

Mobility Enablers

Check Point Connectra
Citrix Access Suite
Juniper Secure Access

Complimentary Add Ons       

Check Point Integrity
Credent
OpenHand
PatchLink
RSA
Surfcontrol
Trend Mobile Filter

(*Source: Point Topic)

For more information please e-mail marketing@mis-cds.com or call 01622 723456