Reading Time: 3 minutes

By Mike Johnson, Logicalis Director of Technical Sales

In 2001 the Electronic music Duo known as Daft Punk released on of the Grammy Award winning song “Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger.” The song reached No. 3 on the US Dance Charts. At risk of getting the words stuck in your head I’ll quote the lyrics here:

“Work it, make it, do it, makes us – Harder, better, faster, stronger”

I bring this up 1) because it’s a great tune and 2) because today’s IT departments need to take heed of the words. They need to work/make/do and provide harder, better, faster and stronger environments and policies for the influx of mobility that has taken over end user computing. And 3) businesses are increasingly driving results with the use of Mobile Apps for their employees, partners and customers.

According to Ray Wang at Constellation Research their annual survey of disruptive technologies states that leading CXOs consistently place mobile enablement as a top three priority. In the 2016 survey, more than 58 percent of respondents revalidated that mobile enablement was their number one priority. Unfortunately, most CXOs and their organizations often find mobile solutions to lack the enterprise-grade capabilities required to move beyond consumerization.

With mobile enablement so high on the list of priorities and mobile solutions being seemingly inadequate, there is a gap that IT and the line of business must work together to address. Following a methodology I recommend to bridge that gap is a proven way to architect a robust infrastructure, management toolset and security policy to drive business transformation with mobility.

Recommended Methodology

Q: What part of your infrastructure is most critical to your success with a Mobility driven environment?

A: Your corporate network and its security policies/tools, specifically its wireless performance and how it handles differing devices authentication, authorization and accounting, are the major factors in whether your company’s mobility experience is a good one.

Q: Are you sure your network is up to the capacity challenge? How do you make sure your data remains secure in this environment? How do you give your users the best mobile computing experience to drive business goals?

A: You’ll need network, security, end user policy-focused mobile device computing expertise. These experts must be able to perform the following:

  • Discuss with your various end user lines of business leaders what their goals are and how IT can better enable and transform their offerings and support
  • Assess how your network, storage and compute platforms are likely to perform in their current state when they hosts mobile user devices running the apps the need from anywhere they need to use them. These could be on premise or in the cloud. Discuss those implications both technically and financially.
  • Review your methods of access, your published policies and security capabilities
  • Perform analysis of the types of users, their connectivity and the devices you’ll support and determine the likely load on your current wireless network
  • Assess your ability to monitor, manage and report on devices, users and performance
  • Consider the breadth and depth of the data analytics created by the mobile devices themselves – this data can be transformative to your line of business’s go to market strategies
  • Be on the watch for ways for your business to take advantage of the exciting trends in the Internet of Things (IoT) using tools such as machine to machine communications, Bluetooth Low Energy, and wearable technology.

In summary, a harder, better, faster and stronger infrastructure, policy and security and transformative mobility strategy is possible when IT leaders solicit and consider the business needs, and address the bullet points above. “Work it, make it, do it, makes us…”