If you've ever tried to send a text, make a phone call, or access the Internet from a tied-in-the-bottom-of-the-ninth San Francisco Giants game or during a sold out Bruce Springsteen concert, you don't need me to tell you about the proliferation of mobile devices or to quantify the amount of data that's in perpetual motion. You're part of the growth and [hang in there with me] part of the problem. You're not a problem because you use your mobile device, or because you take it everywhere with you including to work. You're a problem because you and your employees contribute to content chaos.
Bring-your-own-device (BYOD) is really nothing new. What is new is the chaos being created by enterprise mobility. While mobility is enabling you and your employees to stay connected and productive from just about anywhere, chaos is mounting as business-sensitive content is shared by employees and, often unknowingly, exposed to growing online risks once it's released outside of corporate control and into the wild. Businesses today are struggling with BYOD and the myriad security challenges inherent to mobility and the enterprise network. But, just try to take away employees' mobile devices as they walk in the office door on Monday morning and you'll have more than just chaos on your hands.
The BYOD movement is here to stay. It is being propelled by the productivity of on-the-go workers, the growing cost of company-provided devices, and increased employee satisfaction and empowerment. There seems to be no stopping its growth. In fact, Gartner predicts that about half of the world's companies will enact BYOD programs by 2017 – meaning they will no longer provide corporate-owned computing devices to employees. Liberating for employees, but possibly debilitating for organizations.
There's really no way around the adoption, so what's next? We need to find a way protect enterprise content and eliminate content chaos. Think about it: Do you really know where your business sensitive content is at all times? Most companies assume that it's safe behind the firewall. And, to keep it even more protected, they block mobile access to it. But, employees are industrious. It's dog-eat-dog in a business world that never stops and accepts no excuses for being ‘offline.' To be productive, people will find any workaround necessary to move the content they need to a place where they can access it from their mobile devices.
From a content-sharing perspective, there needs to be a solution to safely and securely mobilize business content – a straightforward, intuitive mobile app that enables employees to search, view, edit and share content. In the case of file-sharing and cloud storage, some companies allow it and others block it – making it clear that not all content is created equal and not everyone is completely comfortable with the cloud. To combat content chaos, IT should be provided with greater control over the content so they can enable, secure, and track how corporate documents are used in the consumer cloud. With one app, IT can access and control all content on the corporate network and in the cloud – balancing greater corporate security with greater employee productivity.
Arm your IT staff with solutions that enable content sharing and still support critical data security standards. Then, the next time you're at a day game watching the Yankees vs. the Rockies, you can feel confident knowing that your best employee might be there too with a top client – watching the game, eating a hot dog, and working on the sales report that's due in the morning. He's managing to his deadlines. The company data is secure. And you've got peace of mind. Mission accomplished: the chaos is under control.
