Recently 50 or so smartphone users in Singapore were hit by malware targeting mobile banking customers. Those affected lost up to a few thousand dollars as the attackers were able to purchase items as such airline tickets and electronic devices via the victims’ smartphones.
By Ramesh Vantipalli
Asia has seen a rise in digital workplace transformations in recent years, with 77 percent of Asian-based CEOs surveyed recognizing that an organization’s digital culture will determine if it can attract and retain top talent. As digital evolution takes on a frenetic pace, management teams will be tasked to make multiple decisions simultaneously that will determine digital workplace readiness, such as the optimal combination of hardware and software infrastructure, or which product stacks can encourage collaborative work streams across functions and geographies.
Leading this wave of technological revolution will be mobile technologies, with spending on mobile devices and related software and services in Asia-Pacific, excluding Japan (APEJ), set to grow from US$514 billion in 2015 to US$578 billion by 20192. Furthermore, a 2015 study of more than 2,800 CIOs by analyst firm Gartner found that nearly half of employee-facing IT investments and over three-fifths of customer-facing IT investments will be mobile focused. The question is: how mobile-ready is your company?
Today’s workforce is increasingly comprised of millennials – tech savvy, “born mobile” individuals who grew up with digital technologies. As of now, millennials make up 30 percent of the Asia-Pacific workforce, and that percentage will only skyrocket as they are projected to make up half the global workforce by 2020. When companies shift their workplaces onto mobile-digital platforms, not only are workplace dexterity and business mobility near-instantaneous, the move will also resonate well with millennials who crave flexibility and resource management at their fingertips. Allowing such “digital natives” to work in a most familiar environment will in turn create efficiency, increase productivity, boost morale, and also allow employees to engage better and in real-time with customers.
However, what millennial employees seek in tomorrow’s business mobility goes beyond merely adding more mobile devices to the enterprise network, or just implementing Bring-Your-Own-Device (BYOD) policies. Instead, the future is to enable a digitized workplace that seamlessly works across a portfolio of heterogeneous devices and applications, while integrating both end-user customization and state-of-the-art security. It is not about device, or even application management. Rather, the million dollar question is, how do we integrate all these across multiple platforms, while ensuring that security is not compromised? For example, who is this employee and is content accessed from a company-trusted device and network? Is the data accessed a usual step in the business process? Therefore, companies looking to adopt a business mobility solution would require all of the following key features:
Ease of implementation and scalability
Identity and device management
Application delivery and versatility
The approach, while close to ideal, is not without its concerns. The dynamic nature of enabling an “always-on” mobile-cloud workplace creates an ever-increasing number of end points and network interactions, which in turn means the avenues for security breaches are now virtually endless. Both mobile devices and cloud environments are predicted to be key targets for attackers in 2016.
For instance, as recently as December last year, 50 or so smartphone users in Singapore were hit by malware targeting mobile banking customers. Those affected lost up to a few thousand dollars as the attackers were able to purchase items as such airline tickets and electronic devices via the victims’ smartphones. Since digital workplaces embrace the mobile-cloud ecosystem, imagine the scale of damage if the above malicious code managed to gain access to an enterprise’s cloud on a company-registered device via a company-trusted app.
Companies need to look for a seamless approach in executing their business mobility vision, looking at platforms that will encompass solutions like a one-touch mobile Single-Sign On access, leveraging Secure App Token Systems (SATS) that establish trust between the user, device, enterprise and cloud, as well as allowing self-configuration of BYOD services access and restrictions.
As companies continue on their digital transformation journey, embracing the influx of the digitized, millennial-focused workplace is thus inevitable to accommodate the shift towards the always on-the-go worker. The success of a digital workplace will span beyond just having a well-tailored and executed enterprise solution in place. Equally important is having the right mix of talent, business processes, and tonality from the top. A digital solution that is user-friendly and seamless across platforms, but yet still secure, will be the baseline requirement to encouraging the next step in digital transformation.
The author is Head of EUC & Systems Engineering Manager South, VMware India
