Workforce Management Featured Article

 

November 27, 2006

 

As today's world becomes more and more mobile, the workforce too has introduced mobile devices that allow for productivity and a global reach. With this efficiency however, comes a completely new concern for compliance and security threats that cannot be ignored.

 

A new study from Business Performance Management (BPM) Forum, which supports senior executives, reveals that increased use of mobile devices in the workplace are creating all new risks and threats for corporations and exposing them to dangers they are not yet addressing sufficiently.

 

While mobile devices in the workplace have helped to boost productivity, security above all else is needed. Ensuring regulatory requirements are met and controlling access to mission critical information is necessary.

 

The urgency for this need is apparent as the reports findings revealed, "While most businesses are integrating mobility into their organization, too few have policies in place to protect mobile device content for compliance and security purposes and fewer still have measures in place to enforce those policies," a news release noted.

 

In researching whether or not businesses have taken proper measures to ensure compliance and offer protection from security breaches, the results show risky business when it comes to proper levels of data protection for lost or stolen devices and regulatory requirements that extend beyond just in-office communications.

 

Implementing a mobile device policy can help to shield from some of these threats and is particularly vital for smaller businesses who are at higher risk. According to the study, they "face a greater risk of violations with just 32.4 percent implementing formal mobile compliance policies."

 

The report also found that, "40 percent of respondents have no measures at all to manage mobile data tracking, back up and archiving for regulatory compliance purposes."

 

These numbers are even more alarming considering that almost half of all the respondents said, "a minimum of 25 percent of all mobile devices in their organization carry mission critical applications and information." With this amount of information easily available on mobile devices, the need to have security measures and policies in place cannot be ignored.

 

Responsibility for carrying out these protections and policies lie on both the IT executives and C–Level Executives who must work together to ensure both added levels of productivity and efficiency  as well as maintaining protection and compliance at all times.

 

Research for the report, "Comply on the Fly: Keeping Pace with Management Challenges of Mobile Data Management," was sponsored by InfoExpress, Nokia (News - Alert), Sybas.

 

A Webinar outlining the implications of the study will be held via the BPM Forum's website on Wednesday at 2 PM EST.

 

http://www.tmcnet.com/channels/ip-conferencing-and-collaboration/articles/3746-business-leaders-say-mobile-communications-collaboration-technologies-must.htm

 

http://www.tmcnet.com/usubmit/2006/04/06/1547793.htm

 

http://www.tmcnet.com/tmcnet/columnists/articles/mobility-mobile-workforce-security-crm-partenope.htm