IT at a Crossroads: Liberating and Securing the Mobile Workforce

Although some employers are reluctant to embrace the trend of the mobile workforce, 24 percent of Americans are spending at least a portion of their week working from home, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

This trend presents a challenge for businesses that need to balance this demand with keeping their data accessible and secure at the same time. In fact, IT is at a very critical crossroads: the need to secure critical corporate data, apps, networks and end-users wanting to use the latest devices to be more productive in their day-to-day work.

This balancing act is complicated for IT and legacy solutions, especially when it comes to the mobile workforce. In fact, while 91 percent worry about sensitive company/customer info leaks and compliance related issues, another 46 percent want to increase productivity by enabling data access offline, according to a recent MokaFive survey of 8,000 IT executives.

The myriad of devices and operating systems mobile workers have available today allows them to be productive outside the walls of the office – and that trend is only going to continue to grow.

In terms of finding the right solution, the survey found that 89 percent use a virtual private network (VPN), however, pointed out that VPN does not fully protect data – and is therefore an inadequate solution.

“Without Wi-Fi connection, and consequently to no VPN, users are unable to access their data, which severely limits productivity,” a MokaFive infographic (see below) explained. “VPN does not partition between personal and company data. In other words, sensitive corporate/customer information could easily be stored on an unsecure device.”

Ultimately, the bottom line is for IT to achieve balance with agile management and empower the mobile workforce – anywhere, anytime and on any device.


Infographic via MokaFive