Don’t Rush: Make Sure Your MDM Strategy Aligns with Your Organization’s Goals

Deploying a Mobile Device Management (MDM) strategy is not something that happens at the snap of the fingers. Maintaining the security and control of corporate data is something that is becoming inherently more difficult due to the growing ability of an organization’s workforce to access that data from virtually anywhere at anytime. Not only is the difficulty of this task increasing but the importance of this task is increasing as well. A study from the International Data Corporation (IDC) estimated that the global mobile worker population will approach 1.2 billion in 2013 further highlighting the importance of MDM and the need for IT to put some serious thought into that deployment strategy.

What sort of policies will be in place for usability? What type of devices are we going to support? Who will own their devices? What level of security will be implemented when it comes to password or data encryption? What level of control will you have over employee owned devices? Remote lock? Remote wipes? These are just some of the issues that need to be address and considered otherwise they may leave gaps for serious business implications. A Computerworld article actually outlines how some Information Security Professionals and CIOs from companies like SAP and Edelman approached their MDM deployment and some of the issues they faced. There is common theme in all of their outlined experiences. They all asked the important questions and tailored their approach to their specific company and their goals for growth.