Mobile Tech and Advisors, Part 2: Building a Mobile Policy

Leveraging your firm’s existing infrastructure can significantly reduce the costs and risks associated with deploying mobile solutions. Making sure new technology and processes are compatible and easily integrated with existing systems is critical. Firms should assess their hardware platforms, operating system and database software, software development tools and environments, communications, technical standards, internal and external data and business logic interfaces (and the physical location of data), as well as configuration management, support infrastructure and release control procedures. 

When creating a mobile policy, device management and inventory, user management and recognition, data access and authentication, analytics, performance monitoring and mobility profiling as they relate to security must be considered. These capabilities play a big role in the security policy, and are further complicated if your firm already supports devices owned by employees. It is also important for the policy to address the reality of lost and stolen devices to protect corporate and client data. 

An organization’s approach to supporting mobile devices and applications should address what apps and devices are covered, acceptable use of the information, loss prevention and recourse, and device repair and replacement  If employees are allowed to access corporate assets on personal mobile devices, then the firm must decide on the amount and type of support that will be offered to users and the additional security or policy measures required to mitigate risk. A training policy is also essential to cover mobile-specific risks, regulatory and compliance issues, and best practices.

No comprehensive plan is complete without protecting the firm’s mobile investment against the next technology innovation, as device and operating system fragmentation continue to increase (see my first blog posting on this subject). The most effective mobile apps tend to be targeted at specific tasks most important to a mobile user. These types of solutions often need access to a smaller, more manageable set of data interfaces than larger, more comprehensive enterprise applications.  By making sure your firm’s core infrastructure is secure, scalable and designed to support modern Web services, development teams will find it easier and more cost-effective to build new solutions on top of existing enterprise assets, and keep them current.  

Mobile technology can greatly improve the experience and productivity of the people that interact with your firm.  But it is vital to approach mobility with a comprehensive strategy paired with effective policies and controls to manage costs, reduce exposure to data loss, prevent security breaches and compliance issues and extend the useful life of your technology investments.