How Can Enterprises Be Mobile-First?

By Pradyut Roy, Marketing Analyst, ManageEngine

What is mobile-first, and how can enterprises be mobile-first? Enterprises that realize that mobile devices are primary tools for employees to get work done are referred to as mobile-first enterprises.

Enterprises are slowly but surely opening up to the idea of their employees using mobile devices for work. A research study by Juniper even suggests that there will be 1 billion employee-owned devices by 2018. It is imperative that enterprises start preparing their monitoring capabilities to withstand the barrage of mobile devices that will come into their environment over the next few years.

While the mobile transition is happening, another transition that enterprises are making is the move to a hybrid cloud model where their applications are either hosted on-premise, in a private data center or in a public data center, based on the nature of the application. It is important to note that there is a synergy between the mobile and cloud trends. The cloud enabled employees to go mobile and played a large role in ushering the BYOD policies in enterprises around the world.

With this heady mix of custom applications hosted on-premise (or in private data centers) and in public data centers, applications management becomes an arduous task. However, with a combination of applications performance management tools and mobile device management tools, this situation can be handled with ease.

Here are some ways in which applications performance management can help enterprises deal with the influx of mobile devices:

Mobile Device Management (MDM) and Mobile Application Management (MAM)

Enterprises will need to have a good mobile device management solution to ensure an effective implementation of their BYOD policies. Enterprises that have sensitive data can opt for an MAM solution to wrap apps that have access to corporate data and ensure their data is protected.

Real User Monitoring of Enterprise Applications

Business-critical applications like ERP, email, CRM, etc. have traditionally been built for desktops. With the advent of mobile devices into enterprises, these applications are now also being accessed through mobile devices. In some cases, a mobile version of the application has become more critical than the traditional desktop version. It is important to monitor the end-user experience and optimize the application as and when necessary.

Governance

Enterprises must have clear governance processes for applications. Guidelines on how an application is published, distributed and updated must be set.

Application Catalog

Building an “enterprise app store” will make publishing and distribution of apps, through an MDM solution, more streamlined. All enterprise applications downloaded from this app catalog can be wrapped with an MAM solution — ensuring data security.

Pradyut Roy began his career at Zoho Corporation as a marketing analyst where he currently evangelizes ManageEngine IT management solutions using his good understanding of enterprise IT requirements and IT management challenges faced by organizations. Pradyut holds a master’s in management from the University of Bath. For more information on ManageEngine, a division of Zoho Corporation, please visit www.manageengine.com; follow the company blog at http://blogs.manageengine.com; on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/ManageEngine and on Twitter at @ManageEngine.