Enterprise Mobility refers to an approach wherein any employee can do his/her work from anywhere by the use of different types of applications and devices.
The term is more often used to refer to mobile devices such as Smartphones or Tablets which are used for the purpose of business. An example of enterprise mobility could be:
An employee who uploads a document to an online storage service through their laptop is able to access the same document from a different type of device like their smartphone.
In order to encourage mobile workers and address threats to security, technologies such as Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM) have emerged in recent times. A successful enterprise mobile strategy can be implemented on the back of a strong Use Policy.
Enterprise Mobility goes a long way in providing options and flexibility to employees which impacts their job satisfaction positively and sees an increase in their productivity levels. Almost every organization practices enterprise mobility in some way or the other.
Early examples of enterprise mobility devices were BlackBerry phones or PalmPilot digital assistants. These devices focused on providing personal information management capabilities, which included mobile access to email, calendars and contacts.
Enterprise Mobility as a concept picked up when the first Iphone and the first Android OS were launched. With the concept of app stores, the concept of Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) was introduced.
The devices and their apps enabled them to do their jobs more quickly and with a more streamlined user interface so employees began using their personal smartphones for work — often without employer permission. This corresponded to American workers spending increasingly more time out of the office. By 2017, 43% worked remotely on at least a part-time basis, according to a Gallup survey.
EMM is just one part of the broader enterprise mobility market. There are also several stand-alone identity and access management vendors, including Ping Identity, Okta, Centrify and OneLogin.