Building a future-proofed mobility strategy.

The concept of a workforce being tied to a single location is as outdated as the idea of limiting communications to just landline phones. Today, mobile connectivity and the remote workforce are simply facts of life.

Because of this, any company that lacks a comprehensive mobility strategy will miss out on opportunities to develop new business, expand global reach, increase productivity, and better serve customers.

Does your company have a solid mobility strategy? If not, it’s time to get to work.

Here’s what you need to know to build a mobility strategy that’s right for your business:

Advanced mobile networks are moving the business environment from a wireless world to one that is truly mobile, with all the speed, low latency, and other capabilities that users expect.

This developing mobile world gives your business endless opportunities to take advantage of emerging technologies such as AI, IoT, 5G and whatever else the future holds—but only if you have a network built to evolve quickly.

Artificial intelligence & machine learning.

AI will lead the creation of new mobile apps and devices, and in turn, will enable productivity, accelerated business processes, and increased data accuracy.

With a network that can support AI and machine learning, you’ll be able to:

• Learn more about how mobile employees are using devices
• Quickly discover device and network performance issues
• Identify unusual activity and devices with out-of-date software that might indicate security threats
• Add convenience features that make devices and apps easier to use, like speech-to-text

Many AI functions aren’t a futuristic goal—they’re an everyday reality. Already, AI helps administrators make sense of the enormous volume of data being generated by devices, apps, and content, applying cognitive capabilities to areas such as security, user productivity, and mobile app management.

When building your mobility strategy, it’s important to consider what AI can do for your business, and ask yourself whether your mobile network provider can go the distance with you. 

Augmented reality and virtual reality.

You’ve seen the use cases: immersive design and demonstration enable a digital version of a physical structure or object to be experienced by a user as if it were physical. Other potential uses for the technologies are realistic 3-D renderings of complex financial simulations or other data.

Almost every industry, including automotive, healthcare, insurance, manufacturing, retail, transportation, travel, energy, and education, will find AR invaluable—and will need a 5G network with high-bandwidth connectivity to make the most of it.

And while fully immersive AR may still a ways off, basic AR functionality on smartphones can be managed the same way as other mobile apps today.

The Internet of Things.

Increased coverage, along with improved performance and reliability, is opening up all kinds of new business possibilities for IoT, in which countless products, devices, sensors, and other “things” are connected via the Internet and share valuable business data.

To make your IoT revolution possible, you need a wireless network with options. Narrowband is optimized for low-power devices with minimal bandwidth requirements that are expected to run for years on end, while Cat-1+ and 4G LTE are excellent options for IoT applications with specific voice, interface, and/or data requirements and nuances.

Along with the opportunities presented through these new technologies come several challenges, such as effectively managing what will be an increasingly complex environment.

Devices and apps situated outside of the traditional corporate network will need to be managed, supported, and updated regularly to maintain both security and compliance. And as the ongoing proliferation of mobile devices and apps leads to inconsistencies in security and UX, your IT team will need a way to manage them.

In short: as part of your mobility strategy, you’ll need to deploy solutions like unified endpoint management (UEM) and mobile device management (MDM) to address these challenges.

Unified endpoint management and mobile device management.

UEM and MDM platforms unify and centralize how organizations manage an ecosystem of devices, and having a single, unified view of devices and apps used by a workforce can help you to revamp processes by optimizing how mobility is used.

These systems provide an effective way to secure endpoints and manage a variety of devices such as smartphones, tablets, laptops, wearables, and IoT devices.

When considering which UEM or MDM platform your business should use, consider whether the provider can support all the major mobile operating systems, including iOS, macOS, Android, Windows, and the different versions of each of them. From a management standpoint, the solution you select should unify endpoint visibility, management, and security within a single console to make your IT teams’ jobs (relatively) easy.

You’ll also want to ensure they solution you use leverages cognitive technology, analytics, and threat intelligence to help identify risks, and improve the efficiency of how devices are used. It also makes it easy to quickly onboard new employees with the apps and devices they need; set and enforce access and data policies across all apps, devices, and locations; and complete business processes from a mobile device.

Building a mobile strategy that outlines how you will effectively manage a growing number of devices to ensure that users have secure, reliable access to networks isn’t an easy task. That’s why we’re here to help with a network built for the future and experience as a world-class solution partner that can support you along the way. Let us help you build a mobility strategy that will empower your team to focus on developing products, reaching new markets—and most of all, serving customers—for years to come.