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Managing mobility on an enterprise scale is a massive undertaking.  The explosion of new devices, new service types and IoT have added more complexity.  In fact, a recent study found that 71% of enterprises consider mobility a top priority to stay ahead of the curve. While mobility provides enormous benefits for employees and their organizations in terms of productivity and communication, it does add significant burden to an already understaffed IT team. Without the right software enabled technology and automated processes in place, mobility can be extremely difficult to manage.

In this blog, we’ll discuss common challenges facing enterprises today and how having the right software enabled technology and automated processes in place can help you better manage mobility on a global scale.

Common challenges of managing mobility

Unlike traditional telecom, mobility isn’t just about the phone and service. There’s also the apps, data, storage, regional procurement processes, the management of invoices and service support. Each plays an integral role in building a successful mobile strategy. However, as enterprises embrace mobility, they quickly realize there are many operational, financial and security challenges that must be addressed.

• Managed in silos. Mobility is often managed across different departments and teams, with each using different tools. For example, IT may handle the managing and provisioning of the devices, while finance is responsible for managing the bill. At the time of payment, the finance team may not be aware from IT that the device is broken. Or, they may not have been notified by HR that the employee has left the company. This can quickly lead to further issues with device tracking and security concerns.
• Reining in control, while propelling the business forward. In the early days, mobility was about empowering sales people or high-level executives with a phone to make calls. With the enterprise-wide adoption of devices across nearly every department, this has all changed. Now devices are used for everything, from retailers, to the shop floor in manufacturing, to shipments across the world. This trend is only growing so the real challenge becomes how to centrally control and manage it all without holding back the business.
• Improper tracking of devices. Without an automated system in place to track and manage devices, organizations will often experience bottlenecks and inefficiencies, along with higher costs related to hardware. The burden falls on the IT team to collect information from disparate tracking systems, such as verifying inventory levels, ensuring the device has the latest security updates, and the device is upgrade eligible – and then piece it all together. They must also determine which plans and services are appropriate for the employee’s role within the organization and get appropriate levels of approval. This manual method can lead to security issues or potential breaches and inaccurate financial reporting.
• Invoice management and cost allocation. Managing mobile expenses across the enterprise is no easy task, especially given the number of devices, varying rate plans, and charges involved. In some instances, IT may manage the pool of devices or they may be handled at the department or business unit level. If managed by IT, there’s the challenge of figuring out who is responsible for what costs. Without an automated system in place to manage devices, users, and to allocate costs and chargebacks, attributing costs to the appropriate cost center or individual can be nearly impossible.
• Unused devices, overages and roaming costs. According to Forrester Consulting, the average enterprise will experience nearly 20% of all devices going unused on a monthly basis. So, if there are 5,000 devices, this would equate to 1,000 devices. Take this number and times it by the average rate plan and the costs quickly add up. Overage and roaming charges are also a common occurrence and can lead to bill shock each month. Often, this inability to predict costs stems from a lack of real-time visibility into mobile usage and insufficient reporting, which brings us to the next challenge.
• Lack of visibility and reporting. Different reporting formats, different data sources and the lack of real—time visibility into usage, roaming charges and inventory can lead to inaccurate reporting and poor decision making. Without a centralized approach to manage enterprise mobility, trying to synthesize the data in a meaningful way is nearly impossible…and inefficient at best.

While we’re only scratching the surface, one can easily see that close coordination across different areas of the enterprise is required. Given the complexity involved, many organizations are embracing a software-enabled approach along with process automation to help address their mobility challenges.

How software and automation can help

Having a powerful and scalable technology-enabled solution is imperative to successfully managing enterprise mobility on a global scale. Using a vendor with a single software platform, such as Calero, enables organizations to manage all aspects of enterprise mobility in one easy-to-use application. Leveraging an automated and centralized approach allows enterprises to effectively navigate and manage every stage of the mobility lifecycle from procuring, configuring, and deploying the correct device and applications to managing and supporting all the operating system changes and upgrades for the full spectrum of deployed devices. With a more holistic approach, enterprises can deploy devices faster, reduce costs and streamline operations, minimize security risks, increase visibility with accurate reporting and real-time insight, and much more.

To learn how your enterprise can overcome mobility challenges using software and automation to aid with the full mobility lifecycle, check out our new white paper ”7 Great Points to WOW Your Boss: How Software and Automation Solve the Enterprise Mobility Challenge.”