Every IT Director has heard the rallying cry of enterprise efficiency and is seeing the expectations that are reflected in the IT budget.  Confronted by a struggling economy and tough business conditions, productivity gains – increasing the business value per worker or per dollar – are no longer enough.  Now, IT Directors are being asked to do more with less.

At times, it seems as though every IT priority requires more of our scarcest resources: time, money, and attention.  Whether it’s a long standing responsibility such as balancing application maintenance and new development or a newer challenge with a steep learning curve such as virtualization or protecting against the latest security threats, the responsibilities can’t wait and solutions are needed now.

The evolution of the mobile workforce (with more work being done via mobile devices such as the BlackBerry and iPhone) has complicated matters for the IT Director.  The mobile worker is an essential part of both sides of the enterprise efficiency equation.  Mobilized customer relationship management (CRM) and business intelligence (BI) applications have resulted in sustainable and measurable improvements in mobile worker efficiency: following more leads and closing more deals.  Of course, these same mobile workers and mobile applications have simultaneously placed more strain and demands on the enterprise’s IT staff and infrastructure.

One thing is as certain as the pressure on the IT budget: today’s mobile worker isn’t going to retreat to the everyday comforts of the office.  The expectations placed on mobile workers in terms of their reward structure require that they stay on the road, in the field, and at the customer site.  The mobile worker can’t be expected to jeopardize meeting his/her numbers in order to make the IT operation more efficient.  Resisting the reality of the mobile workforce will be futile.

The IT organization can maximize the efficiency (and rewards) of the mobile workforce while improving its own efficiency.  What’s needed is an approach to enterprise mobility that meets all of these five (5) key criteria:

• Giving mobile workers anywhere, anytime access to the data they need – even when they can’t get a network connection.
• Leveraging the existing infrastructure investment – without disrupting the existing data center and enterprise applications just to make them mobile.
• Ensuring the security of enterprise data once it goes mobile – over the air and on the device.
• Scaling across the number of users and the types of devices – without restricting the mobile workforce to any specific class or brand of mobile phone.
• Minimizing the steep learning curve for delivering native mobile applications – with choices that include the use of existing development tools or visual development studios.

A tight IT budget doesn’t mean that an organization’s only choice is to delay its mobility efforts.  In fact, meeting the overall efficiency objectives of many enterprises – generating more revenue while spending less – requires both a fully equipped mobile workforce and a mobility strategy that takes advantage of existing investments in hardware, software, and people.  Take a close look at today’s enterprise mobility platforms and you may be surprised to find that, in many cases, investing in enterprise mobility now is required to enable the mobile workforce to meet the company’s revenue objectives while helping the IT organization meet its own efficiency goals.

David Birnbach is the Chief Executive Officer of Vaultus Mobile Technologies, a mobility leader that extends business-critical applications to handheld devices for anywhere, anytime access. Its award-winning Mobile Application Platform provides the fastest and most secure access to enterprise data, along with unparalleled ease of use for organizations such as Merrill Lynch, Genzyme, E*Trade, P & G, Pacific Life, and the U.S. Government.  Visit their website at http://www.vaultus.com.

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