We live in an increasingly mobile world, where being available 24/7 seems to have become a way of life. And in this new “always on” reality, there is growing demand for employees to be able to access data anywhere, anytime, and from any device.

This ability to enhance employee productivity and enable workforce collaboration is key to remaining competitive for the modern-day business, but it also piles enormous pressure on IT departments to ensure that sensitive corporate data remains secure.

For that reason, the IT department itself must take the lead when it comes to providing employees with access to corporate information while on the move. Because once control has been lost, it is difficult to ever get it back. The benefit will be a more efficient, productive, and secure organisation, but comprehensive usage policies must be put in place to protect both the employer and the employee.

Indeed, while mobile device management (MDM) and mobile access management (MAM) tools are imperative for protecting data, true success will only come via the implementation of a comprehensive and cohesive mobility strategy that covers the management of devices, users, content, and applications to ultimately deliver a much enhanced user experience.

Given the growing importance of the mobile workforce, you’d probably expect spending on mobility-related products and projects to be on the rise. And you’d be right, with IDC expecting enterprises to allocate as much as 40 per cent of their IT budgets over the coming years to hardware, software, and professional services that directly or indirectly support mobility-related initiatives.

As a result, the number of enterprise mobile applications will quadruple by 2018, and 60 per cent of them will have no PC-based counterpart.

When developing these applications, I urge organisations to focus on building functionality for customised workflows that optimise specific business processes. Such an approach will augment their ability to make strategic decisions more quickly.

They should also consider investing in cross-platform development tools and mobile-optimised back end connectivity, as this will enable them to develop mobility solutions that are capable of truly supporting — and better still, transforming — existing processes.

As the fruits of these initiatives become clear for all to see, more and more lines of business will look to develop effective mobility solutions of their own, or at least customise existing ones for their individual needs. This brings us back to the issue of control. And for larger organisations, in particular, it would be wise to establish a mobility centre of excellence (MCoE) at this point, before the momentum of mobility builds up too much speed.

In this scenario, the MCoE would be tasked with centralising all business requests, deciding on the best-fit sourcing option, and integrating and managing the provisioning of application requests for mobility solutions from all lines of business. This approach ticks the boxes for enabling a more efficient, productive, and secure enterprise, as it reduces the duplication of effort and costs, ensures a universal view of the organisation’s security posture, and enables the IT impact of mobile applications to be assessed and governed in a holistic manner.

As already touched upon, this proliferation of mobility raises some serious security concerns, and IDC predicts that within the next two years, a quarter of all enterprises will have inadequate mobile security policies and governance strategies in place. This is borne out by surveys we have conducted across the Middle East and Africa that show only 27 per cent of the region’s enterprises have so far implemented a policy framework for enabling enterprise mobility. So there is plenty of scope for improvement in this regard.

Security breaches can occur due to a device being lost or stolen, as a result of malicious activity, or after corporate data has crossed the boundary into consumer cloud applications. And if this wasn’t troubling enough, the digital transformation process requires end users to be provided with enhanced collaboration tools that can extract the maximum business value possible from their mobility solutions. This exposes enterprise applications even more, further increasing the vulnerability to data loss or attack.

So what can be done to lessen the risk? The first port of call is to put policies in place that dictate device choice, information access rights, and the need for continuous end-user education. Development platforms should be standardised and approved by IT (or the MCoE) to provide the required tools for application development. Security requirements for applications should address the need for formal usability testing and be clearly understood by all relevant stakeholders.

And once approved for deployment, mobility solutions should have support requirements put in place and incorporated within an existing service catalogue that aligns with the organisation’s service management framework.

Enterprise mobility undoubtedly has a key role to play in facilitating the digital transformation of businesses by extending enterprise functionality via applications — either existing or new — that are designed to work on mobile devices.

But it must be practised with care, with the IT department retaining control and ensuring that its implementation aligns with the needs of the wider business. As such, mobility must become a key priority for all IT executives as they bid to spearhead a new era of innovation in this increasingly mobile world.

The columnist is group vice-president and regional managing director for the Middle East, Africa and Turkey at global ICT market intelligence and advisory firm International Data Corporation (IDC) He can be contacted via Twitter @JyotiIDC