Page 34 - FCW, April 2017

EXECUTIVE INSIGHTS: MOBILE COLLABORATION
6 Strategies for Transformation
Beyond Digital Government
As government mobility strategies mature, better mobile management is essential
Government agencies are under tremendous pressure to work faster, smarter and better. Many have embraced basic mobile device management and secure e-mail to help them achieve those goals. Now they’re realizing their employ- ees need more and are recognizing the advantages of adding applications to pro- vide secure mobile access to files, instant messaging and other job-specific tools.
The latest mobile advances promise to increase productivity and employee sat- isfaction, attract younger workers to gov- ernment jobs, reduce the risk of security breaches and enhance public satisfaction with government through streamlined service delivery. A convergence of enter- prise-grade collaboration tools for mobile devices is transforming agency process- es. Container-based enterprise mobility management solutions address the dual data ownership, usability, and security and privacy issues that come with bring-your- own-device environments.
These mobile management strategies can help agencies provide better services while ensuring the security of information and people.
1. Align your mobile strategy with your risk tolerance
By choosing devices designed and built for mobility, agencies can provide a seamless experience for citizens and employees,
but the security features must match an agency’s tolerance for risk. Understanding your risk appetite involves knowing what
level of security you can afford for a BYOD environment.
What trade-offs are you willing to make? Will your users be happy if your management solution puts everything in one inbox, personal and work? Or would dual data ownership be more appropriate? Purpose-built mobility management plat- forms make it easy to develop and manage mobile applications, both on premises and in the cloud, while simplifying data access and minimizing the potential for loss.
securely and instantly from a smartphone, tablet or desktop with colleagues at other agencies and/or external partners and citizens has the potential to transform government workflows.
Agency IT departments have to help employees work in a way that does not compromise security. If it’s difficult for
an employee to communicate with a colleague via a secure device, he or she will find another, less secure way to do it. Indeed, many federal employees use com-
Agency IT departments have to help employees work in a way that does not compromise security.
Government agencies face particu- larly complex use cases, which is why BlackBerry has a range of best-of-breed solutions across all platforms including iOS, Android, BlackBerry, Windows 10 and MacOS, that meet all those criteria and balance usability, end-user happiness and security. BlackBerry offers cutting edge mobile device management, includ- ing containerized work perimeters that support dual data ownership on employ- ees’ devices and sophisticated tools for developing and deploying applications in that work container.
2. Support secure, real-time communication
Government activities at all levels require a great deal of communication, both in- ternally and externally. The ability to chat
mercial tools that are not secure and don’t leave an audit trail.
With security and collaboration being top of mind, many agencies are turning to BlackBerry’s BBM Enterprise, which provides enterprise-grade encryption for messaging across devices, including video communications. Users can securely collaborate with a level of immediacy and accountability that’s difficult to achieve through any other communication channel.
3. Use secure file sharing to collaborate across silos
The inability to securely collaborate on documents has been keeping government agencies from achieving some of their core objectives. Many agency CIOs say employees don’t want to share documents