Page 14 - FCW, July 2017
P. 14

MOBILITY
MOBILITY IN THE FAST LANE
Agencies see mobile technology as essential to employee productivity.
THE DEBATE ABOUT the need for mobility in government agencies is effectively over. Agencies may still have questions about how to best deploy mobile devices—questions regarding device policies, procurement and security—but they recognize mobility is now clearly a necessity.
The success of the smart phone in the private sector helped mobility reach the point of being a foregone conclusion. Having grown accustomed to the benefits of hyper- connectivity in their personal lives, government employees expect the same benefits on the job. Whether working in a conference room, on the road, or from home, they want the ability to access information and services from anywhere, anytime, using any device.
A report last year from the Center for a New American Security (CNAS), titled “Leveraging Commercial Technology: Early Adoption of Emerging Mobility in the Pentagon,” highlights this shift in the Department of Defense. “Commercial mobile devices are putting more computing power in the hands of consumers than ever before, delivering impressive capabilities at higher performance levels,” states the report. Essentially, a government employee now expects to be a mobile employee. Agencies are trying to catch up.
Mobility and Modernization
In the early days, many agencies saw mobility as more of an ancillary requirement. It was important, but not necessarily a critical component of their core IT operations. In today’s environment, more agencies are looking to expand mobility as part of broader modernization initiatives.
For example, increased mobility is an integral part of the Food and Drug Administration’s current modernization initiative. As part of its strategic plan, the agency is developing a “comprehensive, standardized mobile strategy” aimed at providing employees with timely access to information and data. The agency is also developing a framework for managing mobile-based records, including texts and voicemails.
Defense organizations, in particular, are under pressure to make mobility a priority. The U.S. Marines, whose forces are mobile by nature, recognize the need to embrace commercial mobile technology, especially in the battlefield.
“We’ve outrun our communications in many cases,” says
Brig. Gen. Dennis Crall, CIO of the Marine Corps, speaking in March at the AFCEA Warfighter IT Day. “We’ve got to
be able to change on the move. The idea of planning a static mission and then expecting to execute it without a change order is no longer a reality.”
The Army is also stepping up its use of apps to deliver information to service members. One recent addition, called the Altitude Readiness Management System, helps predict when soldiers might experience altitude-related symptoms.
More Work to Be Done
As mobility takes on a larger role though, agencies are finding they need to step up their oversight and look for efficiencies. In one case, the inspector general of a large civilian department found four component agencies were spending more than $50,000 per month on unused mobile devices. The problem was the department lacked both a complete inventory of its devices and a department-wide technology procurement plan.
That department is hardly alone in lacking a strong governance plan. Last year, as part of its IT category management initiative, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) provided agencies with guidelines for
buying mobile devices and services—and new requirements for reporting on mobile service usage and pricing. OMB officials believe such steps could help the federal government significantly reduce its mobile spending, which is currently approximately $1 billion per year.
The DOD and other agencies could better protect their investments by staying current with the technology, instead of playing it safe with older technology. In DOD’s case, according to the CNAS report, the play-it-safe approach often results in the acquisition of “outdated, more expensive, and less effective mobility solutions,” the report states.
The most pressing issue by far, however, is mobile device security. As noted in a recent report from the Department of Homeland Security, mobile security is a unique challenge because the devices typically “operate outside of enterprise protections” and governance processes associated with desktop architectures.
As agencies roll out larger mobility initiatives, they need to ensure those protections and processes are in place. Over the last year, the federal government has turned to
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