Mobile Application Management: A Forward View

IT Is Adapting in the Midst of the COVID-19 Pandemic

The Coronavirus pandemic is a human tragedy, affecting hundreds of thousands of people. Daily routines and “business as usual’ have been disrupted, and the total impact on the global economy will be studied and measured for years to come. For many businesses, this has forced an immediate adjustment to work-from-home arrangements, along with revisiting remote work policies. With an estimated 4.7 million people, or 3.4% of the work population, already working remotely¹, this sudden shift to a majority mobile workforce has left IT leaders reeling.

The increase in remote workers often means an influx in mobile app usage to improve collaboration and productivity. But the surge in app use can create challenges for IT leaders who struggle to distribute mobile apps securely while managing the support needs of the remote workforce. Mobile application management can balance the unique needs of IT and remote users. 

Increase Productivity Across an Extended Enterprise

Enabling employees, contractors and business partners with the same enterprise mobile apps has been a productive, although challenging, practice for organizations. Early examples of shared apps focused on simple uses: email, calendar, and user contacts. Eventually, use of personalized apps manifested into the workplace in the form of purpose-built collaboration and productivity apps. The task for IT organizations is to support employee and non-employee access and to preserve business continuity by ensuring security and governance of enterprise apps and data.

Distribute Apps with Mobile Application Management (MAM) 

Mobile device security was once the sole domain of Mobile Device Management (MDM). In order for mobile device security tools to function, MDM ‘profiles’ were required to be installed on a device. As MDM gained acceptance and has accelerated to a mature practice, IT and security teams realized two major limitations: limited reach along with limited security and management of apps.

The remote workforce will continue to grow as will use-cases surrounding mobile apps.  A recent Gartner survey reveals 74% of CFOs intend to shift at least 5% of previously on-site employees to permanently remote positions in the future². Supporting app growth means IT help desk teams face an increase in support calls, along with an additional focus on mobile app data security.

To meet these challenges, IT teams must have an enterprise “system of record” for mobile apps that secures, deploys and manages apps throughout the entire lifecycle. A comprehensive Mobile Application (MAM) solution provides the distinct benefit of app distribution to any device, regardless of whether it is under corporate management via MDM.

Consider the Industry-Leading App Management

Apperian App Management is an enterprise-class mobile application management and security platform for the delivery of critical apps to 100% of users across an organization. Apperian provides fine-grained security and dynamic policy controls at the individual app-level for deployments where mobile device management approaches are not possible.

For more information about Arxan’s Apperian solution please visit http://www.arxan.com/apperian

¹ Hering, Beth Braccio. “Remote Work Statistics for 2020: New Norms and Expectations.” FlexJobs Job Search Tips and Blog, FlexJobs.com 13 Feb. 2020

²“Gartner CFO Survey Reveals 74% Intend to Shift Some Employees to Remote Work Permanently.” Gartner, 3 Apr. 2020