Singapore's enterprise communications cannot rely on consumer-grade applications

As we all know, Singapore is the second biggest adopter of the Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) trend (90 percent of Singapore businesses have accepted this practice in the workplace), after South Korea (93 percent) and followed by China and Taiwan (88 percent), according to iPass, a global Wi-Fi services provider, in its 2013 Global Mobile Workforce Report.

Whilst the traditional focus for IT in Singapore has centred around devices, the real opportunity lies in utilising mobile applications. A new global study published by Vanson Bourne, a UK-based technology market research, noted that 61 percent of respondents in Singapore selected mobile applications for customers or employees as their number one priority (versus 39 percent for internal BYOD and managing employee devices).

However, according to an IDC whitepaper published last year titled “Embracing Enterprise Mobility in Asia/Pacific: How Ready is Your Organisation?”, enterprises in this region are still very challenged to fully capitalise on the opportunities afforded by enterprise mobility. Most Asia-Pacific organisations’ mobility initiatives and implementations today are still highly reactive to either employee demand or competitors’ moves, and are not part of a formal mobility strategy which encompasses security risk assessment.

Vanson Bourne’s research showed that BYOD investment in Singapore may be rising, but barriers to enterprise mobility remain, as 27 percent of Singapore respondents cited a lack of budget to devote to mobility initiatives, 25 percent are challenged by a lack of in-house mobile development skills, and 24 percent expressed a lack of interest or commitment from top management.

Although enterprises increasingly feel the urge to move beyond just device-level security and management, the overall understanding of the value and risks delivered through mobility are still severely lacking. Given the nascent nature of enterprise mobility in this region, organisations are expected to deepen their understanding of mobility in the workplace in order to select the best solutions that address the mobility needs of the company, both technically and strategically.

As an untold number of personal devices have made their way into workplaces around the world, this development has been received with mixed responses. Many organisations still feel that these tools have no place in the office, whilst others accept the trend and believe that employees will use their best judgment, seeing no need to monitor BYOD usage or the applications on the devices.

Unfortunately, not only are staff members bringing their personal smartphones and tablets into the workplace regardless of official policies, many are unaware of how potentially harmful their actions can be. This creates numerous complications for the IT department, especially when discussing cloud communications applications.

InfoTech, a US-based IT research and advisory company, stated that a structured assessment of the BYOD trend paints a different picture than many IT department's intuitions or assumptions. People across the organisation tend to use a greater variety of communications tools than IT might assume.

In fact, different groups often use different tools for no apparent reason other than differences in personal choice. Not surprisingly, teams that are more mobile and distributed tend to use a greater variety of communications tools, as people's individual preferences (e.g. one person does everything on IM, whilst another never turns it on) become more pronounced.

To make it worse, the various handset manufacturers all have their own proprietary consumer-application stores, with some poorly designed software, making businesses more susceptible to breaches and possible malware infections. Frequently, malware is knowingly bundled with these applications, creating an even greater threat. In light of this, organisations need to provide approved solutions to prevent rogue operations.

Putting the "U" into "UC"

Keeping the enterprise network safe and secure is not the only key concern with enterprises. A sense of unity must be fostered amongst workers given the proliferation of mobile devices and the increasing number of remote employees.

Although, at first glance, it might seem cost-effective to allow staff members to seek out their own free mobile communications applications, one of the biggest issues is the disjointed experience that can result from using so many different interfaces and programmes.

In some cases, employees' productivity and morale suffer when they struggle to get in touch with their coworkers to share information, collaborate on projects, ask questions to complete tasks, or even route a customer or client to the best representative to serve them.

Finally, the process of phone tag can create an annoyance in the work day, not to mention diverting energy from important tasks and decreasing organisational productivity.

In conclusion, employees, unfortunately, are not going to coordinate their various application preferences. Because of this, there needs to be more proactive involvement surrounding the launch of unified communications (UC) initiatives in the workplace.