The rise in mobility has placed pressure on CIOs to enhance connectivity, security, and productivity as they adapt to new digital transformation trends and changing end-user habits. The network's role in security has shifted, requiring a focus on giving employees seamless access to corporate networks while minimizing risks. Organizations that adopt flexible work experiences and improved access controls are experiencing faster transformation in the digital landscape.

1. The rise in mobility has raised
challenges around connectivity,
security, visibility, and productivity.
It places significant pressure on CIOs
to keep pace with a new digital
transformational age and changing
end-user habits.
The CIO as catalyst
for transformation

2. Our recent Mobile Workforce
Report (MWR) indicated that more
than half of its respondents saw a
return on investment from
mobility-related initiatives.
It’s hardly surprising in light of
mega trends such as social media,
mobility, analytics, and cloud.
Create workspaces
for tomorrow by
embracing mobility
and smart-working
solutions

3. End-users want to be able to access
applications to complete work tasks
and be productive, in and outside of
the traditional office space. The CIO’s
focus must be on ensuring the right
levels of security are being afforded to
mobile enterprise applications without
putting the network at risk.
Security through
The network lens

4. The challenge is that there’s no
longer control over traditional IT,
because the edge of the network
has moved. Business applications
may, or may not, reside in an
on-premise data centre,
or alternatively in a private or public
cloud, or a hybrid thereof.
Granting the
employee
ubiquitous access
to the corporate
network

5. The biggest change is the role of the
network in security, as it relates to
mobility. Fewer firewalls and perimeter
devices will be deployed in a data
centre, because the network has
increasingly become the security
endpoint.
Wireless and wired
access – the 80/20
rule

6. While traditional IT can enable access
for a computer or device working
from a standard operating system,
the explosion of IoT will drive a
significant amount of growth in
technology, or even non-technology,
that needs to be IT enabled.
The Internet of
complexity

7. This introduces another stumbling
block for CIOs: the lack of
interoperability and integration
between business systems and the
data centre. Programming interfaces
need to allow for the proliferation
of new devices, while being simple
enough not to complicate their use.
The Internet of
complexity
continued

8. Going forward, CIOs will need to focus
on how users will connect to an
application, as well as the best use of
that application. It means a shift from
the typical manual user-based
intervention to policy-based
abstraction — so the focus will be
more on people, policies,
and the platform.
People, policy, and
platform

9. As the end-user wants access to more
in terms of applications, connectivity
becomes more and more prevalent.
Those organisations that offer flexible
work experiences, and improved access
control to the information,
are transforming the fastest.
It’s not about the
end-user; it’s about
what the end-user
needs

10. The network, often seen as a laggard
in the transformational journey, now
has to be able to provide business with
significant speed, agility and, of
course, security.
Picking up the pace

11. It’s exciting to see the pace change in
networking as a technology after years
of stagnation. The evolution is
allowing CIOs to facilitate mobility and
end-user computing in a way that’s
not restrictive to the mobile worker.
By making the network a security
endpoint, it’s allowing more flexibility
in rolling out applications and services.
Concluding
thoughts