Over the past few years I have noticed that companies are providing better support to mobile employees. More and more employees are working flexible hours and spending the time in some place other than the office. I expect this trend to continue into the foreseeable future.

In granting this flexibility, companies expect that mobile members of their workforce will be available when they need them—anytime and anywhere. It is mobile technology that makes this possible, allowing employees to complete work related tasks and address critical company issues without heading into the office.

Is your company ready to support an increasingly mobile and flexible workforce? Periodically, companies should assess support for mobile technology. The Enterprise Mobility Assessment described in this article was designed to help companies measure the overall effectiveness of their use of mobile technology. The assessment is general for all types of mobile devices, including Windows Mobile, Ultra-Mobile PCs, Tablet PCs, and Notebook PCs. This Enterprise Mobile Assessment will provide you with a Summary, Graphs, and Action Plan to assist you with improving the support for mobility.

Mobile Assessment Areas

The Enterprise Mobile Assessment focuses on the following assessment areas:

• E-mail: This has become the most important communication tool in the enterprise. This item measures how well mobile users are able to access e-mail out of the office.
• Synchronization: Users must be able to access the same data on their mobile device as they do on their office desktop PC. This item ranks the different methods of getting this information.
• Web site: Your Web site promotes the company on the Internet. This item focuses on the changes that can be made to your site to better support mobility.
• Device Security: If you sync a mobile device with your network, security has to be set up to protect your data. This item assesses the level of security that needs to be implemented to support mobility, as well as ways to reduce security risks when a mobile device is lost or stolen.
• Applications–Internal: Almost every business has special applications that are created to support specific needs. This item assesses how well those applications support mobility.
• Applications-External Customer: Mobility is not limited to the enterprise—as a company grows it will encounter more mobile customers. This item assesses how effectively the company engages mobility to support mobile customers.
• Remote Access: The ability of users to have access to critical resources when they are mobile.
• Documentation: The enterprise must have appropriate documentation to support the implementation and use of mobile devices.
• Recognized by Management: Management recognizes the investment and support required to utilize mobility.
• Audit: This item includes mobile-specific assessments and testing that need to be incorporated into the IT audit program.
• Governance of Mobility: How well the company recognizes the requirements necessary to manage mobility.