Mobile security and operations continues to be one of the hottest topics for organizations across industries. Mobility holds the promise of fostering new innovations, reaching new audiences and, most importantly, creating never-before-seen user experiences and business opportunities. For example, productivity gains brought on by “anytime”, “anywhere”, “any device” access are already revolutionalizing customer service, collaboration, and supply chain management, and many other aspects of business processes.

But delivering what mobile promises in a secure and safe way is a difficult proposition today. The mobile technology ecosystem is changing a million miles a minute: many technologies are still maturing, which led to a fragmented and semi-technology market. As a result, Security & Risk (S&R) and Infrastructure & Operations (I&O) professionals struggle to enforce consistent IT security and operations policies in this new environment where mobile devices have become the norm and customers and employees alike have come to expect certain business functions delivered over the mobile channel, regardless of the risk.

The Mobile Security & Operations Playbook contains content designed specifically for IT security and operations professionals to address these challenges. The playbook covers four key strategy aspects: 1) Discover: articulate the value of mobile security and operations in business terms; 2) Plan: set the strategy for mobile security operations; 3) Act: execute the strategy; and 4) Optimize: measure and optimize mobile security operations. To see a high level overview of the playbook, download the executive overview report.

This playbook is a collection of exhaustive work and collaboration from many analysts, including Stephanie Balaouras, Ben Gray, Christian Kane, Michele Pelino, Chris Sherman, and Chris Voce.

In the Discover category, read my big idea report: “Prepare for anywhere, anytime, any-device engagement with a stateless mobile architecture”, which proposes a stateless approach (and mindset) to implement mobile security and stay ahead of constantly mobility landscape. evolving mobile business requirements. The report on maturity assessment for mobile security and operations program is a must read for anyone who is interested in understanding how mature their mobile strategy is.

In the Plan category, “Address Complexity with Mobile Security and Operations” will help you understand how to lay out your strategic vision for a comprehensive mobility strategy. The roadmap report, a collaboration effort by many analysts, details a five-year technology road map to implement the strategy.  Another multi-analyst collaboration effort is the mobility council report, which outlines a plan to identify and influence corporate stakeholders for mobile security and operations initiatives.  

In the Act category, read the market overview for on-premise MDM technologies, cloud-hosted MDM, as well as the market overview on mobile security technologies. We will be refreshing these market overview reports frequently to keep up with the pace of rapid technology innovations in the industry. Our report on mobile policies contains best practices discussions on specific aspects of a corporate mobile security policy, including actual policy examples. The extremely useful report on skills and staffing discusses how you should staff a mobile team, including definitions of roles, responsibilities, and the skill set of mobile security and ops professionals.

Finally, in the Optimize category, read our performance management report on developing metrics to assess business mobility requirements and performance of your mobility program.  The benchmark report details a benchmark of budgets, spending intentions, technology adoption, and key trends in mobility, seen through the eyes of Forrester surveys. Also important is Henry Dewing’s report on mobile stakeholders, which details how S&R and I&O professionals can develop a campaign to engage stakeholders elsewhere in the organization.

We have many more exciting reports slated to publish into this playbook in the near future, including  toolkit reports that will help organizations navigate specific technological issues, such as mobile authentication, mobile app management, secure mobile collaboration, and secure payment. Stay tuned!